«ISTE CONFESSOR DOMINI, COLENTES».
- Hymn of Vespers in the Office of the Common of confessors, pontiffs and non-pontiffs, whose author and date are unknown: it is found in manuscripts as early as the 10th century (cf. C. Blume, Anal. hymnica, LI, Leipzig 1908, p. 134).
In Sapphic stanzas, it exalts holiness in its manifold aspects, synthesizing, with the classical movement of a highly musical form, an entire succession of concepts linked by a tenuous logical thread: the joy at the entry into eternal life of one who confessed Christ through a life lived in imitation of his, in the heroic practice of all the virtues—prudence, humility, chastity, sobriety—which constitute the substance of holiness and make the confessor a hero no less than the martyr.
BIBL.: G. G. Belli, Gli inni del Breviario tradotti, Rome 1896, pp. 372–73; V. Terreno, Gli inni del Breviario romano, Mondovì 1932, pp. 318–19; A. Mirra, Gli inni del Breviario romano, Naples 1947, p. 355.