«ISTE CONFESSOR DOMINI, COLENTES».
Hymn for Vespers in the Office of the Common of Confessors, both pontifical and non-pontifical, 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 extols holiness in its manifold aspects, synthesizing with classical movement and high musicality a succession of concepts linked by a tenuous logical thread: the joy for the entry into eternal life of those who have confessed Christ through a life lived in imitation of His, in the heroic exercise of all the virtues—prudence, humility, chastity, sobriety—which are the substance of holiness and which make the confessor a hero no less than the martyr.