LAUDES DOMINI. – Anonymous little poem from the early 4th century, composed by a rhetorician of Flavia Aedourum (= Autun) in 148 hexameters: “L. D. cum miraculo quod accidit in Aeduico.”
A widower, when he was laid in the tomb, was greeted by his wife, who had long since died. This miracle occasions a discourse on the approach of the divine Judgment and a panegyric in honour of Christ, creator and saviour of the world. It was written between 316 and 323, with imitations of Virgil and Ovid. It survives in a single 9th-century manuscript in Paris.
Bibl.: The text appears twice in PL 19, 379-86; 61, 1091-94. The best edition, however, is that of W. Brandes, Über das frühchristliche Gedicht « L. D. », Braunschweig 1887, with commentary. Studies: M. Manitius, Geschichte der christlichen Liturgischen Poesie, Stuttgart 1891, pp. 42-44; Moricea, II, 11, p. 788 sq.; G. Bardy, in Mém. de l'Acad. de Dijon 1933, p. 306 sq., advances the hypothesis that Ruricius of Limoges is the person presupposed in the miracle.