« AUCTOR BEATE SAECULI ». – This is the hymn of Matins for the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, composed in 1763 on the occasion of the first granting of the Mass and Office of the Sacred Heart (S. R. Cong., Registrum an. 1763-65, fol. 244). The love that moved the Word to create the world, to assume human flesh, and to redeem humanity from the miserable state into which Adam’s sin had reduced it, is exalted in a somewhat involved and ponderous form, but with the utmost precision of expression.
BIBL.: G. G. Belli, translated hymns of the Roman Breviary, Rome 1856, pp. 482–83; U. Chevalier, Repertorium hymnologicum, Louvain 1889–97, no. 1430; G. Bassi, The hymns of the Roman Breviary, metrical version, Rome 1919, p. 108; A. Mirra, The hymns of the Roman Breviary, Naples 1947, p. 138. Silverio Mattei