Abstract:

'The reports of my death are an exaggeration'. So wrote a disgruntled Mark Twain to an editor when he was, twice, accused of being dead by the American press. It is a quote that naturally comes to mind when considering the Book of Common Prayer. Despite efforts to suppress and sideline its use, it has emerged into the Twenty First century stronger than anyone in the middle of the 20th could have thought. Its survival and revival has mirrored that of Christianity more generally. There appears to be considerably more anecdotal and statistical evidence for Christianity's growth in this…

Abstract:

Several hymns of the fourth- and fifth-century Spanish poet Prudentius are often sung from the New English Hymnal, and he seems comfortably familiar. ‘Bethlehem of noblest cities’ or ‘Of the Father’s heart begotten’ do not confront us with theological difficulties, but appear to sit contentedly among the Renaissance and Victorian classics of the Christmas season. Yet Prudentius wrote in a politically, aesthetically, and religiously unsettled time, when neither the Nicene consensus nor the rules of Latin poetry were stable. His oeuvre, which ranges from hymns for the daily hours to a versification of Genesis or an attack on pa…