The text of the last motet of Compère’s cycle Hodie nobis was edited following Librone 1, ff. 178v–179r. Here it was written, like the rest of this cycle, by Scribe A, who copied it carefully and without mistakes.
This motet was sung at the end of Mass, as the loco rubric states (‘loco Deo gratias’), and ended the cycle, addressing once again the same topic, namely Christmas and the birth of Jesus.
The key words of the motet are delivered right at the start: Jesus’ birth is described as a wonderful exchange (‘admirabile commercium’) between men and God. Through this exchange God ‘borrows’ a human nature and men will – eventually – gain some part of divinity, although this second part of the exchange is not mentioned here as explicitly as in the original antiphon. There the text reads ‘et procedens homo sine semine largitus est nobis suam deitatem’ (‘and coming forth as a man born without seed he gifted us his divinity’). Furthermore, this topic is made explicit in the second section of Compère’s motet text. Here Jesus is described as having ‘put on’ a human body (‘servile corpus induit’) and by doing this as having freed humanity (‘carne carnem liberans’).
While Jesus’ Nativity and his assumption of a human body are addressed in both sections, the texts used by Compère are drawn from different sources. In the first Compère starts off by borrowing a chant that was variously used during Christmas time and for Marian feasts, but most commonly as first antiphon of Second Vespers on the day of the octave of Christmas, namely ‘O admirabile commercium creator generis humani animatum corpus sumens de virgine nasci dignatus est et procedens homo sine semine largitus est nobis suam deitatem’ (Cantus ID 003985). This antiphon is followed by a series of textual snippets drawn from other liturgical texts, such as the invitatory for Christmas (‘Christus natus est nobis, venite adoremus’, Cantus ID 001055). A responsory for Christmas (Cantus ID 006858) and an antiphon for Epiphany (Cantus ID 004682) deliver the idea of the appearance of eternal salvation and Compère borrowed the expression ‘salus aeterna apparuit’ from these chants. For the second half of the text Compère utilized stanza 2 of the hymn commonly sung during Lauds on Christmas day, namely the abecedarian hymn A solis ortus cardine penned by the late antique poet Sedulius (Cantus ID 008248).