«EGREGIE DOCTOR PAULE MORES INSTRUE». — Hymn of Vespers for the feast of the Conversion of s. Paolo (25 January), composed of the fourth stanza of the hymn Anreia luce et decore roseo, attributed to Elpidia and revised under Urban VIII.
There is no allusion to the feast being celebrated, but it might be described as a beautiful paraphrase of certain ideas contained in the Pauline epistles (I Cor. 12:12–13; II Cor. 12:2), such as Paolo’s rapture to the third heaven, the sublimity of the beatific vision, the difference between the present vision of heavenly things and that in the ideal state, and the importance of charity—all concepts expressed in elevated form.
BIBLI: G. G. Belli, Gli inni del Breviario tradotti, Roma 1856, p. 346; C. Blume, Die Hyumen des Thesaurus hymnologicus II. A. Daniel, Lipsia 1908, p. 218; A. Mirza, Gli inni del Breviario romano, Napoli 1947, p. 187. Silvero Mattei