History
The hymn begins with the words that the angels sang when the birth of Christ was announced to shepherds in Luke 2:14. Other verses were added very early, forming a doxology, which in the 4th century became part of morning prayers, and is still recited in the Byzantine Rite Orthros service.
The Latin translation is traditionally attributed to Saint Hilary of Poitiers (c. 300–368), who may have learned it while in the East (359–360). The Vulgate Latin translation of the Bible was commissioned only in 382. The Latin hymn thus uses the word excelsis to translate the Greek word ὑψίστοις (the highest) in Luke 2:14, not the word altissimis, which Saint Jerome preferred for his translation.
Read more about this topic: Gloria In Excelsis Deo
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“There are two great unknown forces to-day, electricity and woman, but men can reckon much better on electricity than they can on woman.”
—Josephine K. Henry, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 15, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“False history gets made all day, any day,
the truth of the new is never on the news
False history gets written every day
...
the lesbian archaeologist watches herself
sifting her own life out from the shards she’s piecing,
asking the clay all questions but her own.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“Every literary critic believes he will outwit history and have the last word.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)