One of the biblical canticles (‘Bless the Lord, all you works of the Lord’) sung in Eastern and Western liturgies. The canticle was known in the medieval West as ‘benedictiones’ because of the constant repetition of the exhortation ‘benedicite’ (‘bless’). The text is a Greek interpolation in the third chapter of the book of Daniel (Apocrypha), which narrates the story of the miraculous survival of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the fiery furnace prepared as a punishment for their refusal to worship the golden image of King Nebuchadnezzar. (The Vulgate equivalents of their Hebrew names are Ananias, Mishael and Azarias; see Daniel i.6–7.) The interpolation includes the prayer of Azarias (iii.26–45), beginning (in its Latin version) ‘Benedictus es Domine Deus patrum nostrorum … qui iustus es’ and the song of the Young Men, divided into two sections (iii.52–6 and 57–90), beginning ‘Benedictus es Domine Deus patrum nostrorum … et benedictum nomen’ and ‘Benedicite omnia opera’ respectively. The latter calls upon all creation to bless the Lord, an exhortation answered by the refrain ‘laudate et superexaltate eum in saecula’ (‘praise and exalt him forever’). For Western liturgical use ‘laudate’ was replaced by ‘hymnum dicite’.
By the last quarter of the 4th century the Benedicite had entered liturgical use in the Christian East. It eventually became a standard feature of the solemn and festal Byzantine morning office (Orthros), the last five verses interrupted by stichoi (brief poetic stanzas). When the biblical texts were replaced by poetic versions, the Benedicite provided the basis for the 8th of the nine odes of the kanōn at Orthros. (The 7th ode paraphrased the prayer of Azarias and the first song of the Three Young Men, vv.26–45 and 52–6.) The reading of Daniel iii that concluded the Hesperinos (Vespers) readings of Holy Saturday in the Byzantine rite ended with the chanting of verses 57–88 by the psaltēs (cantor), to which the congregation responded with the refrain ‘hymneite kai hyperypsoute auton eis tous aiōnas’ (‘praise and exalt him forever’).
The Benedicite (vv.57–88 without the refrain but concluded by a doxology and v.56) served as the variable Old Testament canticle of Sunday and festal Lauds in the medieval Western monastic and secular Office. Several 6th-century monastic rules, including that of Benedict of Nursia, referred to the singing of ‘benedictiones’ in their descriptions of the morning Office. (In secular use a shorter version of the canticle, consisting of vv.52–7 only, was sung during Lent; see AR, 12.) As part of the regular psalmody of Lauds the Benedicite, like the other psalms, was sung to a simple psalm tone.
In the medieval Western liturgy an elaborate 3rd-mode setting of the canticle formed part of the Office of readings at Mass on Ember Saturdays. In this context it exemplified the lectio cum cantico: a liturgical reading terminating in a lyrical song, for which the lector might be instructed by a rubric to change the ‘tone’ of his delivery. This version of the Benedicite (analysed in Ferretti) is found in the earliest Gregorian chant manuscripts (listed in Bernard). Introduced by a moderately florid prelude (‘Benedictus es in firmamento caeli’), the individual strophes are constructed from three biblical verses, each beginning with the word ‘benedicite’, set to an embellished recitation tone (musical form: AA'B). Each strophe is completed by a single statement of the refrain ‘Hymnum dicite et superexaltate eum in saecula’ (‘Sing a hymn and exalt him highly forever’). Four of the strophes (2, 6, 9, 10) begin melismatically, and it has been suggested that these divide the ‘blessings’ according to the following themes: cosmic creation and the elements; the earth and its creatures; rational creation; and the redeemed. The final verse concludes with a melodically heightened version of the refrain.
