"Adoro te deuote" : Zur Lösung einer alten Crux

Abstract

The incipit Adoro te deuote, frequently attested in the manuscript tradition, must be eliminated as inauthentic because of a fourfold anomaly it implies. Unlike other interventions in the text of the first hemistich of the Oratio, the reading Te deuote laudo does not create problems of textual criticism or versification. What is more, it is in harmony with the linguistic and doctrinal context of Aquinas' works, especially of his Eucharistic works, and above all it fits very well the context of Thomas' versification, not only within the Oratio, but also by comparison with the four hymns of the Office of Corpus Christi. According to its literary genre and unlike the four hymns of Corpus Christi conceived as choral songs or (Lauda Sion) as song by the crowd, this prayer is an Oratio infra canonem. Sitz im Leben of the Oratio is the personal and silent prayer of a non-celebrant before the two species after their consecration. The textual corruption Adoro te deuote was almost unavoidable, since, already in the oldest textual tradition known to us - sixty years separate it from the origin of the text -, the Oratio was mistakenly considered an elevation prayer and, as it often happened also later on, was transmitted in a Liber precum among other prayers of this kind. As early as the beginning of the 13 th Century these elevation prayers began regularly with the formula Adoro te under the influence of the popular incipit of the prayers for the adoration of the Holy Cross which, already in he Carolingian Age, were universally spread.