Creator of the Stars of Night

Translator: J. M. Neale

Conditor [Creator] alme siderum. [Advent.] This hymn is sometimes ascribed to St. Ambrose, but on insufficient evidence. It was rejected as such by the Benedictine editors; and with this the best authorities agree. It is known in various forms…
Translation in common use:— i. The Sarum Breviary Text: Conditor alme siderum.
1. Creator of the stars of night, by J. M. Neale, in the first edition of the Hymnal Noted, 1852, No. 10, in 6 stanzas of 4 lines. This is repeated without alteration in later editions of the Hymnal Noted; in Skinner's Daily Hymnal, 1864; in the Hymner, 1882, and others. It is also given as "Creator of the starry height, Thy people's," &c, in Hymns Ancient & Modern, 1861 (the alterations being by the compilers, who had printed another arrangement of the text in their trial copy of 1859), and Allon's Supplemental Hymns, 1868, &c. In Mercer, Oxford ed., 1864, it is rewritten by Mercer. Another rendering, slightly altered, from the Hymnal Noted is, "Creator of the starry height, Of faithful hearts," &c, in the Hymnary, 1872.

--Excerpts from John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

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