Urbs beata Jerusalem dicta pacis visio, the first line of a hymn of probably the seventh or eighth century, comprising eight stanzas (together with a doxology) of the form:
Urbs beata Jerusalem, dicta pacis visio,
Que construitur in ccelo vivis ex lapidibus, Et angelis coronata ut sponsata comite. Sung in the Office of the Dedication of a Church, the first four stanzas were usually assigned to Vespers and Matins, the last four to Lauds. In the revision by the correctors under Urban VIII (see Breviary) the unquantitative, accentual, trochaic rhythm was changed into quantitative, iambic metre (with an additional syllable), and the stanza appears in the Breviary with divided lines:
Ceelestis Urbs Jerusalem,
Beata pacis visio,
Que celsa de viventibus
Saxis ad astra tolleris,
Sponszeque ritu cingeris
Mille Angelorum millibus. The original hymn for Lauds (Angularis fundamentum lapis Christus missus est) was changed into “Alto ex Olympi vertice”, etc. Hymnologists, Catholic and non-Catholic alike, criticise adversely the work of the correctors in general. Of this hymn in particular some think that, whereas it did not suffer as much as some others, yet it lost much of its beauty in the revision; others declare that it was admirably transformed without unduly modifying the sense.
However this may be, the changed rhythm and the additional syllable did not deter the editors of the Ratisbon Antiphonary from including a melody, which fitted admirably the rhythm of the “Pange lingua gloriosi”, but which was greatly marred and rendered hardly singable when adapted to the reversed rhythm of the “Coelestis Urbs Jerusalem”. A different textual revision, ascribed to Sebastian Besnault, appeared in the Sens Breviary of 1626:
Urbs beata, vera pacis Visio Jerusalem,
Quanta surgit! celsa saxis Conditor viventibus:
Que polivit, haec cooptat Sedibus suis Deus. Neale thinks this inferior to the original, but superior to the Roman revision. Roundell admits the blemishes in the original that would suggest emendation, but thinks that the Roman revision left out “most of the architectural imagery”, and notes that the Sens Breviary omitted “the whole conception of the Heavenly City ‘as a bride adorned for her husband”. He nevertheless considers the revisions, if looked at as new hymns, “spirited and attractive”. The Parisian Breviary of 1736 gives the form:
Urbs Jerusalem beata Dicta pacis visio
Quæ construitur in ccelis Vivis ex lapidibus, Et ovantum coronata Angelorum agmine. The hymn finds its Scriptural inspiration in Eph., ii, 20; I Pet., u, 5; Apoc., xxi. Including all forms of the hymn, there are about thirty translations into English verse.
MEARNS AND JULIAN in Dict. of Hymnology (2nd ed., London, 1907), 1198, 1720. To the list of trs. add: Bagshawe, Brevtary Hymns and Missal Sequences (London, s. d.), nos. 98, 99; Donahoe, Early Christian Hymns (New York, 1908), 232, 233; Roundell, Hymns, Their History and Development, etc. (London and Edinburgh, 1892), translates from the Sens Brev., p. 84 (cf. 72-3, 80-4); Durrizxp, Latin Hymn- Writers and their Hymns (New York, 1889), 326; Neatnin Burn, The Roman Breviary; bpm in Manual of Prayers (Baltimore). TRENcu, Sacred Latin Poetry (3rd ed., London, 1874), 317-20, interesting notes; Daniel, Thesaurus hymnc'ogicus, I, 239; IV, 198; Mone, Lateinische Hymnen des Mittelalters, I, 319-322. Daniel thinks the hymn was not originally intended for the Dedication of a Church, but was fitted for this use by the subsequent addition of stanzas 7 and 8. Mone disagrees, as also does Trench. Neale champions Daniel, because of a “clear difference of style and language” in the two portions, the abruptness with which they are joined, and the apparently doxological character of the sixth stanza. Daniel returns to his own defence (IV, 193-4) by citing from Marténe a direction of a Poitiers Pontifical of the tenth century requiring the “ Urbs beata” to be sung at the Blessing of the Font. The disputed verses do not fit in well with the ceremony of the Blessing, for which the rest of the hymn answers well, for the baptized became thus citizens of the Blessed City. Albin, La poésie du bréviaire romain; Les hymnes, 438-447; Baupor, The Roman Breviary (London, 1909), 186-8, for Catholic criticism of the revision under Urban VIII; Dreves, Hymnarius Moissiacensis (Leipzig, 1888), gives different doxology and two additional stanzas (nos. 6 and 9); for change of rhythm, The Corrected Forms of the Hymns in the Vatican Graduale in Ecclesiastical Review (Feb., 1910), 209-11.
H. T. Henry.