The Eternal Gifts of Christ the King

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 >

Aeterna Christi munera, Et martyrum victorias. Ambrosian. This hymn, originally written for "Martyrs," has been adapted for Apostles," and (in another form) for "Martyrs" in the Roman Breviary ....This hymn is received by the Benedictine editors of St. Ambrose as a genuine work of that Father, on the authority of the Ven. Bede; who, in his work, De arte metricâ, speaks of it as a "hymn for blessed martyrs, composed with most beautiful grace," "pulcherrimo est decore compositus hymnus beatorum martyrum." (See the Benedictine edition of St. Ambrose, in Migne's Patrol, tom. 16.) Mone, No. 733, in his note on the hymn, says, "Vezzosi remarks justly that the congregation of St. Maur [i.e. the Benedictine editors] ascribed this hymn on an obscure reference of Bede to Stanzas Ambrose, whose it is not, though it is yet most likely of the 5th century." Amongst the earliest manuscripts in which it is found are two of the 11th century, in the British Museum (Harl. 2961, f. 248; Jul. A. vi. f. 646), and another, perhaps of the 8th or 9th century, formerly belonging to that eminent scholar in the Anglo-Saxon and cognate languages, Franciscus Junius. The latter was No. 110 among the manuscripts bequeathed to the Bodleian by Fr. Junius at his death in 1677, but "has been missing from the Library for more than 100 years." [F. Madan, Sub-Librarian, Bodl. Lib. Aug. 21, 1884.] It should be added that in some Monastic Breviaries this hymn has been adapted to Festivals of Confessors and Virgins. [Rev. W. A. Shoults, B. D.] Translations in common use:— 1. The eternal gifts of Christ the King, The Martyrs' glorious deeds we sing. By J. M. Neale, published in the enlarged edition of the Hymnal Noted, 1854, No. 80, in 5 stanzas of 4 lines, and from thence into one or two collections, including the Hymner, 1882, No. 94. It is from the York Breviary, and consists of stanzas i., iii., iv., v. and viii. of the original. 2. The eternal gifts of Christ our King, The Martyrs' victories let us sing. By J. D. Chambers, from the York Breviary, first published in his Lauda Syon, Pt. ii., 1866, p. 15, in 5 stanzas of 4 lines. In the People's Hymnal, 1867, No. 211, it is given unaltered. In the Hymnary, 1872, No. 399, a mixed translation from Neale, Chambers, and others, is given, and is wrongly ascribed, in the Index to the Hymnal Noted --Excerpts from John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)