IMPROPERS. - This is the name given to a series of reproaches that the Lord addresses to the Jewish people for the ingratitude shown toward his benefits. The concepts expressed therein are undoubtedly of scriptural inspiration, but the text seems to derive from the apocryphon of Esd. 13-24. They are sung on Good Friday during the adoration of the Cross, and were added to it together with the Byzantine Trisagion.
The menologion of the Greeks fixes their origin during the reign of Theodosius, at the suggestion of a boy during an earthquake; he is said to have invited the people to sing: "Sanctus Deus, Sanctus fortis, Sanctus et immortalis, miserere nobis," to which formula was later added: "Qui crucifixus es pro nobis miserere nobis," very dear to the Monophysites, inasmuch as it could misrepresent the sufficiently affirmed Trinitarian meaning that Jesus had been crucified only according to his humanity. Gregory VII would obtain from the Easterners that it be definitively omitted, to avoid scandals of interpretation (Letters to Synod: I, VIII, ep. I: PL 137, 492). The origin given, however, is legendary. The oldest redaction of the I. is found in the Pontificale of Prudentius of Troyes (d. 861). The texts were collected with their variants by E. Martène (De antiquis Ecclesiae ritibus, IV, Antwerp 1764, col. 129 ff.; G. M. Tommasi, Opera, ed. A. Vezzosi, V, Rome 1752, p. 86; R. J. Hesbert for Benevento (Paleogr. musicale, 14 [1934]). Today it is admitted that the I. were composed in the 6th century and came to the West from the Church of Jerusalem. In 12 propositions the benefits of God are recalled: the first three are followed by the Trisagion in Greek, the following ones by the "Popule Meus"; after the last repetition of the refrain come the antiphons for the adoration of the Cross.
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Enrico Cattaneo