Urbs beata Jerusalem dicta pacis visio

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This article incorporates unedited text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia, which may be out of date, or may reflect the point of view of the Catholic Church as of 1913. It should be edited to reflect broader and more recent perspectives.
(April 2008)

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Urbs beata Jerusalem dicta pacis visio is the first line of a 7th or 8th-century hymn sung in the Office of the Dedication of a Roman Catholic church before the Second Vatican Council.

[edit] Text

The hymn comprises eight stanzas, together with a doxology. The text is scripturally inspired by Ephesians ii. 20, 1 Peter ii. 5, and Revelation xxi.^[1] The translation below is by John Mason Neale.^[2]

Original Latin	Literal English	Verse translation (Neale)
Urbs beata Jerusalem, dicta pacis visio, Quæ construitur in coelo [caelis] vivis ex lapidibus, Et angelis coronata ut sponsata comite.	Blessed city of Jerusalem, vision of an assurance of peace, Built in heaven out of living stone And crowned by the angels like a bride for her consort	Blessed City, Heavenly Salem, Vision dear of Peace and Love, Who, of living stones upbuilded, Art the joy of Heav’n above, And, with angel cohorts circled, As a bride to earth dost move!”

Under Pope Urban VIII, a group of correctors revised the hymn, replacing the unquantitative, accentual, trochaic rhythm with quantitative, iambic metre (with an addition syllable), and the stanza appeared in the Breviary with divided lines:

Coelestis Urbs Jerusalem,
Beata pacis visio,
Quæ celsa de viventibus
Saxis ad astra tolleris,
Sponsæque ritu cingeris
Mille Angelorum millibus.

Originally, the first four stanzas of "Urbs beata Jerusalem" were usually assigned, in the Office of the Dedication of a church, to Vespers and Matins, while the last four were given to Lauds. After the revision, the hymn for Lauds was changed to "Alto ex Olympi vertice".

[edit] Criticism

Hymnologists, Catholic and non-Catholic alike, have criticized^[who?] the revisions done under Pope Urban VIII. Of this hymn in particular some, such as Neale, think^{[weasel words]} that, although it did not suffer as much as some others, it lost much of its beauty in the revision^[2]; others declare that it was admirably^{[weasel words]} 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^{[weasel words]} the rhythm of the "Pange lingua gloriosi", but which was greatly marred^{[weasel words]} and rendered hardly singable^{[weasel words]} when updated to the reversed rhythm of the "Coelestis Urbs Jerusalem". A different textual revision, ascribed to Sebastian Besnault, appeared in the Sens Breviary of 1626:

Urba beata, vera pacis Visio Jerusalem,
Quanta surgit! celsa saxis Conditor viventibus:
Quæ polivit, hæc cooptat Sedibus suis Deus.

Neale considered this inferior to the original, but superior to the Roman revision.^{[citation needed]} Roundell admitted the blemishes in the original that would suggest emendation, but thought^[vague] that the Roman revision left out "most of the architectural imagery", and noted that the Sens Breviary omitted "the whole conception of the Heavenly City 'as a bride adorned for her husband'". He nevertheless^{[weasel words]} considered the revisions, if looked at as new hymns, "spirited and attractive".^{[cite this quote]}