Hymns of the Faith
“Of the Father’s Love Begotten”
A Presentation of
First Presbyterian Church
Jackson,
Mississippi
With
Dr. Ligon Duncan, Dr. Derek Thomas, and Dr. Bill
Wymond
Dr. Wymond: Good morning! This is “Hymns of the
Faith,” brought to you by Jackson’s First Presbyterian Church. The minister of
the First Presbyterian Church is Dr. Ligon Duncan. Stay tuned for “Hymns of the
Faith.”… Here with “Hymns of the Faith” now is Dr. Ligon Duncan.
Dr. Duncan: Thank you, Bill. This is Ligon
Duncan, and we’re here today with Derek Thomas to talk about Hymns of the Faith,
and we are going way back in the church’s history to a hymn that would have been
composed in Latin, Derek, in the fourth century, and in the wake of one of the
great controversies in the history of the church. I’m often struck by how
fruitful controversy was both for doctrinal formation and for the enrichment of
our worship through hymns and creeds and language which has supplied the church
with material for affirming its faith and for explaining its faith, and for
singing its faith.
This hymn in English was translated by John Mason
Neale back in the nineteenth century, and then heavily edited by Henry
Baker, who had a reputation for being a very (I’m told) autocratic editor,
but a very good one. His editions have held up well. Henry Baker eventually
edited a hymnbook, Bill, called Hymns Ancient and Modern, which became a
standard in the Church of England from the late nineteenth century into the
twentieth century, and I think there still continue to be editions of Hymns
Ancient and Modern produced by the Church of England. I’ve got a couple of
editions myself. I love those hymnbooks and the riches that they contain. But
just so that folks have this tune in their minds — they’ll associate it with
Christmastime — Of the Father’s Love Begotten is the name of the
hymn in its English translation. Bill, would you just play through once this
beautiful plainsong?
Dr. Wymond: What I think I’m going to do is to play
it just as a single melody because that’s the way it was sung for hundreds of
years, and only more recently set with a harmony. So I’ll do it just the melody.
[Plays.]
Dr. Duncan: There’s a lot to talk about this song
with regard to both the text and the translators, and I want to do that with you
in a minute, Derek.
But, Bill, I love listening to this tune. I love
singing the tune because I’ve sung it a lot over the years in choirs. Our
congregation struggles a little bit sometimes singing this. Maybe you could tell
us a little bit about plainsong chant and how it was done, and why this might be
a little bit challenging for some congregations to sing.
Dr. Wymond: Well, the challenge of this particular
song set in this plainchant way is that it does not have a regular
rhythmic pattern, and that bothers people! They want four counts to a
measure on everything, and this has different counts to the measure.
The wonder of plainsong is, first
of all, it has such ancient roots that you can actually trace back to the tunes
of Christ’s time that are preserved in some of the Jewish writings, melodies
that were taken on by the church in Gregorian chant and later were adopted in
the plainchant, and so they’re very ancient.
If you want to have an idea of
what the early church may have sounded like when they were singing a hymn, you
can play some of these Gregorian or plainchant tunes and get an idea of what the
tunes were like. The thing that is so nice about it is that the tune tends to
follow the text, and as it rises and falls then you get the emphases that the
text would have, and the tune does not get in the way of the text.
And they’re really not hard to
sing — at least this one is not. As you add a harmony to it you can affect a
rhythm a little bit and make it easier to sing. With harmony it goes [plays]….
The harmony falls on the stronger beats, and so that helps the
congregation to be able to sing it, I think, a little bit. It’s sort of
interesting when this hymn did first appear — actually, it was around for a long
time. It was in Italian and German songbooks, but it was actually not adapted to
this text until about the middle of the nineteenth century. And when it was
in Hymns Ancient and Modern, it was given a regular beat so that it
was like a traditional hymn and it went like this… [plays]…
Dr. Thomas: And all of a sudden it sounds very
English.
Dr. Duncan: Oh, it’s true, it does!
Dr. Wymond: All of the life, though, for me, is
taken out of it when you do that. And a congregation can learn just about
anything, ultimately. Some of the gospel hymns we sing are really not easy, so
it just takes a lot of exposure.
