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Songs of Christmas: O Come All Ye Faithful

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The Christmas season is filled with particular sights (trees, lights, and the like) and smells (peppermint, cinnamon, and evergreen trees!). It also features many sounds, like wrapping paper getting crumpled up or laughter bursting out at a family gathering. But some of the most distinctive sounds (and my favorite!) of the Christmas season are the songs that we hear not only in churches but in stores, schools, and on radio stations. The familiarity of these songs might cause us to miss out on their rich teaching about the significance of the birth of Jesus. In light of that danger, I decided to continue what I started last year by looking at various Christmas hymns (you can find the ones from last year here), noting both their origins and their meaning. 

As I started looking at popular hymns, I noticed that some have ancient roots in the Latin language, others originate across the ocean in places like England or France, and a few were written in America. Therefore, I decided to select one one from each of these backgrounds to explore in the coming weeks. We’ll kick off this week by looking at “O Come All Ye Faithful,” a song originally written in Latin known as Adeste Fideles.

The Story
Before digging into the history of the song, I was under the impression that “O Come All Ye Faithful” was one of the oldest hymns because of its Latin roots – people have not spoken Latin for a long time! But when you look at the composer and date of this hymn in a hymnal, you will likely see it attributed to a man named John Francis Wade (1711-1786), with a composition and publication date in the middle of the 18th century (1740-50’s). This man was an English Catholic who lived in France (due to his Catholic beliefs). That said, many believe that its roots are older than Wade. Some think it has a Portuguese origin, tracing it back to King John IV who wrote music in the 17th century (this led to it being known for a time as “the Portuguese hymn”). Others think it might go back to some Cistercian monks or the 13th century theologian Bonaventure. 

Because direct links to some of those proposed figures are difficult to prove and because the first direct evidence we have for it is Wade’s text, it seems best to give him the credit for this song. That said, the fact that it was composed in Latin seems to put it into a different sort of background than other texts written by Englishmen (or written in France). The feel of the song seems to take you back in time earlier than Wade’s life. Perhaps his writing was influenced by early songs that were sung in the church – a reason people think the song is older than it is. 

So, how did the song go from being Adeste Fideles to “O Come All Ye Faithful”? Like many songs, there were a variety of English translations over the years, with one of them becoming the dominant or best known one. In the case of this song, the translation of a Catholic priest named Frederick Oakeley (1802-1880) is the one most commonly used in churches. 

Not only was the song translated, it was also expanded. In the 18th century, a French Catholic priest named Jean-Francois-Etienne Borderies (1764-1832) wrote three more verses to the song, also in Latin. These verses were then translated by William Thomas Brooke (1848-1917) with two of the verses sometimes being sung today (the other verse is rarely used). There is another Latin verse that floats around too that Brooke appears to have translated (I could not confirm the translator of this additional verse), but this one does not commonly appear. Many modern hymnals only include the Wade-Oakeley verses.

What I find interesting about the history of this hymn is that it is a song loved by Protestants even though it largely derives from Catholic hands. Of course, if it is an adaptation of an older hymn, then it would originate before the Reformation and the division into Protestant Catholic, making the label of it as a Catholic hymn a bit anachronistic. But if it comes from Wade himself, it emerged in a time of intense conflict between Catholics and Protestants. In addition, the priest who translated it (Oakeley) was a Protestant who converted to Catholicism. Thus, while the hymn might not take us as far back in time as I thought, its background does connect Christians of traditions that have been divided for a long period.

The Song
I won’t walk through all eight verses that have been associated with this song (you can find all of them here if interested), but I do want to make a few comments about the contents of them, especially the four written by Wade that are most commonly sung (and with which we are  most familiar). On the whole, the song connects to the Christmas story as we find it told in the Gospel of Luke (the anonymous additional verse mentions the magi who do not appear in Luke but rather in Matthew). While Wade’s verses do not directly mention the shepherds (the first additional verse written by Borderies does, as it notes that the “shepherds, summoned to his cradle, leaving their flocks, draw nigh with lowly fear”), the discussion of going to Bethlehem to see the king recalls their journey and words found in Luke 2:15 (which many hymnals list as a passage connected with this song). Like Luke’s gospel, there is reference to the “choirs of angels” who are “singing in exaltation” the words “glory to God, in the highest.” 

