Dawn purples all the East with light

Author: St. Ambrose

Ambrosius (St. Ambrose), second son and third child of Ambrosius, Prefect of the Gauls, was born at Lyons, Aries, or Treves--probably the last--in 340 A.D. On the death of his father in 353 his mother removed to Rome with her three children. Ambrose went through the usual course of education, attaining considerable proficiency in Greek; and then entered the profession which his elder brother Satyrus had chosen, that of the law. In this he so distinguished himself that, after practising in the court of Probus, the Praetorian Prefect of Italy, he was, in 374, appointed Consular of Liguria and Aemilia. This office necessitated his residence in Milan. Not many months after, Auxentius, bishop of Milan, who had joined the Arian party, died; and m… Go to person page >

Translator: J. M. Neale

Neale, John Mason, D.D., was born in Conduit Street, London, on Jan. 24, 1818. He inherited intellectual power on both sides: his father, the Rev. Cornelius Neale, having been Senior Wrangler, Second Chancellor's Medallist, and Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, and his mother being the daughter of John Mason Good, a man of considerable learning. Both father and mother are said to have been "very pronounced Evangelicals." The father died in 1823, and the boy's early training was entirely under the direction of his mother, his deep attachment for whom is shown by the fact that, not long before his death, he wrote of her as "a mother to whom I owe more than I can express." He was educated at Sherborne Grammar School, and was afterwards… Go to person page >

Dawn sprinkles all the East with light. [Translation of Aurora jam spargit polum. This hymn is ascribed to St. Ambrose; but, not being quoted by early writers, it is not received as certainly genuine by the Benedictine editors; it may be his nevertheless.] Contributed to the Hymnal Noted, 1852, in 4 stanzas of 4 lines. It is also No. 13 of Skinner's Daily Service Hymnal; and as "Dawn purples all the east with light," in the Hymnal of the American Protestant Episcopal Church, 1872. From the fact of its appearing in the Hymnal Noted it has usually been attributed to Dr. Neale. On his own authority this is an error. ("S. MSS.") -- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)