A thing most wonderful

This year, unusually, I was at Little St Mary's on Ash Wednesday, and we sang the hymn that begins "It is a thing most wonderful". Unfortunately we sang the badly corrupted version of it that appears in the New English Hymnal, so I was not sure whether to be delighted (because it's one of my favourite hymns that I first learnt at Little St Mary's in the good old days before they burned their copies of the English Hymnal) or to be distressed because it was so far from being the hymn I knew and loved.

The original words are by Bishop W.W. How, from his Children's Hymns of 1872. They were included in the English Hymnal under the "At Catechism" section, but evidently their success at conveying some profound theology by way of childish words has earned them a place in the grown-up repertoire too, and they now figure in the passiontide section of the NEH.

Or rather a sadly debased construction appears there, attributed quite unfairly to W.W. How (without any obelus at all). It looks as if they suppose that if you leave out the verses that had asterisks in the English Hymnal you have not done any damage to the hymn. But of course, it might be that if you leave both the asterisked verses out, the hymn doesn't really say much any more, or indeed doesn't actually make sense.

Here's how the verses should go:

1 It is a thing most wonderful,
Almost too wonderful to be,
That God’s own Son should come from Heav’n,
And die to save a child like me.

2 And yet I know that it is true;
He chose a poor and humble lot,
And wept, and toiled, and mourned, and died,
For love of those who loved Him not.

3 I cannot tell how He could love
A child so weak and full of sin;
His love must be most wonderful,
If He could die my love to win.

4 I sometimes think about the cross,
And shut my eyes, and try to see
The cruel nails and crown of thorns,
And Jesus crucified for me.

5 But even could I see Him die,
I could but see a little part
Of that great love, which, like a fire,
Is always burning in His heart.

6 It is most wonderful to know
His love for me so free and sure;
But ’tis more wonderful to see
My love for Him so faint and poor.

7 And yet I want to love Thee, Lord;
Oh, light the flame within my heart,
And I will love Thee more and more,
Until I see Thee as Thou art.

The important thing to notice here is the progression between verse 4 and verse 5. When verse 5 says "But even could I see him die", it refers back to the imaginary attempt to see him die described in verse 4 ("I sometimes... shut my eyes and try to see"). Without that, the idea that "even if I could see him, it would be only a small part" makes no sense. Alas, verse 4 has gone from the NEH.

You could almost make some sense of it if you had verse 3 instead ("His love must be most wonderful, if he could die my love to win") because then there's some progression to thinking that in reality the love is even more wonderful than just what the death alone reveals. But, alas, verse 3 has gone too.

But still, even if you had verse 3, too much is lost if you don't precede verse 5 with the vision in verse 4 of what it would be like to undergo the cruel nails and crown of thorns. For it is those—importantly, those terrible things— that would be only a small part of the real love, the real love that we can't see even if we successfully imagine the crucifixion in all its excruciating misery.

So, although the rest of the hymn, apart from verses 3 and 4, is there intact at 84 in the NEH, it seems as if the heart of it has been amputated. What is the good of verse 5 if all you've got is the trivial stuff mentioned in verse 2 "And wept and toiled and mourned and died" as the antecedent of "But even could I see him die"? There's nothing there to ground the argument that the love that we inevitably can't see is so immense, given that what we can see, when we try hard and use our imagination to its uttermost, is just a small part of it.

Another sad case.

I mean, what's so wrong with leaving all How's verses in and supplying the asterisks, in case anyone feels queasy about it? I assume there's some ideological queasiness at work here, no?

Who is this so weak and helpless?

A while back I did a post on "Who is this with garments gory" wherein I promised to say something about the hymn whose first line is in the title of this post. Here I am, and here I am going to say something.

"Who is this so weak and helpless" is a hymn by Bishop William Walsham How 1823-97. Now I've got nothing against Bishop W. W. How, but he does bear responsibility for a number of fairly awful hymns. Not all of them are awful: his best seems to be "For all the Saints who from their labours rest" and we certainly wouldn't want to live without that. Another good one (I think) is "It is a thing most wonderful" (at least that is good if it's sung to Herongate as in the English Hymnal and New English Hymnal: it has some other terrible tune in Mission Praise, I recall, which turns it into a trite hymn). But alas the other six hymns by How in the English Hymnal are rather less than great (surprisingly, the NEH has kept five out of the eight).

