To God the Father be the praise, And to his sole-begotten Son, And to the Blessed Comforter, Both now and while all time shall run.
The closing scenes in the life of the great bishop were such as became his past. His funeral address over his brother Satyrus is like that of Bernard over his brother Gerard, or like that of Melanchthon above the dead Luther. His eulogy of Theodosius, whom he survived but two years, is conceived in a strain of lofty poetry, several paragraphs opening with the repeated phrase _Dilexi virum illum._ I loved that man!
Ambrose died on the night after Good Friday, A.D. 397. Paulinus, his biographer, was taking notes of the commentary pronounced by his dying master on the 43d psalm. It was a scene like that at the deathbed of the Venerable Bede. The failing bishop said that he heard angelic voices and saw the smiling face of Christ; and the reverent scribe avows that the face which looked on his own was bright, and that around that aged head shone until the very last an aureole of glory.
Let us allow much charity to the miracles and to the superstition of that time, but let us also remember the gravity and sweetness of the poet-bishop. For it is no wonder that when he lay in state in the great cathedral with quiet, upturned face, little children were moved by his gentle dignity of countenance and men and women, affected by this holy presence, put away their sins, and were baptized as followers of the dead man’s faith.
CHAPTER VI. PRUDENTIUS THE FIRST CHRISTIAN POET.
Aurelius Prudentius Clemens has received rather more than his due share of renown. His works have been edited by the most careful scholars. There is a beautiful little “Elzevir” upon which Heinsius expended his labor and which was printed at Amsterdam in 1667. There is an “Aldine,” 4to, Venice, 1501. But the most elegant is that of Parma (1788, 2 vols., 4to), edited by Teoli; and the best is regarded as that of Faustinus Arevalus, the Spaniard, Rome 1788-89, also in 2 vols. 4to. If to these we add the most _accessible_ collection of his writings, we shall find it in the fifty-ninth and sixtieth volumes of Migne’s _Patrologia_. The text of these various editions is derived from what is called the Codex Puteanus, now in the Paris Library—a manuscript dating into the fifth or sixth century. In all, there have been nearly a dozen of them, of which that of R. Langius (1490, 4to) is the true _princeps_—the very earliest. And in the matter of editorship, it is worthy of note that Erasmus did not disdain to expend his fine classical skill upon the hymns for Christmas and the Epiphany.