In the Noonday Day Prayer at Street Prophets, Sweet Georgia Peach started with a wonderful hymn I had never seen before by Marcus Aurelius Clemens Prudentius. Prudentias was born in Spain in 348 A. D. He came from a wealthy family, and he became lawyer. Later he rose to the rank of judge over several cities, and then he served in the court of Theodosius I. At the age of 57 he wrote:

Now, the, at last, close on the very end of life,
May yet my sinful soul put off her foolishness;
And if by deeds it cannot, yet, at least, by words give praise to God,
Join day to day by constant hymns,
Fail not each night in songs to celebrate the Lord,
Fight against heresies, maintain the Catholic faith.

He spent the rest of life writing poems and hymns to God. He has been called “”the prince of early Christian poets,” and “the Horace and Virgil of the Christians.” Many of his poems have been translated and made into hymns. This is one of them.

“Of the Father’s Love Begotten”

Of the Father’s love begotten,
ere the worlds began to be,
he is Alpha and Omega,
he the source, the ending he,
of the things that are, that have been,
and that future years shall see,
evermore and evermore!

At his word the worlds were framèd;
he commanded; it was done:
heaven and earth and depths of ocean
in their threefold order one;
all that grows beneath the shining
of the moon and burning sun,
evermore and evermore!

O that birth for ever blessèd,
when the Virgin, full of grace,
by the Holy Ghost conceiving,
bare the Savior of our race;
and the Babe, the world’s Redeemer,
first revealed his sacred face,
evermore and evermore!