"Who is this so weak and helpless?" was written in 1867. That's 23 years after Coxe wrote "Who is this with garments gory?" and one can't help thinking that there's some intertextuality here. Both hymns are in the same metre and both begin "who is this..." But Coxe's (as we saw) is rich in complex biblical symbolism. How's, by contrast, is rather uninspired. I mean, it's true that How has picked up on the idea that we can't easily recognise the Godhead in the strange and rather powerless circumstances of Jesus's birth and life and death: that's the theme of the hymn. But it lacks the spectacle, and the density of imagery of Coxe's reflections on the one who trod the winepress all alone.

William How constructs his hymn by starting each verse with four lines describing something in the life of Jesus (first his birth, then his homeless wandering, then his trial and passion, then his crucifixion). Then in the second half of each verse, beginning in each case "'Tis the Lord" vel sim, he tells us that this is really God himself (despite appearances), and goes on to say something about the divine power that is so far from apparent in the scene just described. As you will see, the last four lines of each verse are really quite bad:

Who is this so weak and helpless,
Child of lowly Hebrew maid,
rudely in a stable sheltered,
coldly in a manger laid?
'Tis the Lord of all creation,
who this wondrous path hath trod;
he is God from everlasting,
and to everlasting God.

Who is this, a Man of sorrows,
walking sadly life's hard way,
homeless, weary, sighing, weeping,
over sin and Satan's sway?
'Tis our God, our glorious Saviour,
who above the starry sky
now for us a place prepareth,
where no tear can dim the eye.

Who is this? Behold him raining
drops of blood upon the ground!
Who is this, despised, rejected,
mocked, insulted, beaten, bound?
'Tis our God, who gifts and graces
on his Church now poureth down;
who shall smite in holy vengeance
all his foes beneath his throne.

Who is this that hangeth dying
with the thieves on either side?
Nails his hands and feet are tearing,
and the spear hath pierced his side.
'Tis the God who ever liveth,
'mid the shining ones on high,
in the glorious golden city,
reigning everlastingly.

If you think this isn't bad, just look at the rhymes...

Why did this unimaginative string of doggerel survive into the New English Hymnal, while its better predecessor didn't? One may well wonder.

One telling fact is that in the NEH this hymn is set to Ebenezer or Tôn-y-Botel, that fantastic Welsh hymn tune of 1890 that we've talked about before, which used to be set for "Who is this with garments gory" (whereas "Who is this so weak and helpless" had another Welsh tune called Llansannan, or, in other books, Eifionydd).

It makes you wonder whether the EDITORS still wanted to keep that great tune Ebenezer, but had some prejudice against that great hymn, so they put in this weak hymn instead, thinking we'd feel it was similar, or maybe we wouldn't even notice the difference, since it begins with the same words. Certainly it seems that must be what happened at Little St Mary's, where this hymn was set this year for evensong on Palm Sunday, as a sort of lame substitute for the wine-treading hymn that used to belong there.

I wonder what hymn Ebenezer was written for? In 1890 it could have been written for either of these things, but perhaps it was for a Welsh hymn we don't know. I'm beginning to regret that I didn't buy the Welsh Hymn book I found last summer in Hay on Wye (was it Hay on Wye? Can't recall now). It might have settled this question.

Who is this with garments gory?

Another thing missing from the Palm Sunday experience as I remember it at LSM in Fr James Owen's days is the magnificent hymn "Who is this with garments gory, triumphing on Bozrah's way?". It's surprising it's taken me so long to get round to writing about this one, since it's a special favourite of mine. I've just scoured various old floppy disks and aged computers to see if I could discover where I'd written about it before, since I know I've written on it at least once for a parish magazine. But nothing has shown up, so may be that I wrote it before the days of household computers.

Hymn number 108 in the old English Hymnal, set in the section for Passiontide, this hymn goes to the amazing welsh hymn tune Ebenezer, which makes it especially awesome. More about the tune anon.

