Savior of the nations, come;
Virgin’s Son, here make Thy home!
Marvel now, O heaven and earth,
That the Lord chose such a birth.
Not by human flesh and blood;
By the Spirit of our God
Was the Word of God made flesh,
Woman’s offspring, pure and fresh.
Wondrous birth! O wondrous Child
Of the virgin undefiled!
Though by all the world disowned,
Still to be in heaven enthroned.
From the Father forth He came
And returneth to the same,
Captive leading death and hell
High the song of triumph swell!
Thou, the Father’s only Son,
Hast over sin the victory won.
Boundless shall Thy kingdom be;
When shall we its glories see?
Brightly doth Thy manger shine,
Glorious is its light divine.
Let not sin o’ercloud this light;
Ever be our faith thus bright.
Praise to God the Father sing,
Praise to God the Son, our King,
Praise to God the Spirit be
Ever and eternally.
While Saint Hilary of Poitiers is recognized as the founder of Latin hymnody, it is Saint Ambrose of Milan who is credited with securing a place for Latin hymnody in the church. Ambrose became Bishop of Milan in 374, despite his having been baptized only the week prior. Twelve years later, Empress Justina (d. 388), who had embraced Arianism in its claim that Jesus the Son did not always exist but only came into being as Mary’s first child, ordered that Ambrose’s basilica be overturned for public Arian worship. Although Ambrose was careful not to openly condone nor deny the claims of Arianism, his hymns speak quite clearly in defiance of Arianism. On Easter Sunday 386 imperial soldiers surrounded the church and demanded that Ambrose and his congregation surrender the basilica, but Ambrose, along with his entire congregation, refused to leave the church. Instead, having already composed a number of hymns, Ambrose seized the opportunity to introduce hymn singing to the church. According to St. Augustine in his Confessions, “Then it was first instituted, that according to the custom of the Eastern parts, Hymns and Antiphons should be sung, lest the people should faint through the fatigue of sorrow.”1 St. Augustine (354-430), a disciple of Ambrose, refers to the hymn in a sermon and Pope Celestine (d. 432) specifically mentions Ambrose as the author in 430 at a Council in Rome.2 While technically an Advent hymn, it is often associated with a hymn for Christmas Eve, most likely due to the large amount of nativity subject matter; in fact, the hymn lacks any reference to the second coming of judgment, which is quite unusual for this era. According to Hymns Ancient and Modern,3 the hymn is not included in the Canterbury Hymnal of the tenth century but can be found in all the English Hymnals of the following century.”
Veni redemptor genitum considers especially the role of Mary in the virgin birth. Indeed, the first four stanzas reference the Virgin Mary, while the latter three acknowledge the Father, Christ’s eternalness of being (counter to Arian belief), and his mission on earth. The hymn concludes with a usual doxology.
.
| Original:
Veni, redemptor gentium;4 Non ex virili semine Alvus tumescit virginis, Procedit e thalamo suo, Egressus eius a Patre, Aequalis aeterno Patri, Praesepe iam fulget tuum, Gloria tibi, Domine,
|
German:
Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, Nicht von Mann’s Blut noch von Fleisch, Der Jungfrau Leib schwanger ward, Er ging aus der Kammer sein, Sein Lauf kam vom Vater her Der du bist dem Vater gleich, Dein’ Krippe glaenzt hell und klar, Lob sei Gott dem Vater g’tan, |
In iambic dimeter, the Latin text has some interesting features not often observed in the other Advent hymns. For example, many lines reverse the stress from strong-weak to weak strong, as in line four; the previous lines of the stanza are all strong-weak. Lines 12, 17-20 (the entire fifth stanza), 21-22, 25-26 all exhibit this type of poetic treatment, which is not at all unusual for Ambrose or others of the early Latin hymn writers, whose scansion tended toward duration instead of accent. Additionally, there are a number of syllables which must be elided in order to maintain eight syllables per line. According to Latin poetic guidelines, when a word ends in either an “m”, “n”, or a vowel and is followed in the same line by a vowel, the syllables are elided to form one syllable.5 Therefore, word combinations such as factum est (line 7) would be pronounced FAC-t’mest; lines 9, 19, 22, 25, and 31 follow the same rule.
Also of note is the rhyming word play in the fifth stanza: egressus, regressus, excursus, recursus (went out, went back, go out, return); this is the only stanza including rhyme, and therefore seems out of place. Additionally, the fifth stanza is theologically troubling for some because of line 19: Excursus usque ad inferos (“Running forth even to Hell”). The phrase is not uncommon in that it comes from the Apostles Creed of the second century; however, the Council of Nicaea removed the phrase from its creed. Perhaps considering the fight against Arianism’s belief that Christ was not fully human, the phrase became commonplace again in order to prove the point more fully, and thus entered into Ambrose’s hymn. The above reasons may give evidence to the fact that the hymn was not contained in the Roman Breviary; certainly it would have been a challenge even for Urban VIII to adapt this hymn to classical standards. Finally, in 1970, after 450 years of wide usage around the world, the hymn was added to the Advent section of the Liturgy of the Hours by Pope Paul VI (1897-1978), with the omission of the questionable fifth stanza.
Translations of this hymn abound in many languages, but probably of greatest import is Martin Luther’s (1483-1546) translation in 1524, “Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland,” published in Erfurt Enchiridia, an amazingly literal translation (as seen above), from which are translated ten English versions; according to the Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary Handbook, there are eighteen English translations from the Latin. Luther’s version is set to the same plainsong tune in common usage for the Latin version (also the same tune for Charles Coffin’s (1676-1749) In noctis umbra desides), slightly modified. Since the German text (7.7.7.7.) is metrically unequivalent to the Latin (8.8.8.8.), the tune itself needed “translation”, but is generally close to the original. Most modern Protestant hymnals contain the English translation, “Savior of the Nations Come” set to the to tune NUN KOMM, DER HEIDEN HEILAND, and as recently as 1989, its first appearance was made in the Methodists’ The United Methodist Hymnal; it has yet to enter the Baptist Hymnal.
© 2010, Mark Burnett. All rights reserved.
Endnotes:
- William Henry Monk, ed., Hymns Ancient and Modern for the Use in the Services of the Church with Accompanying Tunes, Historical Edition ed. (London,: Wm. Clowes and sons. Ltd., 1909), xii.)
It was in this situation also that Ambrose introduced antiphonal singing, splitting the congregation in half to sing in turn. Veni redemptor genitium may often be sung antiphonally for this reason, as it is one of four ancient Latin “undoubted hymns and [one of] the only hymns to be safely assigned to Ambrose.” ((SW Duffield and RE Thompson, The Latin Hymn-Writers and Their Hymns (Funk & Wagnalls, 1889), 56. [↩]
- J Julian, A Dictionary of Hymnology: Setting Forth the Origin and History of Christian Hymns of All Ages and Nations (C. Scribner’s Sons, 1892), 1211. [↩]
- Monk, 69. [↩]
- An additional stanza actually preceeded the first originally, but is often omitted: Intende, qui regis Israel, / Super Cherubim qui sedes, / Appare Ephrem coram, / Excita potentiam tuam et veni. This stanza was not written by Ambrose, but was a setting of the Vulgate Psalm 79:2-3. [↩]
- WS Allen, Vox Latina: A Guide to the Pronunciation of Classical Latin (Cambridge University Press, 1989), 79-82. [↩]
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