Out of all the great sacred Christmas carols sung during this season, which traditionally extends all the way through the season of Epiphanytide and Septuagesima and ends on Candlemas, the day before Ash Wednesday, my personal favorite carol is “Adeste Fideles,” known in English as “O Come, All Ye Faithful.” Like other ancient hymns, the origins of this carol are mysterious, but the most likely explanation is that it was composed either by St. Bonaventure, by medieval Cistercian monks or by King John IV of Portugal, though a shared transmission between these sources is also plausible.
In the eighteenth century, the Catholic layman John Francis Wade, who had fled to France after the Jacobite uprising when Scottish Catholics attempted (unsuccessfully) to put Charles Edward Stuart, aka Bonnie Prince Charlie, on the throne of England, made a living as a copyist of musical manuscripts which he discovered in libraries. One collection, published in 1751, included the original four verses of the Latin carol; additional verses were added later but are rarely sung in modern renditions.
The Portuguese connection is strengthened by its having been sung at the Portuguese embassy in London, where the Duke of Leeds heard it in 1795 and referred to it as the “Portuguese Hymn.” This embassy is now the oldest Catholic church in England, operated by the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. The most famous English version derives from a translation by Fr. Frederick Oakeley in 1841, while the tune has various attributions including Wade himself, Handel and others.
The text of the carol is thoroughly Catholic, essentially combining themes from Scripture and the Nicene Creed, including Christ’s consubstantiality with the Father and Holy Ghost in the Trinity (“God of God, light of light… Very God, begotten, not created”) and the “Gloria, gloria in excelsis Deo” sung by the “choirs of angels” and “citizens of Heaven above” to the shepherds on Christmas. Additionally, the hypostatic union of the Incarnation is mentioned (“Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing!”) and there is also an implicit reference to the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, whose sinless womb Christ “abhors not,” providing Him a perfect ark of holiness through which to bring salvation to the world.
A carol borne from the beating heart of medieval Christendom, then promulgated by a Catholic fleeing persecution in his homeland during the Protestant Revolution and finally translated, ironically, by an English Catholic priest, is most fitting for Christmas, when Christ, hounded to His death from the very beginning and rejected by His own people, is now worshipped by those who killed Him, by whose brutal instrument of crucifixion He chose to conquer sin and death forever.
O come let us adore Him, Christ the Lord!
Latin lyrics:
Adeste fideles læti triumphantes,
Venite, venite in Bethlehem.
Natum videte
Regem angelorum:
Venite adoremus (3×)
Dominum.
Deum de Deo, lumen de lumine
Gestant puellæ viscera
Deum verum, genitum non factum.
Venite adoremus (3×)
Dominum.
Cantet nunc io, chorus angelorum;
Cantet nunc aula cælestium,
Gloria, gloria in excelsis Deo,
Venite adoremus (3×)
Dominum.
Ergo qui natus die hodierna.
Jesu, tibi sit gloria,
Patris æterni Verbum caro factum.
Venite adoremus (3×)
Dominum.
Fr. Oakeley’s English translation:
O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant!
O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem;
Come and behold Him
Born the King of Angels:
O come, let us adore Him, (3×)
Christ the Lord.
God of God, light of light,
Lo, he abhors not the Virgin's womb;
Very God, begotten, not created:
O come, let us adore Him, (3×)
Christ the Lord.
Sing, choirs of angels, sing in exultation,
Sing, all ye citizens of Heaven above!
Glory to God, glory in the highest:
O come, let us adore Him, (3×)
Christ the Lord.
Yea, Lord, we greet thee, born this happy morning;
Jesus, to thee be glory given!
Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing!
O come, let us adore Him, (3×)
Christ the Lord.
My favorite performance:
This information is SO valuable!
Thanks Kaleb. Going deep is such fun these days. Like in pickup football, when you are on a post pattern and the QB has a great arm.