Alas the hymn has quite gone from the New English Hymnal. Was it that they thought hardly anyone liked it or sang it? Or was it that they thought that we ought not to be allowed to sing it? Was it redundancy or constructive dismissal that was offered to Bishop A. Cleveland Coxe (1818-96)?

Here are his fine words, written in 1844 (more about what they mean in a minute):

Who is this with garments gory,
Triumphing from Bozrah’s way;
This that weareth robes of glory,
Bright with more than vict'ry’s ray?
Who is this unwearied comer
From his journey’s sultry length,
Trav'lling through Idumè’s summer
In the greatness of his strength?

Wherefore red in thine apparel
Like the conquerors of the earth,
And arrayed like those who carol
O’er the reeking vineyard’s mirth?
Who art thou, the valleys seeking
Where our peaceful harvests wave?
“I, in righteous anger speaking,
I, the mighty One to save.”

“I, that of the raging heathen
Trod the winepress all alone,
Now in victor garlands wreathen
Coming to redeem Mine own:
I am He with sprinkled raiment,
Glorious for My vengeance hour,
Ransoming, with priceless payment,
And delivering with power.”

Hail! All hail! Thou Lord of Glory!
Thee, our Father, Thee we own;
Abram heard not of our story,
Israel ne’er our Name hath known.
But, Redeemer, Thou hast sought us,
Thou hast heard Thy children’s wail,
Thou with Thy dear blood hast bought us:
Hail! Thou mighty Victor, hail!

I don't know what it would be like to read these lines without hearing the tune Ebenezer in your head. If you don't know it you'll need to go here.

Now, what on earth is it all about? Well the reference is to Isaiah 63.1-4 (which is a dialogue so I'm going to set it out as a dialogue here):

——Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? This that is glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his strength?
——I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save.
——Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the winefat?
——I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me: for I will tread them in mine anger and trample them in my fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment. For the day of vengeance is in my heart, and the year of my redeemed is come.

Isaiah's vision is of meeting a solitary traveller in robes stained with blood, who compares the trampling of the heathen (in Edom) with treading the grapes in a winepress and becoming sprinkled with the red of the wine. The same chapter of Isaiah goes on to speak of the need for redemption and the idea of God's mercy as well as his righteous anger. Our hymn particularly picks up again on a later passage of the chapter, namely at verses 16:

Doubtless thou art our father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not: thou, O Lord, art our father, our redeemer; thy name is from everlasting.

This passage is picked up in the last verse of the hymn, with

Hail! All hail! Thou Lord of Glory!
Thee, our Father, Thee we own;
Abram heard not of our story,
Israel ne’er our Name hath known.

Now it is true that the imagery of the traveller dressed in scarlet robes soaked in blood, and of the one who treads the winepress all alone is evocative of all sorts of Christian themes. By using these motifs on Palm Sunday we evoke the image of Christ riding into Jerusalem in triumph. By using them at passiontide we evoke the imagery of Christ clothed in a purple robe and spattered with his own blood during the trial and crucifixion, the use of wine to stand in for blood recalls the famous words at the last supper when Christ presents his own blood in the form of wine, and the idea that he trod the winepress all alone is evocative of the salvation that he wrought in solitary agony on the cross. But in my view Cleveland Coxe's hymn picks up another aspect of the Isaiah imagery: I think the hymn is really written with a view to the last judgement, and not to the passiontide imagery that is so vivid in the Isaiah reading itself. Isn't this really an Advent hymn, and isn't it supposed to be about the second coming of Christ in glory?

Take a look at verse one:

Who is this with garments gory,
Triumphing from Bozrah’s way;
This that weareth robes of glory,
Bright with more than vict'ry’s ray?
Who is this unwearied comer
From his journey’s sultry length,
Trav'lling through Idumè’s summer
In the greatness of his strength?