Dr. Duncan: That’s true.
Dr. Thomas: Well, plainsong or plainchant as well
as Gregorian chant in classical music CD sales consistently top the charts. Now
to have a chart in classical music, it sounds a little odd — but you go to
almost any site on classical music and see what’s selling at the minute. There
are these groups of monks from Spain…a couple of them in particular have been on
the top of the charts for the last three or four years. So they sell in large
quantities, sung of course in that very open-spaced, echo-y surrounding. And you
can hear the sort…of monks singing that tune.
Dr. Duncan: Right. Well, it lends itself to
the hard surfaces and to the long sort of echo down the nave, because the simple
melody doesn’t get in the way of itself with the long reverberations.
I’m sure there was a philosophy, Bill, behind the
utilization of that kind of a style. Presumably in singing something that
doesn’t have a steady number of beats per measure and such, it would lend itself
to different utilization of non-standardized meters within the phrases or the
lines, so that you could have sung a complex Psalm up and down to those.
But can you tell us a little bit more about what was
the logic behind using plainsong? We know that it would have been utilized in
the worship services from very early on, and into the high Middle Ages. What was
the philosophy behind using that kind of a style?
Dr. Wymond: Well, I think actually it was not so
much a philosophy, it was just a practice because that’s the way melodies used
to be. They didn’t have the kind of meter that we later superimposed upon
them. The whole idea of strict meter is a late kind of invention that
didn’t come in until, say, the 1300-1400’s, somewhere around there.
Dr. Thomas: So pause lines would be whatever your
breath could take? Presumably at some point you have to pause to take a breath,
so…
Dr. Wymond: I think probably so, yes. And then
sometimes the text probably dictated a pause as well. So the church just took
what was there. You’ve said it yourselves, too – the church was ambivalent
about singing in the early days because in the pagan religions music was used in
a very bad way, and so the church was cautious about the use of music, period,
because they didn’t want to have anything that was associated with pagan
religion.
The early church fathers all
talked about that, up through about the 300-400’s. And then as they just adopted
the tune styles of the day, it was just a natural thing. And this just prevailed
until people got more sophisticated in their music experimentation in secular
music, and then that came into the church again in about the thirteenth century,
somewhere around there.
Dr. Duncan: So, early on, then, Bill, as churches
began to build purpose-built space for worship, what would have been typical for
congregational involvement in singing? I know that for instance the Arians were
big on creating little ditties for their people to sing. I don’t know whether
that was designed to be done more publicly or whether it was designed to be
private, or whether it was to be done in public but not in worship, or public in
worship. I know that they tended to …early on they were building rounder rooms,
and then later they built longer rooms and such. I don’t know how early on…you
said that this tune wasn’t associated to this text until later, is that the
case?
Dr. Wymond: Not until the middle of the nineteenth
century with this particular text, but the tune was associated with other
religious texts before that. We just don’t have that particular association. So
it was — what? — about 325 and after that the buildings of the church started
appearing because the religion became legal in the Empire, and it’s interesting
that a little bit earlier than that we had had these controversies where the
Arians and others were making up ditties to use as propaganda for their
philosophy. But also as the development of the mass as something to be
observed by the congregation and practiced by the clergy occurred, you probably
had a decrease in singing in the church anyway, so that by the 600’s when
Gregory started collecting the chants for Gregorian chant, most of these were
sung by clergy and by the monks and so on like that.
Dr. Duncan: So the clergy and the monks’ choir
then would sort of sing this for the congregation. The congregation wouldn’t
necessarily be…so that would explain why they could do things that are a little
bit more melodically complex and without the rhythm, because they would have
been practicing them during the week and then be doing them during the various
services of the mass that would have been done as the week rolled on.
But this text is clearly designed, Derek, to
respond directly to the kinds of assertions that were made by the Arians during
the Arian controversy in the early part of the fourth century, the late
200’s-early 300’s.
