Saint Ambrose of Milan, whose feast is today, wrote some very fine hymns. So fine were they that, though few, they earned for him the title, “Father of Latin Hymnody.” One of those magnificent works, it turns out, is an Advent hymn, the Veni Redemptor Gentium — which is fitting because Saint Ambrose’s feast always falls in during Advent.1
His feast is December 7 because that is the anniversary of his his episcopal consecration as Bishop of Milan in 374. His actual “birthday” — the day of his death, which is usually a saint’s feast day — was April 4, 397.
One can find both the original Latin of the hymn and good English translations of it at Thesaurus Precum Latinarum and WikiPedia.
Monsignor Charles Pope calls the Veni Redemptor Gentium the “Best Advent Hymn!” and holds it to be an example of theologically rich poetic writing because it sees Advent and Christmas in terms of the grand scheme of salvation.
As music, this particular jewel in Ambrose’s crown exists in its plainchant original, which is itself beautiful, noble, and worthy of our appreciation. Beyond that, the Veni Redemptor Gentium has also spun off various organum and polyphonic settings, chant settings with instrumental accompaniments, vernacular translations in German and English (the former emanating from the pen of the arch-heretic, Martin Luther!), and at least one subsequent fusion of the original chant with the more popular of those later vernacular hymn melodies. Johann Sebastian Bach, a musical genius but sadly an enthusiastic Lutheran heretic, employed the melody to Luther’s German version (Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland) in one of this lovely cantatas.
As poetry (in iambic tetrameter), the Veni Redemptor Gentium is expressive of deep theological truths; broad and expansive in its approach, it focuses not only on the Nativity, but also on Our Lord’s two natures as true God (consubstantial with the Father) and true Man; it even looks ahead and beyond to Jesus’ temporal mission, His Resurrection, Ascension, and eternal glory. Concerning that depth and breadth of theological scope, here are a few of Monsignor Pope’s thoughts on the piece:
Here we are in Advent and Jesus is coming. Get ready! Well, yes, but He’s not just coming; He’s redeeming, dying, rising, ascending, and reigning at the Father’s right hand! But how can you squeeze all of that into an Advent hymn? Well, just below you can read the text and see.
Full vision – For now, ponder the theological point that hymns like this make: no act of God can be reduced merely to the act in itself. Everything God does is part of His sweeping master plan to restore all things in Christ, to take back what the devil stole from us. Too often we see the events of our redemption in a disconnected sort of way. But it is all really one thing and the best theology connects the dots. It is not wrong for us to focus on one thing or another, but we must not forget that it is all one thing in the end.
Without this reminder, we can easily develop a kind of myopia that overemphasizes one aspect of redemption at the expense of others. In the 1970s and 1980s it was “all resurrection all the time,” but no passion or death.
Further on, the good Monsignor mentions how easy it is to get too sentimental about Christmas (largely, I would add, because of the maudlin secularized Christmas music — much of it written by non-Christians — to which we are subjected!). A remedy to that sentimentality is Saint Ambrose’s deep and broad theological vision.
At this point, I will present the words of one of the translations of the hymn. Following that, I have a bouquet of YouTube videos illustrating the musical development I traced above.
Come, thou Redeemer of the earth,
Come manifest thy virgin birth:
All lands admire, all times applaud:
Such is the birth that fits our God.Forth from his chamber goeth he,
That royal home of purity,
A giant in twofold substance one,
Rejoicing now his course to run.The Virgin’s womb that glory gained,
Its virgin honor is still unstained.
The banners there of virtue glow;
God in his temple dwells below.From God the Father he proceeds,
To God the Father back he speeds;
Runs out his course to death and hell,
Returns on God’s high throne to dwell.O Equal to thy Father, thou!
Gird on thy fleshly mantle now;
The weakness of our mortal state
With deathless might invigorate.Thy cradle here shall glitter bright,
And darkness breathe a newer light,
Where endless faith shall shine serene,
And twilight never intervene.All laud, eternal Son, to thee
Whose advent sets thy people free,
Whom with the Father we adore,
And Holy Ghost, for evermore.
Saint Ambrose’s original, by the way, had eight verses, the first being this:
Intende, qui regis Israel,
super Cherubim qui sedes,
appare Ephrem coram, excita
potentiam tuam et veni.
Which translates to:
Give ear, you who rule Israel,
you who sit above the Cherubim,
appear before Ephraim,
stir up your power and come.
Now for the music. Here is the plainchant original:
Here is another version of the plainchant, with some melodic variation, performed by a Hungarian group with interesting Latin pronunciation:
Here is a version that lends a fine string instrumental accompaniment to the chant, giving it a Renaissance ambiance:
Now we come to the heretical spin-offs. Here is a choral rendition of the German version by that concupiscible Augustinian Friar, Martin Luther (Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland):
Here is a popular English version of the Lutheran spin-off, the history of which is related here:
Here is J.S. Bach’s Cantata, based upon the version by Martin Luther. I’ve set the video below to start at the final part of the work, where the familiar melody is used as the cantata’s finale. This would be, I imagine, very stirring to Lutherans familiar with the hymn from their services, and I surmise that Bach meant it to be:
Lastly, here is an impressive setting by the contemporary British-Norwegian composer, Andrew Smith, who fuses together Ambrose’s original plainchant version with the German melody made famous by Bach:
