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Romanua

Dramas, London, 1888), Les Mis&ables (Paris, 1862; Eng. trans]., London, 1862). C. A. BEcswrTll.

ROMANUS, ro-ma'nus: Pope, 897. Formerly cardinal priest of St. Peter ad Vincula, he was raised to the papal throne in the autumn of 897 on the murder of Stephen VII. His pontificate lasted only four months, during which he confirmed the possessions of the Spanish churches of Elna and Gerona at the request of their bishops.

(R. Z6PFFEnt.)

Paris, 1892; Jafft, Regesta, pp. 303 aqq.; Mann, Popes, iv. 86-87; Hefele, Concilienpeschichte, iv. 566; Bower, Popes, ii. 301; Platina, Popes, i. 239.

ROMANUS: Byzantine religious poet; b. at Miseani (according to the Bollandists, at Emesa), Syria; d. at Constantinople in the sixth century. After being deacon at the church of St. Anastasia at Berytus, he came to Constantinople during the reign of Anastasius (probably in the last decade of the fifth century), where he was attached to the church of St. Mary's en tois Kyrou. Either here or in the Blachernian church he received from the Virgin in a vision the gift of poetry, and forthwith composed his famous Christmas hymn, which was followed by a thousand other hymns for various feasts. According to Nicephorus Callistus, the Greek Church later discarded the hymns of Romanus, with the exception of one for each feast; while Metrophanes Critopulus (De vocibus) states that in his time only four hundred of the thousand hymns survived. The scanty details concerning the poet are practically restricted to a brief synaxarium (ed. most conveniently in the Analecta Bodlandiana, 1894, pp. 440-442).

The titles of all the hymns of Romanus are known. They contain no allusion that would imply a later date than the reign of Justinian (527-65), the period assigned Romanus by the author of the Synaxarium. Thus, the passage in the first hymn to the ten virgins, with its phrase, "Lo, the Assyrians, and the Ishmaelites before them, have led us captive," needs not refer to successive inroads by the Omayads of Damascus and the Abbasids of Bagdad, thus referring to the eighth century, but may equally well allude to the Persians and Saracens who menaced Byzantium in the reign of Anastasius I. Nor do the doctrinal references in the hymns imply a later date than Justinian's reign, for though Mary is termed "ever virgin," her freedom from original sin is not taught, though great reverence is shown her and she is regarded as a mediator between God and Christ for mankind-concepts which were held in the Justinian period. Again, the Christology of Romanus seems to allude to docetic theories, to Arius, to

Apollinarius of Laodicea, and to the theopaschitic controversy in the reign of Anastasius, but of references to the monothelite heresy, for example, there is no clear evidence. There are likewise probable allusions to the Chalcedonian Creed. The question of the date of the poet, who would thus seem to be no later than the reign of Justinian, though some have sought to place him in the period of Anastasius 11. (713-716), is of importance in that on its solution depends the setting of the acme of Byzantine religious poetry in the sixth or the eighth century.

Until the second third of the nineteenth century the poems of Romanus were scarcely known in the West, and occidental knowledge of them was introduced by Cardinal J. B. Pitra's edition of twentyeight hymns and four atieharia in his Analecta Solesmensia, i. 1-241 (Paris, 1876). A faulty edition was later prepared by the archimandrite Amphilochius in his Kondakarion (2 vols., Moscow, 1879), but chief knowledge concerning Romanus and his work is due to four studies of K. Krumbacher in the Sitzungsberichte der Mvnchener Akademie (phil. phil. Klasse, 1898, ii. 69-268, 1899, ii. 1-156, 1901, pp. 693-766, 1903, pp. 551-691). The material of the poems is drawn chiefly from the Bible, especially from the great events of salvation such as Christ's nativity, epiphany, passion, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, and the outpouring of the Holy Ghost. Romanus was likewise attracted by Biblical accounts of the Virgin and by leading events in the lives of the apostles, such as the denial of Peter and the conversion of Thomas. Beautiful parables, as that of the ten virgins, afforded welcome material to the poet. Some fifty of his poems are concerned with Biblical themes, thirty with the saints, while the remainder are penitential hymns and the like. In his exegesis he showed the influence of Chrysostom and Ephraem, and in his hymns to the saints he followed wellknown lives. The purpose of his poems Romanus expressly states to be didactic. Strangely enough, his hymns were almost totally abandoned by his church some centuries later, when, in the ninth century, the Greek liturgies were remodeled and the canons took the place of the hymns. Only a few of the poems of Romanus were then retained, such as the Christmas hymn and the so-called requiem. Of the other hymns only single stanzas were retained in the liturgies, chiefly introductory and closing verses of general character.

The beauty of the poems of Romanus is evident even in their external form. In Byzantine poetry rhythm took the place of the classical metrical scheme, thus giving a characteristic form with peculiar rhythmic melody. After one or more proems follows the poem proper, which may have more than twenty stanzas. Each strophe closes with a refrain which repeats the chief thoughts of the poem, and the name of the author is usually given in an acrostic. This form of poetry was developed to its perfection by Romanus, the greatest hymn-writer of the Greek church. His verse is easy and euphonious, and varied by antitheses, assonances, paronomasias, and rime plays. The refrain is used by Romanus with admirable effect. The poems are preponderatingly dramatic in form, consisting of conversa-