Talk a little bit about the doctrine of the Trinity
and the doctrine of the deity of Christ and what was going on in this time frame
that would have made sense for a text like this to be written by an orthodox
Christian minister who was wanting to convey a biblical view of Christ and the
Trinity to his congregation.
Dr. Thomas: Well, of course the text is written
by this man, Prudentius — Aurelius Clemens Prudentius. A Spaniard, born in
348, so he has this Iberian background. And was at one point chief of the
imperial bodyguard of Emperor Honorius, which sounds impressive. And then in his
fifty-seventh year becomes a recluse in a monastery, in an unnamed monastery
somewhere, and then seemingly spends the rest of his life writing poems, sacred
poems and hymns, and dies in 413. So he lives right during or immediately after
some of the great creeds — The Nicene Creed…the Nicaeno-Constantinopolitan
Creed…
Dr. Duncan: You have the Council of Nicea that
meets in 325, and then you have the Council of Constantinople that meets in 381,
and during that time frame was a very fruitful time for the early church in
formulating church doctrine.
Dr. Thomas: Right, and was there anything ever
like that since? Where the major representatives of Christendom meet and agree
on a doctrinal statement on the doctrine of Christ, and Trinitarian
affirmations? And it’s unthinkable that anything like that could take place now.
Of course there were already the beginnings of schism between East and West and
some sharp disagreements on some aspects of this, but you’ve got in this hymn
just some wonderful, wonderful statements affirming the person of Christ in His
humanity and deity, but also couched in wonderful phrases are affirmations of
the doctrine of the Trinity. And you’ve got this important line of “things that
are and have been, and that future years shall see…who is and was and ever shall
be” and that three-foldness is a Trinitarian motif as you find in creeds and
hymns.
Dr. Duncan: Well, let’s take it sort of line by
line. One of the assertions of the Arians was that there was a time when the
logos was not; there was a time when God’s word incarnate, Jesus Christ, did
not exist. And the song begins immediately with an affirmation of His
eternality:
“Of the Father’s love begotten,
ere the worlds began to be,
He is Alpha and Omega, He the
source, the Ending He,
Of the things that are, that
have been,
And that future years shall see,
Evermore and evermore!”
So immediately in our English rendering via Neale and Baker
there is an affirmation that He is not a created being, He’s begotten and He’s
actually the source of everything. So that gets at one of the main affirmations
that the church made in the creeds.
Dr. Thomas: Yes, and the very first line is one
that still finds some contention in some places — the begottenness of the Son:
that there never was a time when the Son was not.
And in our world of course fathers always precede sons, so some balk at the idea
then of referring to the Son as being begotten. But even if you can get over
that aspect, one is still called Father and one is still called Son, so you’d
have to change the nomenclature of the Trinity, which of course some in the
church… But it seems to me that you can’t get by this. I mean, it’s stating for
us where the boundary lines are in this wonderful, wonderful affirmation of the
Trinity.
Dr. Duncan: The second stanza affirms the virgin
birth, and this is something that would not have been a controversy in the early
church. In fact, you wonder if it’s sort of the end of the line that’s being
emphasized — “…the world’s Redeemer, First revealed His sacred face” — there.
But it certainly has become a controversy in the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries, so I always like hymns that have us singing strong affirmations of
the virgin birth.
Dr. Thomas: Yes, and of course we’re on the edge I
suppose here on the reference to the virgin herself, “full of grace,” and Neale,
of course, the translator here, had Roman sympathies for sure. There’s nothing
wrong with the statement — absolutely nothing wrong with it. It has become one
of those statements around which…
Dr. Duncan: Well, let’s explain that. I mean,
Neale was a part of the Oxford Movement. We’ve talked about this several times
on “Hymns of the Faith” because so many wonderful nineteenth century English
hymn writers were at least sympathetic to the Oxford Movement, which was a high
church movement. Some of the members of the Oxford Movement eventually became
Roman Catholic, some stayed very high Anglicans and had a very high view of
sacraments and liturgy and such, and the reference to the virgin Mary full of
grace perhaps for some of them gave them a sense of biblical grounding for their
belief that Mary was immaculate, without sin. She was full of grace…grace to
bestow.
