« MAGNAE DEUS POTENTIAE ». — Hymn at Vespers on Thursday, belonging to the group of Anglo-Saxon Irish provenance, which first appears in the eighth century (cf. C. Blume, Anal. hymnica, 41 Leipzig 1903, pp. 37 ff.).
On the fourth day of creation, God populated the sea with fish and the air with birds (Gen. 1:20–21). The poet sees in this the destiny of souls: in the birds soaring aloft, he portrays those that ascend to heaven; in the fish, immersed in the waters, those that descend into hell. These animals, which, having had the same origin, subsequently divided into two different families, symbolize souls that, washed by the same Baptism, then divide into those who are damned and those who are saved.
BIBL.: C. S. Piment, Les hymnes du Bréviaire romain, I, Paris 1874, pp. 232–41; C. Albin, La poésie du Bréviaire, Lyon n.d., pp. 85–87; A. Mirra, Gli inni del Breviario romano, Naples 1947, p. 72. Silverio Mattei