Hilary, who is mentioned by Isidore of Seville as the first to compose Latin hymns, and Ambrose (d. 397), styled by Dreves (1893) “the Father of Church-song”, are linked together as pioneers of Western hymnody.
The hymns of the Old Hymnal are in a severe style, clothing Christian ideas in classical phraseology, and yet appealing to popular tastes.
While it certainly dates to the 4th century, Ambrose's authorship is no longer taken for granted, the hymn being variously ascribed to Hilary, Augustine of Hippo, or Nicetas of Remesiana.
[1] Isidore, who died in 636, testifies to the spread of the custom from Milan throughout the whole of the West, and first refers to the hymns as “Ambrosian”.
[2] The Ambrosian strophe has four verses of iambic dimeters (eight syllables), e. g. — The metre differs but slightly from the rhythm of prose, is easy to construct and to memorize, adapts itself very well to all kinds of subjects, offers sufficient metric variety in the odd feet (which may be either iambic or spondaic), while the form of the strophe lends itself well to musical settings (as the English accentual counterpart of the metric and strophic form illustrates).
It should be said, however, that even in the days of Ambrose the classical metres were slowly giving place to accentual ones, as his work occasionally shows; while in subsequent ages, down to the reform of the Breviary under pope Urban VIII, hymns were composed most largely by accented measure.
Answering their complaints on this head, he says: “Assuredly I do not deny it ... All strive to confess their faith and know how to declare in verse the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost.” And Augustine of Hippo[3] speaks of the occasion when the hymns were introduced by Ambrose to be sung “according to the fashion of the East”.
Similarly, Migne, in Patrologia Latina 17 (1845) edited Hymni S. Ambrosio attributi, without attempting to decide which hymns of the Old Hymnal are genuinely due to Ambrose.
Modern hymnology has reduced the number of hymns for which Ambrosian authorship is plausible to about fifteen, including uncertain cases.
Only four hymns are universally conceded to be authentic: With respect to the first three, Augustine quotes from them and directly credits their authorship to Ambrose.
4 (to the third verse of the fourth strophe, Geminae Gigas substantiae) when he says: “This going forth of our Giant [Gigantis] is briefly and beautifully hymned by Blessed Ambrose”.
The Maurists gave it to Ambrose with some hesitation, because of its prosodial ruggedness, and because they knew it not to be a fragment (six verses) of a longer poem, and the (apparently) six-lined form of strophe puzzled them.
Daniel pointed out (Thes., I, 23, 24; IV, 13) that it is a fragment of the longer hymn (in strophes of four lines), Bis ternas horas explicans, and credited it to Ambrose without hesitation.
Helmut Gneuss (1968) accepts only hymns 1–4 as certainly composed by Ambrose, and admits possible Ambrosian authorship for a further six (three from the Benedictine list, three from Biraghi's list):[9] Illuminans altissimus (OH 35), Aeterna Christi munera (OH 44), Splendor paternae gloriae (OH 8), Hic est dies verus dei (OH 39), Apostolorum passio (OH 42), Amore Christi nobilis (OH 43).
This development was possibly associated with the reforms of Benedict of Aniane, but its rapid success also suggests support form the secular authorities (the Carolingians, viz.
[14] The New Hymnal was substantially revised in the 17th century, under the humanist Pope Urban VIII, whose alterations are inherited in the current-day Roman Breviary.