st. john of damascus (676-749 - Cristo Raul

HYMNS.
143
When more strictly metrical compositions were de
sired,
the question of their metre would not be easily
settled. There were of course, ready to hand, the
familiar classical metres of Greece and Rome. But
one of the chief of these, the hexameter, in which the
great poems of Homer and Virgil were written, was
unsuited to Western use for various reasons. In the
first place, it was not truly a native of Italy. It was
an exotic, introduced into the Latin language by
writers who avowedly took the Greek poets as their
models. In the next place, a large number of words,
and those of the most frequent occurrence in Chris
tian worship, could not be admitted into this metre
without violating its laws. Once more, the power
of old associations would have been a dangerous
element to reckon with, if the mythology of heathen
Greece and Rome had been suggested as it could
hardly have failed to be suggested by the words
and phrases unavoidably used, and even by the very
roll of the hexameter itself. The same objections
would apply, in varying degrees, to other well-known
metres, such as those lyric ones of Greece to which
Horace, with consummate skill, had bent the more
stubborn genius of the Latin. Hence different ex
pedients were resorted to, to avoid the difficulty.
In the Western Church there was a strong tendency
to revert to the old popular metre of Italy, its own
genuine product, known as the Saturnian. This,
res .pectful admiration to the learning and unbounded industry
which have made his work the chief English authority on this
subject. As such, it is frequently quoted by Daniel in the
fourth volume of his "Codex Liturgicus."