>Traditionally...whatever that means, Ambrose and Augustine composed
>the Te Deum together, each adding a verse responsively, directly
>after Augustine's baptism. If memory serves, the story is not in
>Possidius, nor in Philip of Harvengt's Vita Sancti Augustini, but it
>does appear in the Legenda Aurea, and is pretty well set thereafter
>anyway. I `should' know, but I really can't give any more specific
>information on this off the top of my head regarding the origins, and
>how that all developed. Hope this helps,
Dear Eric,
You are perfectly right, it is in the chapter on Augustine in the _Legenda
aurea_, and I wonder how I could overlook it, because this was the first
place where I checked...
What regards the origins of this legen, in the meantime Jim Marchand has
kindly posted the info given by John Julian, _A Dictionary of Hymnology_
(NY: Dover, 1957; repr. of the revised edition of 1907), 1122:
>The traditional attribution to S. Ambrose and
>S. Augustine has been traced up as far as the year 859 when Hincmar of Rheims
>published his second dissertation On Predestination, in which he refers to it
>(c. 29 = PP. Lat. 125, p. 290):
>
>"Et quomodo intelligi debeat quod sanctus dixit Ambrosius, Tu ad liberandum
>suscepturus hominem (quia ut a maioribus nostris audivimus tempore
>baptismatis sancti Augustini hunc hymnum beatus Ambrosius fecit et idem
>Augustinus cum eo confecit) in capite libri De bono coniugii exponit dlcens,"
>etc.
>
>The tradition however took fuller shape in a Milanese chronicle, now ascribed
>to Landulphus senior, who wrote in the 11th cent. (Hist. Mediolanensis, i. 9
>= PP. Lat. 147, p. 833). After
>mentioning the place of Augustine's baptism, the Church of S. John (now
>destroyed), he goes on:
>
>"In quibus fontibus prout Spiritus sanctus dabat eloqui eis Te deum laudamus
>decantantes, cunctis qui aderant audientibus et videntibus slmulque
>mirantibus, in posteris ediderunt quod ab universa ecclesia Catholica usque
>hodie tenetur et religiose decantatur."
>
As to the legend of the 12 apostles composing the creed verse by verse, as
mentioned by Tom Izbicki, I believe that it uses to be traced back to the
Ps.-Augustinian sermons 240-241, PL 39,2188ss. and 2190ss.
Otfried
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