The song, as originally written, does not just focus on the story of Christmas in Luke’s gospel, but also the reality of Jesus’s birth as reflected in the language of the Nicene Creed. Of the four verses that Wade wrote, the one most often skipped over and less commonly sung is the second one, which says “God of God, Light of Light, lo! he abhors not the Virgin’s womb; very God, begotten, not created.” The words “God of God, Light of Light” and “ begotten, not created” are essentially drawn directly from this great creed of the church that was written to help make sure people correctly understand Jesus’s divine nature, that he is not less than God the Father but rather in perfect equality with him. I suspect these verses are skipped over at times because the words can be a bit confusing, but I wonder if not speaking them veils a bit of the reality of who Christ is – he is not just king of angels but very God in the flesh. That said, the final verse written by Wade (which also often remains the final verse when others are integrated) does highlight the truth of the incarnation (of Jesus the Son of God taking on flesh) as it speaks of Jesus as “Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing,” drawing on the language of John 1 as the Word of God and noting that his birth is the mark not of his start but of his appearance taking on the flesh. 

Taking time to read and think about the hymn prompted some further thoughts on a couple of phrases that I thought I would share. The opening words of verse four say, “Yea, Lord, we greet thee, born this happy morning.” I find the reference to “this happy morning” interesting. Does this reflect a time in which the church would gather to worship and sing this song on Christmas morning? Can we sing these words on days other than Christmas (kind of like “Christ the Lord is Risen Today” is reserved for Easter!), meaning we shouldn’t sing the song (or at least all of it) until Christmas Day (it does seem like some churches might reserve that line for Christmas Day)? But this line might pose more problems than just when you should sing it – as we can interpret it that Jesus was born in the morning! Closer examination of the Christmas story in Luke 2 does not reveal the frenetic search at night for a place to stay that we often see people refer to when describing the Christmas story. That said, the angels appear to the shepherds at night and they “went with haste” (Luke 2:15) to get there, which would seem to imply their encounter was at night (unless they were so far and it was so late in the night that it was morning when they arrived). 

The other lines I thought about were the most familiar lines – those opening lines of “Oh come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant.” Have you ever wondered why the people are described as “faithful, joyful, and triumphant” (maybe that is just me)? Interestingly enough, in my research I found that the original English translation by Oakeley was “joyfully triumphant.” While that was changed and we don’t sing it like that today, I wonder if that puts the statement in a different light. Faithful makes sense in that it is a call to the people of God who have faith and have been awaiting His action to come to worship; this included the shepherds at that time and the people of faith through the ages. The idea that we are joyful makes sense because it is the season of joy (and the Gospel of Luke highlights this theme of joy). But triumphant seems a bit odd, as the church does not seem triumphant (or those Christians who are triumphant are the ones who are now in heaven rather than living here on earth). But in Christ, there is triumph; when we are faithful, we are also triumphant and should reflect that spirit in a joyful manner. As Christians, are we not only faithful and reflecting joy, but are we living in a spirit of triumph because of the work of Christ for us? 

Having looked at the verses, let us now turn to the beloved refrain: “O come let us adore Him.” Not only are these easy words to say, but I think they testify to a couple of important truths about Christmas. They serve as an invitation, telling us that we need to personally respond to the good news of Christ’s birth and experience it ourselves; that is found in the opening verse that tells us to “come and behold him.” We are to know the events of Christmas and respond with adoration of Christ; this is a song of worship that reminds us that we are called to worship! May we truly adore Christ this Christmas season, not just letting the “citizens of heaven” above sing “glory to God in the highest” but personally greeting Christ and proclaiming “to thee be all glory given.” 

Questions about the Bible or theology? Email them to Pastor Brian at Theology@WeAreFaith.org. You can also request to receive weekly emails with our blog posts by filling out the information on the right side.

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