This setting was eventually supplanted in the Ember Saturday liturgy by a completely different one, centonized from Daniel iii.52–6 and other biblical sources, with the refrain ‘et laudabilis et gloriosus in saecula’ after every verse (LU, 348; see also GS, pl.9). A single formula, related to mode-7 psalmody, is repeated for all the verses and the concluding doxology. The Old Roman gradual of S Cecilia in Trastevere (dated 1071, CH-CObodmer C.74, ff.7r–8v) has an adaptation of the original Gregorian version in its main corpus, supplemented by the later Gregorian version added in the margins. The Old Beneventan liturgy divided the complete text of the Benedicite into four segments distributed over the four embertide Saturdays (a practice also indicated by a rubric in the S Cecilia gradual and known from other central Italian sources). A paraphrase of the canticle, Omnipotentem semper adorant, by Walahfrid Strabo (d 849), was substituted for the biblical text in some medieval manuscripts.
The Gallican liturgies inserted the benedictiones between the New Testament reading and the Gospel of the Mass, and they occupied a similar position in the Mozarabic Mass on Sundays and feasts of the principal martyrs (i.e. sung before the psallendum that preceded the Gospel). While neither text nor music for the Gallican benedictiones has survived, the 10th-century Mozarabic antiphoner of León (E-L 8) contains 26 versions, ten assigned to specific feasts and a separate collection of 15 settings for use throughout the year. Each has a different selection of verses and apparently a slightly different melody (notated in unheighted neumes and hence untranscribable). In the Ambrosian (Milanese) rite selected verses of the canticle were sung to an elaborate melody on Good Friday and after the third lesson of the Easter vigil. The Ambrosian melody (Suñol, 183; see also PalMus, 1st ser., v, 1896/R, 249, and vi, 1900/R, 296) has two refrains (‘et laudabilis … ’ and ‘hymnum dicite … ’), each with an ‘amen’ response.
At the Beneventan Easter vigil the entire third chapter of Daniel received an impressively dramatic presentation. (An assignment to Good Friday in some manuscripts cannot be original.) The lector began in the ordinary lesson tone, then changed to a slightly more elaborate recitative for the prayer of Azarias; the lesson tone was then resumed for verses 46–50. At that point, one of the cantors sang the verse ‘tunc hii tres’, and the whole culminated with the choir chanting together a florid setting of four verses of the canticle concluded by a doxology. The same practice is also found in non-Beneventan manuscripts from central Italy.
The Benedicite was rarely set polyphonically in the Renaissance: Josquin’s motet Benedicite omnia opera begins with verse 57. The Benedicite (in English) was included in the Anglican service of Matins as an alternative to the Te Deum (see Service), and numerous settings have been composed since the 16th century for use in that context.
J. Mearns: The Canticles of the Christian Church, Eastern and Western, in Early and Medieval Times (Cambridge, 1914)
R.-J. Hesbert: ‘La tradition bénéventaine’, Le codex 10673 de la Bibliothèque vaticane, PalMus, 1st ser, xiv (1931/R), 222–4, 318–24
P. Ferretti: Estetica gregoriana, ossia Trattato delle forme musicali del canto gregoriano, i (Rome, 1934/R); (Fr. trans, 1938), 203–14
G.M. Suñol, ed.: Antiphonale missarum iuxta ritum sanctae ecclesiae mediolanensis (Rome, 1935), 183ff, 193ff
L. Brou: ‘Les “benedictiones”, ou Cantique des Trois Enfants dans l’ancienne messe espagnole’, Hispania sacra, i (1948), 21–33
L. Brou and J. Vives, eds.: Antifonario visigótico-mozárabe de la Catedral de León (Barcelona, 1953)
K. Gamber: Ordo antiquus gallicanus: der gallikanische Messritus des 6. Jahrhunderts (Regensburg, 1965)
T.F. Kelly: The Beneventan Chant (Cambridge, 1989), 156–60
P. Bernard: ‘Le cantique des trois enfants (Dan. III, 52–90): les répertoires liturgiques occidentaux dans l’antiquité tardive et le haut Moyen Age’, Musica e storia, i (1993), 231–72
JOHN CALDWELL, JOSEPH DYER