Easter Verses
The whole work on one page. Select a passage number to open that passage with its notes, Scripture references, and citation.
Chapter 1
1PL 19:878
Sancta salutiferi redeunt solemnia CHRISTI : / Et devota pii celebrant jejunia mystae. / At nos aeternum cohibentes pectore cultum, / Intemeratorum vim continuamus bonorum. / Annua cura sacris, jugis reverentia nobis. / Magne Pater rerum, cui terra, et pontus, et aer, / Tartaraque et picti servit plaga lactea coeli : / Noxia quem scelerum plebes tremit, almaque rursum / Concelebrat votis animarum turba piarum : / Tu brevis hunc aevi cursum, celeremque caducae / Finem animae donas aeternae munere vitae. / Tu mites legum monitus, sacrosque prophetas / Humano impertis generi, servasque nepotes, / Deceptum miseratus Adam : quem capta venenis / Implicuit socium blandis erroribus Eva. / Tu verbum, Pater alme, tuum, natumque, deumque, / Concedis terris totum, similemque, paremque. / Ex vero verum, vivaque ab origine vivum. / Ille tuis doctus monitis hoc addidit unum : / Ut super aequoreas nabat qui Spiritus undas, / Pigra immortali vegetaret membra lavacro. / Trina fides, auctore uno; spes certa salutis / Hunc numerum junctis virtutibus amplectenti.
The holy rites of saving Christ return, and the devout initiates keep the pious fasts. But we, holding the eternal worship in our breast, keep up without break the strength of unblemished goods. The rites have a yearly care; we have a constant reverence. Great Father of things, whom earth and sea and air and Tartarus and the milky tract of the painted sky serve, at whom the guilty throng of sinners trembles, and whom in turn the kindly crowd of devout souls celebrates with vows: you give to this brief course of life, and to the swift end of the perishing soul, the gift of eternal life. You impart the gentle warnings of the laws, and holy prophets, to the human race, and you preserve the descendants, pitying deceived Adam, whom Eve, caught by the poisons, entangled as her partner in alluring errors. You, kindly Father, grant to the earth your Word, your Son and God, whole, like you and equal, true from true, and living from a living source. He, taught by your counsels, added this one thing: that the Spirit who swam over the waters of the sea should quicken sluggish limbs with an immortal washing. A threefold faith, with one author; a sure hope of salvation for one who embraces this number with virtues joined.
Chapter 24
24PL 19:878
Tale et terrenis specimen spectatur in oris / Augustus genitor, geminum sator Augustorum. / Qui fratrem, natumque, pio complexus utrumque / Numine, partitur regnum, neque dividit unum, / Omnia solus habens, atque omnia dilargitus. / Hos igitur nobis trina pietate vigentes / Rectores terrae placidos, coelique ministros, / Christe apud aeternum placabilis assere patrem.
Such an image is seen on earthly shores too: the Augustus, father, begetter of twin Augusti, who, embracing both his brother and his son with devout divinity, shares out the kingdom yet does not divide the one, holding everything alone, and having bestowed everything. These, then, flourishing for us in threefold devotion, peaceful rulers of the earth and ministers of heaven, Christ, you who can appease, commend them before the eternal Father.