Imagine we are encountering Christ returning at the second coming. How do we tell that this is really the Christ we are to expect? His robes of glory are bright with more than victory's ray: the stranger at the second coming has something divine about him. This is more than just a human traveller. It is an unwearied comer, one who is not worn down by the long and sultry journey. He has a superhuman strength.
But why is he on Bozrah's way, and why has he travelled through Idumè's summer? Bozrah is a city of Edom, and Idume, alias Idumaea, is another word for Edom. Edom is the place where the Gentiles live, and it is upon them that the wrath of the stranger has been falling. He has been trampling them under his feet, and it is with their blood that he is spattered. This is an image of a judgemental God dealing out just punishment to those who are not his own chosen people.
But then as the hymn proceeds (picking up all the time motifs from Isaiah's chapter) the image of a vengeful God is transformed into the image of a merciful God whose robe is soaked in his own blood as he pays the priceless ransom for those who did not deserve to be saved. First he says he is returning to redeem his own people after treading the winepress of the heathen; from this we would think that his sprinkled raiment is sprinkled with the blood of the heathen, but the "priceless payment" begins to make us think again:

“I, that of the raging heathen
Trod the winepress all alone,
Now in victor garlands wreathen
Coming to redeem Mine own:
I am He with sprinkled raiment,
Glorious for My vengeance hour,
Ransoming, with priceless payment,
And delivering with power.”

Now, using Isaiah's words, we respond to the fact that we find ourselves unexpectedly included in Christ's priceless redemption: so Abraham had never heard of our story (what story is that: the Christian story?) and Israel never knew our name. We are not of the tribe of Israel, but suddenly we see that God is our father all the same, and that we have been redeemed by this strange man in the blood-soaked garment. Now we wonder, what was that act of treading the winepress all alone? Was it vengeful destruction? No: it turns out that Christ had gone out to the heathen to redeem them with his own blood not theirs. Thou with thy dear blood hast bought us... That is the victory we hail, not a victory over the heathen, not judgement upon them, but redemption for them by the shedding of the victor's own blood. Christ returns from his lonely journey, but the blood with which he is stained is actually his own, and the people he has redeemed are not the ones we expected, but include even those of us who did not belong to the chosen tribes of Israel and who have done nothing to deserve it.

Now why has this extraordinarily well-written and evocative hymn gone from the hymn book? One possibility is that it had fallen into disuse, perhaps through misunderstanding. Another is that we are not allowed to have hymns that repay study and cannot be fully understood without quite a lot of biblical knowledge and theological sophistication. A third is that the editors of the hymn book themselves couldn't understand what this was about and thought that it was gruesome and/or offensive to the heathen. They have (as we have previously noticed) an aversion to the notion of the 'heathen' so I guess they read (or misread) verse 3 of this hymn as expressing some kind of prejudice.

I was going to say something about the hymn "Who is this so weak and helpless?" here as well, but the entry seems rather long. so I'll make that another one.

Come, faithful people, come away

Many years ago when I was a student and later when I was a research fellow and a young mum in Cambridge, we used to go to LSM when not at King's Chapel or wherever else, and every year on Palm Sunday there was a procession from Laundress Green to LSM. That's still true, but what are no longer there are some hymns of which I have particularly fond memories.

Today's subject is "Come Faithful People Come Away". It's classified as a carol by the English Hymnal, which says (in its Palm Sunday Procession section) "If required, the following carol may also be sung". But the words are by G. Moultrie (1829-85) and the music, a jolly skipping melody written as three crotchets in a bar, is "Come Faithful People" by C. Bicknell, 1842-1918. The hymn recounts the story of Christ's entry into Jerusalem on a donkey and all that palm waving stuff.

It's a good hymn to process to. Now that might seem surprising because of the tune being in three time. For many years after we moved to Oxford we tried to persuade our Oxford Vicar to put "Come, faithful people, come away" into the Cowley St John street procession for Palm Sunday, but he wouldn't have it (there we had "Onward Christian Soldiers" and other traditional marching hymns, nothing seasonal at all, except maybe "Ride On Ride On"). The trouble is, you could never persuade anyone who didn't already know it that it could be a marching hymn.

The reason why it works so well for marching is that it really goes at one in a bar, or, if you like, in 6:8 so it's like two sets of triplets, dum de de, dum de de. So if it's taken quickly it's very easy to march to because you stride out on the first beat of each bar and the skipping triplets give you plenty of time to move at a stately pace without the tune become plodding or boring. Brilliant really.

What's tragic is that it's gone altogether from the NEH.

What a loss. Here (from the Oremus Hymnal, but converted to English spelling) are the words:

Come, faithful people, come away
your homage to your Monarch pay;
it is the feast of palms today:
Hosanna in the highest!

When Christ, the Lord of all, drew nigh
on Sunday morn to Bethany,
he called two loved ones standing by:
Hosanna in the highest!

"To yonder village go," said he,
"An ass and foal tied shall ye see,
loose them and bring them unto me:"
Hosanna in the highest!

"If any man dispute your word,
say, 'They are needed by the Lord,'
and he permission will accord:"
Hosanna in the highest!

The two upon their errand sped,
and found the ass as he had said,
and on the colt their clothes they spread:
Hosanna in the highest!

They set him on his throne so rude;
before him went the multitude,
and in their way their garments strewed:
Hosanna in the highest!

Go, Saviour, thus to triumph borne,
thy crown shall be the wreath of thorn,
thy royal garb the robe of scorn:
Hosanna in the highest!

They thronged before, behind, around,
they cast palm-branches on the ground,
and still rose up the joyful sound:
Hosanna in the highest!

"Blessèd is Israel's King," they cry;
"Blessed is he that cometh nigh
in name of God the Lord most high."
Hosanna in the highest!

Thus, Saviour, to thy passion go,
arrayed in royalty of woe,
assumed for sinners here below:
Hosanna in the highest!

---

Vexilla regis prodeunt

When we went to sing evensong at Bury St Edmunds one of the hymns prescribed for the service was "The Royal Banners Forward Go". There was a great to-do among us the visiting choir "because," (said some) "they've added two verses which aren't normally there."

Well I think the truth is this (though I've lost the service sheet so I'm not absolutely sure). It's not that they'd added two verses. It's that the New English Hymnal has left one out, and also that the photocopy of the words and melody that we had in our choir folders was incomplete and had the last verse left off, due presumably to the fact that the last verse was over the page in the hymn books.

The New English Hymnal supplies seven verses of vexilla regis. The old English Hymnal supplied the same seven. They are given in J.M. Neale's translation but the NEH has made one change to the translation ("The universal Lord is he who reigns and triumphs from the tree" has now replaced "Amidst the nations, God, saith he, hath reigned and triumphed from the tree" in verse 3).

But what is the eighth verse that is missing?

Eight verses are given in Frederick Brittain's Penguin Book of Latin Verse attributed to Venantius Fortunatus. You don't have to go far to find one that's missing in our hymnals: here is verse 2 of the original:

Confixa clavis viscera
Tendens manus, vestigia,
Redemptionis gratia
Hic immolata est hostia.

Roughly this means "His innards were pierced through with the nails, stretching out his hands, his feet, for the sake of redemption he here was sacrificed as victim."

However if we thought that was the missing verse we're going too fast, because the last two verses of the Latin text are also not in the translation. In fact what we get in the EH and the NEH is only five of eight verses written by Venantius Fortunatus (530-609), with two extra verses that form the doxology which were apparently added (in Latin) by someone else a bit later. You can find the whole of it (ten verses, including the two that are not by VF) here along with the translation (of selected verses) by Walter Kirkham Blount (d 1717), which Michael Martin there suggests is considered to be the best one ever done. As you'll see, the three unfamiliar verses don't appear in Blount's translation either. So what we got in Bury St Edmunds was a bit more of what Venantius F wrote. However, since I don't have the service sheet with me I can't tell you exactly which other verse we got (but probably one of the last two judging by where it came in the hymn).

Not something to complain about, it seems to me. The more the merrier, I say.

PANGE LINGUA

Ian Robins observed to me today that the New English Hymnal has a mistake in the Latin at the headings of both the Pange Lingua hymns.

That is

Hymn 78 (Sing my tongue the glorious battle) is headed pangue lingua gloriosi proelium certaminis


and

hymn 268 (Of the glorious body telling) is headed pangue lingua gloriosi corporis mysterium.

Since when was the verb pangere (to compose or write verses) written with a u? Or since when was its second person imperative form written with a u? I am not aware of any verb that has such a form.

The title of the tune is correctly written PANGE LINGUA in both cases.

Does any detective have a way of discovering how this new corruption arrived in the NEH?