COELIUS

SEDULIUS  or CAELIUS (a praenomen of doubtful authenticity), a Christian poet of the first half of the 5th century, is termed a presbyter by Isidore of Seville and in the Gelasian decree . He must not be confused with Sedulius the Irish-Scot grammarian of the 9th century . His fame rests main:y upon a long poem, Carmen paschale, based on the four gospels . In style a bombastic imitator of Virgil, he shows, nevertheless, a certain freedom in the handling of the Biblical story, and the poem soon became a quarry for the minor poets . A hymn by Sedulius in honour of Christ,t. consisting of twenty-three quatrains of iambic dimeters, has partly passed into the liturgy, the first seven quatrains forming the Christmas hymn A solis ortus cardine, and some later ones the Epiphany hymn, Hostis Herodes impie . A Veteris et nevi Testamenti collatio in elegiac couplets has also come down, but we have ,IO grounds for ascribing to him the Virgilian cento, De verbi incarnatione . Sedulius's works were edited by F . Arevalo (Rome, 1794), re-printed in J . P . Migne's Patrol . Lat. vol. xix . ; and finally by J .

Huemer (

Vienna, 1885) . See J . Huemer, De Sedulii poetae vita et scriptis commentatio (Vienna, 1878); M . Manitius, Geschichte der ehristlich-lateinischen Poesie (Stuttgart, I891); Teuffel-Schwabe, Hist. of Roman Lit . (Eng. trans.), 473; Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopddte fur protestantische Theologie, xviii . (Leipzig, Igoe); Smith and Wace, Dictionary of Christian Biography (1887) .