and his conversion followed. It was on Easter Sunday, 387 A.D., that he received the rite of holy baptism at the hands of Bishop Ambrose. There is a beautiful tradition that the Te Deum Laudamus was composed under inspiration and recited alternately by Ambrose and Augustine immediately after the latter had been baptized. However, there is little to substantiate this legend, and it is more likely that the magnificent hymn of praise was a compilation of a later date, based on a very ancient Greek version.

As Athanasius was the defender of the doctrine of the Trinity in the East, so Ambrose was its champion in the West. It is natural, therefore, that many of the hymns of Ambrose center around the deity of Christ. There are at least twelve Latin hymns that can be ascribed with certainty to him. Perhaps his best hymn is Veni, Redemptor gentium, which Luther prized very highly and which was one of the first he translated into German. The English translation, “Come, Thou Saviour of our race,” is by William R. Reynolds. Another Advent hymn, “Now hail we our Redeemer,” is sometimes ascribed to Ambrose.

The beloved bishop, whose life had been so stormy, passed peacefully to rest on Easter evening, 397 A.D. Thus was seemingly granted beautiful fulfilment to the prayer Ambrose utters in one of his hymns:

While Ambrose was defending the faith and inditing sacred songs at Milan, another richly-endowed poet was writing sublime Latin verse far to the West. He was Aurelius Clemens Prudentius, the great Spanish hymnist. Of his personal history we know little except that he was born 348 A.D. in northern Spain, probably at Saragossa.

In early life he occupied important positions of state, but in his latter years he retired to a monastery. Here he exercised his high poetic gifts in writing a series of sacred Latin poems. He was preeminently the poet of the martyrs, never ceasing to extol their Christian faith and fortitude. Bentley called Prudentius the “Horace of the Christians.” Rudelbach declared that his poetry “is like gold set with precious stones,” and Luther expressed the desire that the works of Prudentius should be studied in the schools.

The finest funeral hymn ever written has come to us from the pen of this early Spanish bard. It consists of forty-four verses, and begins with the line, Deus ignee fons animarum. It is sometimes referred to as the “song of the catacombs.” Archbishop Trench of England called this hymn “the crowning glory of the poetry of Prudentius,” and another archbishop, Johan Olof Wallin, the great hymnist of Sweden, made four different attempts at translating it before he produced the hymn now regarded as one of the choicest gems in the “Psalm-book” of his native land.

An English version, derived from the longer poem, begins with the stanza: