Apparebit Repentina

(Sudden will appear) is the. beginning of an anonymous Latin poem based on Mt 25:31-46. Like the Lamentations .of Jeremiah, it is alphabetic. "This rugged but grand Judgment hymn," as Neale' styles it,, is certainly as old as, if not a good deal. older than, the 7th century; for Bede, who belongs to the end of this and the beginning of the 8th, refers to it in his work De Metris.: 'It was then almost or altogether lost sight of, but Cassander published it in his Hymnni Ecclesiastici. Although, according to Trench, "wanting the high, lyrical passion" of the Dies Iree, yet it is of a very noble simplicity, Daniel well saying of it, "Juvat carmen fere totum e Scriptura Sacra depromptum comparare cum celebratissimo illo extremi judicii praeconio, Dies irce, dies illa, quo majestate et terroribus, non sancta simplicitate et fide, superatur." We subjoin the first lines in the original: