O Come, O Come, Emmanuel
The ancient Advent hymn’s sabbath shape
In the weeks leading up to Christmas, we commonly sing carols celebrating the holiday as if it were already here. “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” is different in that it is properly an Advent hymn, a carol sung in anticipation of the feast to come. It’s a Latin hymn — “Veni, Veni, Emmanuel” — with ancient roots, going back to before the Great Schism. There was a tradition at the monastery where I lived years ago of singing it in the evenings during the Nativity Fast, after Compline during the veneration of icons. The church would be dark except for the light of the lampadas, and the melody and the words of the music, sung at the gentle pace of weary monks, struck right to the heart, putting you directly in the mindset of all the righteous ones of old who longed to see the birth of the Messiah but hadn’t yet. We knew all the verses of the hymn by heart (or at least most of them), but we sang them informally, not knowing in what order they should go. Our transitions between verses could get sloppy. Meanwhile, the contents of the lyrics were very suggestive to me of a specific pattern. The abbot blessed me to research it.
You’ll find the verses listed in different orders in different places, which is a little surprising once you learn there is definitely a right answer to the question. I found the definitive order of the verses and the explanation of it on a website the address of which doesn’t exist anymore — this had to be sixteen or seventeen years ago. I copied the text, though, and have kept it all this time; searching for it today, I find it on this page (under the tab “Programme notes”). I’ll save you the click (and scroll and click) by reproducing it here:
Veni, Veni, Emmanuel (O Come, O Come, Emmanuel) is one of the oldest Advent hymns still in regular use among most Christian denominations. The original text is based on the ninth-century “O” Antiphons. These were seven antiphons sung one per night in the week preceding Christmas. The name refers to the opening words of each antiphon: “O Sapienta” (Wisdom); “O Adonai” (Lord of Might); “O Radix Jesse” (Root of Jesse); “O Clavis David” (Key of David); “O Oriens” (Light of the East); “O Rex gentium” (King of Nations); “O Emmanuel” (Deliverer). The initials form an acrostic — S-A-R-C-O-R-E — which, read backward, is “Ero cras” (I will be there tomorrow), referring to Jesus’ arrival on Christmas Day in response to the petitions of the verses.
By the thirteenth century, five of the antiphons had been paraphrased into the Latin hymn “Veni, Emmanuel.” A refrain was added as well, “Gaude, Gaude, Emmanuel; Nascetur pro te, Israel” (Rejoice, Rejoice, Emmanuel; Shall come to thee, O Israel), the repetition of text being somewhat unusual for Gregorian chant. The music is a plainsong, probably dating from the same time, documented in a two-voice form as part of a fifteenth-century processional found in a French nunnery. The tune is a modal chant, often performed in its two-voice version. Like most early antiphons, the melody is primarily syllabic, with a very even rhythm, and moving within a limited range, the largest interval being a fourth.
The hymn gained widespread use with a four-part harmonization and English translation, published in the 1850s by Thomas Helmore and John M. Neal. Neal was a translator of several hymns, while Helmore revived the use of Gregorian chant in Anglican services. In modern performances, the addition of an organ accompaniment serves to magnify the words of the refrain.
The acrostic spelling of “Ero cras” backwards is fascinating, as if the Baby Jesus is employing “chiastic causality” in sending a message back one week in time, letter by letter, starting with E for Emmanuel. But by the time in my life when I read this, I had already learned from the Pentateuch what I wrote about in “The Cosmic Chiasmus,” and moreover, I had learned from the Psalms the octave shape I’m attempting to write about now. Nothing could have satisfied me so much as telling me the verses were originally spaced out over a week. Indeed, the correct order of the verses, confirmed by the acrostic, are exactly as I would have arranged them. Here is the monastery’s preferred translation, arranged in octave format:
That seventh and final verse (marked Ζ., the Greek numeral for 7) is of course the first one anyone knows. That’s where the title of the song comes from, and that’s the one everyone sings first, at least nowadays. In the monastery, indeed, we would sing that one first, with the refrain (the refrain is repeated after each verse, but I’ll get to that). Then we’d start at the top and sing the seven verses, ending by repeating the “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” verse with refrain. It’s the shape of a sabbath week, so it makes sense to go full circle.
Now let me discuss how the verses fit the thematic pattern of the octave, starting with the first five verses, which conform to the cosmic chiasmus.
First (Α.), “Thou Wisdom from on high, / Who ord’rest all things mightily” is an image of creation, of genesis. It’s worth noting the Latin word translated as knowledge (see the Latin lyrics, with alternate English translation, here) is not scientia, the word used in the Vulgate for the tree of knowledge, but prudentia, prudence. There’s not a whiff of corruption yet, just immaturity, as with our foreparents before the fall.
Then (Β.), after genesis comes exodus — reference to Adonai on the top of Sinai giving the Law to the people in the majesty of glory (a more literal paraphrase from the Latin). Adonai is Hebrew, of course, the name for the Lord often used in the place of the unpronounceable Tetragrammaton, the name supplied to Moses so that the people of Israel languishing in Egypt would recognize him as the servant of their God. All of this is quintessential beta-imagery. The giving of the Torah both draws the people of God apart from the rest of the world and implies an apostasy had occurred in the past, making this necessary.
Next (Χ.) we encounter explicit paschal imagery the likes of which we would expect to find in the center of a cosmic chiasmus. The Rod of Jesse — that is, the Root of Jesse — is a reference to a prophecy in Isaiah 11. Jesse is the father of David, so it’s a messianic prophecy. The sevenfold Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon this “Root”, and “to it shall the Gentiles seek.” Insofar as this is tree imagery, it prefigures the Cross, and accordingly, rescue from the abyss ensues as a result. Now, the Latin here is the trickiest to translate of all the verses, and you’ll find a variety of English versions. I am very fond of this blogger’s attempt at a literal rendition that is still poetic, if not lyrical: “Come, O branch of Jesse, / your own from the talon of foe, / your own from the caves of hell / and from the caverns of the abyss draw forth.” It’s extremely paschal, no matter how you paraphrase it.
Fourthly (Ο.), we advance a generation from the Root of Jesse to the Key of David. In Latin the “heavenly home” that the key is to open is regna caelica, “heavenly kingdoms”, recalling Matthew 16:19, when Jesus gives Peter the keys to the kingdom of heaven. This ecclesial imagery, making “straight” — or as the Latin says, making “safe” — “the way that leads on high,” chiastically corresponds with Adonai’s dangerous majesty atop Sinai experienced on the other side of the paschal abyss. “And close the path to misery,” the verse concludes; but where we have misery, Latin has inferum, hell. This life of virtue signaled by the opening of heaven and closing of hell is what we are called to in the Church. Christ is the Key of David that makes that possible.
Finishing the chiastic portion of the octave (Ω.), we call for the “Oriens” to come, the Dayspring from on high. The dawn of a new day, dispelling the clouds of night and the dark shadow of death, symbolizes the advent of both heaven and earth’s renewal, to occur upon the general resurrection when death shall be no more. This is the fulfillment of the creation that Wisdom orders mightily in the beginning — it’s the Omega to the Alpha.
Hence goes the five-day work week. Every sabbath week consists of its days of work followed by its transformative triadic weekend hinging on the Sabbath rest. From the days of work we glean an objective knowledge of the pattern of the world from alpha to omega. But it remains for us to become subjective participants in theosis. Heaven and earth are bequeathed a stable identity, and the fivefold chiasmus is a stable structure symbolizing that identity of creation which is maintained throughout theosis. But theosis is about change; it’s about becoming something that you’re not — even while you maintain the identity of what and who you are. That process of change, the holy fathers have taught us, is threefold, and it follows the pattern of Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, or purification, illumination, and perfection.
First thing after the chiasmus, then (Ϛ.), we call on the King of Nations to save us. Now, I have to admit, everything in the version of this verse that we sing — besides the words “Come”, “Nations”, and “all” — is original to the English. The Latin translates literally as “Come, come, King of Nations, / Come, Redeemer of all, / that Thou mayest save Thy servants / who are conscious of their sin.” That said, the English is wonderful: “O come, Desire of Nations, bind / in one the hearts of all mankind; / bid Thou our sad divisions cease / and be Thyself our King of Peace.” Okay, so we do come around to translate Rex (King), but not until the last line. Translating lyrics is hard! But I think thematically, both versions are saying the same thing here. The idea that there are nations, plural, already implies the divisions at the Tower of Babel by which they came about. And the idea that Emmanuel is Redemptor omnium, the Redeemer of all, implies that in Him national divisions are overcome and true peace is made available. Every word of either version implies purification. The division of the nations came about historically through the passions, through sin. We are conscious of this sin, and identifying ourselves as servants, we look for salvation from our King. In lieu of calling Him king in the first line, in English we call Him “Desire of Nations,” and this too points to the proper orientation of the passions. As Friday comes before Saturday, this purification of the passions is necessary for the illumination that comes next.
Next (Ζ.), the Sabbath arrives, the seventh verse, the eponymous verse of the song. The lyrics here present the greatest mystery the ancient hymn has to offer. Israel lies bereft, captive, in mourning, in exile. The last line says, “Until the Son of God appear,” but the Latin has, more desperately, “deprived of the Son of God,” piling on Israel’s misery. That deprivation, of course, contrasts with the longed-for Emmanuel, the one prophesied to be born of a virgin, whose name means “God [is] with us” (see Is. 7:14, Matt. 1:23), the one to whom we are calling, “O come, O come.” The Messiah’s absence, which is God’s absence (so called), indicates God’s rest from creation, and His blessing. It may not be intuitive at first to learn that the Sabbath rest and the spiritual stage of illumination are symbolically related. Illumination is St. Dionysius’s term; St. Maximus is wont to call it natural contemplation (theoria). By it (not without purification), one perceives God in creation, the “inner essences” of created things, as the English Philokalia translates the logoi, which St. Maximus identifies with the Logos, God. The logoi are God resting in His creation, illumining it. Or rather than calling it rest, we can call it activity. On the Sabbath, God rests from the work that He began to do, i.e., His creation; He does not rest from the work that He does not begin to do, i.e., His beginningless energies. We participate in this beginningless activity of God when we, of our own created nature, hollow ourselves out in yearning for our Creator — the very Logos who so selflessly empties Himself into us. When our nature indicates our Creator by way of egoless yearning, this itself is the energy of God operating within us. This divine energy, returning to the God from which it proceeds, is the blessing of the Sabbath, and its sanctification.
And it leads to perfection, the deification of creation, symbolism of which the original antiphons leave for Christmas the following day, not daring to utter its eighth-day mystery, only suggesting it through the power of anticipation.
The refrain added by the thirteenth century, however (Η.), stands in for that eighth element, calling on Israel already to rejoice, confirming that indeed, “Emmanuel shall come to thee,” or as the Latin says, “Emmanuel shall be born for thee.” Appropriately, and beyond beautifully, this completion of the octave is woven throughout all the verses, even as the activity of God that runs through all creation from the beginning is already the timeless eighth day for which we long. Though it may not have been revealed to us before, the life of the world to come is something that has yet always been present with us. For God has always loved us. God is love, and God is with us. In truth, the Nativity of the Christ is the revelation of the lamb slain before the foundation of the world. Noel! Merry Christmas!
Beautiful. Not sure why I thought of this in connection with this post, but have you read/have any thoughts about the poem by St. Nikolai, Prayers by the Lake?