Origo Cantuum Et Cursum Ecclesiasticorum Ex Codice Vetustissimo

The Origin of the Ecclesiastical Chants and Cursus, from a Very Ancient Codex. (Spelman. Concil. Anglic. tom. I.) If we diligently examine the authors of the cursus, we find that in the beginning it was chanted, not as some unskilled persons have supposed, or as various objections have alleged, and as many still attempt to maintain. Blessed Trosimus, bishop of Arles, and Saint Photinus, martyr and bishop of Lyons, a disciple of the holy apostle Peter, as both Josephus and Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, relate, handed down the Roman cursus in Gaul. Thereafter, by the report of the blessed martyr Photinus, together with forty-eight martyrs, having been thrust into a prison, they conveyed the report to blessed Clement IV, the successor of the apostle Peter, and blessed Clement ordained blessed Irenaeus as bishop. This you will find in the book of the same blessed Irenaeus, bishop and martyr. He was instructed by blessed Polycarp, bishop and martyr of Smyrna, who was a disciple of the apostle John, as the historiographer Josephus and Irenaeus the bishop relate in his book.

John the Evangelist first chanted the Gallic cursus; thereafter Polycarp, the disciple of Saint John; thereafter Irenaeus, who was bishop of Lugdunum in Gaul. He was the third to chant that same cursus in Gaul. Then, through modulations, the series of the Scriptures of the New and Old Testament, from the pages of various wise men, not from their own compositions but from the sacred Scriptures, they received antiphons and responsories, or sound, and composed Alleluias, and throughout the whole world the order of the cursus exists. Not as many suppose, that some Gallic cleric, a Briton devoted to modulation, had produced it—which is not the case—because the blessed Jerome the presbyter, Germanus and Lupus the bishops, expelled the Pelagian heresy, or the Gallian (which bears its own name), from the provinces of Britain and Scotland, whence another cursus, which is called in the present time the Scottish cursus, which... is tossed about by this opinion.

But the blessed Mark the Evangelist, as Josephus and Eusebius relate in book four, preached throughout all Egypt and Italy in such a way as one Church, so that every saint, or the Gloria in excelsis Deo, or the Lord’s Prayer, and Amen, all both men and women would chant together. So united was his preaching, and afterwards he published the Gospel from the mouth of the apostle Peter. The blessed Jerome affirms that the same course which is called at the present time the course of the Scots, the blessed Mark chanted, and after him Gregory Nazianzen, whom Jerome affirms to be his own teacher. And the blessed Basil, the brother of that same holy Gregory, Anthony, Paul, Macarius, and John and Malchus, according to the order of the Fathers, chanted it. Then afterwards the most blessed Cassian, who had the blessed Honorius as his companion in the monastery of Lérins. And after him the blessed Honoratus, first abbot, and the holy Caesarius, bishop who was in Arles, and the blessed Porcarius, abbot who was in that same monastery, chanted that same course; they had the blessed Lupus and the blessed Germanus as monks in their monastery. And they, under the rule of the norm, chanted that same course there, and afterwards they attained to the episcopal chair of highest honor, by the reverence of their sanctity.

And afterwards in Britain and among the Scots they preached, as the Life of Germanus, bishop of Auxerre, and the Life of the blessed Lupus affirm, who taught the blessed Patrick spiritual sacred letters and nurtured him, and set him as archbishop in the Scots’ lands and Britain for their preaching, who lived one hundred fifty-three years, and he chanted that same course there. And after him the blessed Wandilochus the elder, and the blessed Gomogillus, who had in their monastery about three thousand monks. Then the blessed Wandilochus was sent into the ministry of preaching by Abbot Gomogillus; and the blessed Columbanus was sent to the regions of Gaul to the monastery of Luxeuil, and there they chanted the same course. And afterwards the form of their sanctity spread throughout the whole world, and many monasteries, both of men and of women, were gathered together from their teaching.

And afterwards it took its beginning under the blessed Columbanus, which the blessed Mark the Evangelist had previously sung; and if you do not believe us, inquire in the Life of the blessed Columbanus and of the blessed Eustasius the abbot, and you will find it more fully, and the sayings of the blessed Attheletus, abbot of Ebova. There is another Eastern course, edited by the holy Cromacius, Heliodorus, and the blessed Paulinus, as well as Athanasius the bishop, which is not in use among the Gauls, and which the holy Macarius sang, that is, by twelves, that is, each hour. There is also another course which the blessed Augustine the bishop reports, that the blessed Ambrose composed on account of the dissimilar order of heretics, which was previously sung in Italy. There is also another course of the blessed Benedict, which differs singularly and little from the Roman course, which you find written in his Rule. But nevertheless the blessed Gregory, pontiff of the city of Rome, confirmed it by his authority as a privilege for monks in the Life of the holy Bue* in the book of the Dialogues, where he said that the holy man taught no otherwise than as the blessed Benedict himself lived.