O sola magnarum urbium

O sola magnarum urbium. Aurelius Clemens Prudentius* (ca. 348- ca. 413). This hymn consists of stanzas from the twelfth poem in Prudentius’ Liber Cathemerinon, the ‘Book of the Christian Day’ with poems for the hours of the day. This poem, the ‘Hymnus Epiphaniae’, beginning ‘Quicumque Christum quaeritis’, is also the source of ‘Salvete, flores martyrum’* (‘Sweet flow’rets of the martyr band’* in the Second Edition of A&M, 1875). As the Latin title signifies (‘O incomparable of great cities’), this was a celebration of Bethlehem, used as an Epiphany hymn. It was not used during the early years of the Christian church, but came into use when the Roman Breviary was revised by the Council...