Sedulius: Hymnus II (A Solis Ortus Cardine)

Sedulius, a Christian poet of the fifth century best known for his biblical epic, the Carmen Paschale, also wrote this hymn on the life of Christ in iambic dimeters. It is an abecedarian poem: its twenty-three stanzas of four lines begin with the successive letters of the Latin alphabet. Starting from the words ‘A solis ortus cardine’, ‘from the rising of the sun’, it moves from the Incarnation and the Virgin birth through the adoration of the Magi, Herod’s massacre and the miracles to the Passion and Resurrection.

The hymn was taken into the liturgy in two sections: the opening stanzas became the Christmas hymn ‘A solis ortus cardine’, and a later group, beginning ‘Hostis Herodes impie’, the hymn for Epiphany. In these forms it was sung in the Divine Office throughout the Middle Ages and was translated by Luther among others. It shows the plain, Ambrosian hymn style turned to a learned alphabetic design, and it remains one of the best-known Latin hymns of late antiquity.