Dr. Thomas: The Roman affirmation of the
immaculate conception of Mary is late nineteenth century, which is the period of
Neale.
Dr. Duncan: Vatican I, in that time frame.
Dr. Thomas: Some of our listeners may think that
that has a long, long history, but in actual fact it doesn’t. It’s barely 125
years old, I think. I just love, though, the simplicity of the language:
“O that birth forever blessed,
when the Virgin, full of grace,
By the Holy Ghost conceiving,
bore the Savior of our race;
And the babe, the world’s
Redeemer,
First revealed His sacred face,
Evermore and evermore!”
And again you see those echoes of conceived by the Holy
Ghost, and the reference to The Apostles’ Creed perhaps influencing that
translation.
Dr. Duncan: Yes. Bill mentioned how sometimes
these tunes take us back to little snippets of things that would have been sung
amongst the Jewish people and others around the time of Christ, and I was struck
by how the third stanza takes us back to something that is explicitly part of
every example of the apostolic preaching in the book of Acts, and that is
the affirmation that Jesus’ birth is in fulfillment of Old Testament
prophecy, and specifically Old Testament messianic prophecy, and it’s
that beautiful stanza:
“This is He whom heav’n-taught
singers sang of old with one accord,
Whom the Scriptures of the
prophets promised in their faithful word;
Now He shines, the
long-expected;
Let creation praise its Lord…”
And so it’s an affirmation that Jesus’ birth is in
fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy, the prophecies of the Hebrew Bible have
come to pass in His birth.
Dr. Thomas: There are a couple of stanzas that
have been left out — and one can perhaps see why they were left out, sadly. One
of them is:
“He is found in human fashion,
death and sorrow here to know
That the race of Adam’s
children, doomed by law to endless woe,
May not henceforth die and
perish in the dreadful gulf below.”
And then another equally strong stanza was left out:
“Righteous Judge of souls
departed, righteous King of them that live,
On the Father’s throne exalted,
none in might with Thee may strive,
Who at last in vengeance coming,
sinners from Thy face shall drive.”
And those two stanzas…
Dr. Duncan: Powerful stanzas. They’d be worth
adding back in. The final stanza, Derek, gives a wonderful expression to the
doctrine of the Trinity. You want to walk us through the fifth stanza, as we
have it in our hymnal, that begins with
“Christ, to
Thee, with God the Father, and, O Holy Ghost…”?
Dr. Thomas: Yes, and we’ve said many times in
these programs how important the doctrine of the Trinity is, and beautifully
versified, I think, here:
“Christ, to Thee, with God the
Father, and, O Holy Ghost, to Thee,
Hymn, and chant, and high
thanksgiving, and unwearied praises be,
Honor, glory, and dominion,
And eternal victory,
Evermore and evermore!”
And I think that’s a wonderful way to begin a worship
service, with the doctrine of the Trinity, and especially the thought of singing
God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Dr. Duncan: Bill, let’s hear this wonderful hymn,
Of the Father’s Love Begotten.
“Of the Father’s love begotten
ere the world began to be,
He is Alpha and Omega, He the
Source, the Ending He,
Of the things that are, that
have been,
And that future years shall see,
Evermore and evermore!
“O that birth forever blessed,
when the Virgin, full of grace,
By the Holy Ghost conceiving,
bore the Savior of our race;
And the babe, the world’s
Redeemer,
First revealed His sacred face,
Evermore and evermore!
“This is He whom heav’n-taught
singers sang of old with one accord,
Whom the Scriptures of the
prophets promised in their faithful word;
Now He shines, the
long-expected;
Let creation praise its Lord,
Evermore and evermore!
“O ye heights of heav’n, adore
Him; angel hosts, His praises sing;
All dominions, bow before Him
and extol our God and King;
Let no tongue on earth be
silent,
Every voice in concert ring,
Evermore and evermore!
“Christ, to Thee, with God the
Father, and, O Holy Ghost, to Thee,
Hymn, and chant, and high
thanksgiving, and unwearied praises be,
Honor, glory, and dominion,
And eternal victory,
Evermore and evermore!”