« ATHLETA CHRISTI NOBILIS ». — Matins hymn for the feast of s. Venanzio the martyr, by an unknown author. It was inserted into the breviary in 1670 by Clement X, formerly bishop of Camerino. It is entirely an account of the legendary deeds of the martyr of Camerino, narrated without a breath of poetry. After the pagan idols have been scorned, Venanzio is bound with stout ropes and hurled into a ravine; to quench the persecutors’ thirst, he makes living water spring from a cliff. The final stanza, before the concluding doxology, is a prayer to the martyr to obtain for us the living water of divine grace.
BIBL.: C. Albin, La poésie du Bréviaire, I, Lione s. a.; G. G. Belli, Inni del Breviario romano tradotti, Roma 1856, pp. 234–55; G. Bassi, Gli inni del Breviario romano, versione chimica, ivi 1919, p. 147; A. Mirra, Gli inni del Breviario romano, Napoli 1947, p. 217. Silverio Mattei