Missives

History of Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence

The Christian hymn "Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence" is among some of our oldest Christmas songs. Itââ'¬â"¢s based on a portion of the Liturgy of St. James, a customary repertoire ...

The Christian hymn “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence” is among some of our oldest Christmas songs.  It’s based on a portion of the Liturgy of St. James, a customary repertoire used in early NT worship, particularly before the Lord’s Supper.  It allegedly began out of the Jerusalem ministry of James half-brother of Jesus (Acts 21:17–19), but is more likely related to the work of Bishop Cyril of Jerusalem (circa 347 AD).  Extant manuscripts of this hymn date to the 7th, 9th and 12th centuries, written in places such as Mosul, Iraq. It was translated into multiple languages, especially Syriac, but also in Georgian, Armenian, and Ethiopian.

The Liturgy prepared congregations for partaking of the Lord’s Supper (e.g., references to Christ as being our “heavenly food”).  The hymn emerged into English during the Oxford Movement, a period when ancient Christian texts were translated into English from Greek and Latin. Gerard Moultrie (1829–1885), an Anglican minister and scholar, versified this section of the Liturgy, based on a prose translation published by J.M. Neale (see inset, below). His hymn appeared in the second edition of Lyra Eucharistica, a collection of communion hymns compiled and edited by Orby Shipley. Shipley’s goal in producing the collection was to correct a lack of available hymns on the subject, which he attributed in part to the way “the English Office for Holy Communion is not considered sufficiently elastic to allow of hymns, other than those which the Office itself already contains,” and thus, “it is only natural that such hymns from the Latin and from the Greek, as well as those of German and other origin, have been but rarely translated into English verse”.

Some hymnal editors omit or alter the second stanza, pointing to potential concern over the doctrine of transubstantiation in the line, “He will give to all the faithful His own self for heavenly food,” especially in relation to the preceding lines, starting with “Christ our God to earth descendeth.” The line itself does not espouse any particular doctrine or interpretation, being consistent with Christ’s own language, “This is my body, which is given for you”; see also Christ’s declaration “I am the bread of life” and the related discussion in John 6. The sense of supreme reverence in stanza one, the imagery of light and darkness in stanza three, and the picture of angelic worship in stanza four, draw from Bible passages.  The table below illustrates the hymn’s solid biblical roots.

Stanza

Scripture Reference

1

Habakkuk 2:20; Zechariah 2:13

2

Revelation 19:16; Luke 22:19-20

3

Matthew 16:27; John 1:5-9

4

Isaiah 6:2-3, Revelation 4

PICARDY, the tune generally sung with this text, first appeared in the French songbook, Chansons Populaires des Provinces de France. This French folk song was transcribed and arranged for piano by J.B. Wekerlin from Ms. Pierre Dupont, who learned it during her childhood in Picardy, France.  Famed composer Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958) was the first to pair this tune with Moultrie’s text in The English Hymnal, where Williams named the tune after Dupont’s childhood residence. The tune is regarded by some scholars as being from the 17th century.

Hymnologist J.R. Watson, in his Annotated Anthology of Hymns, describes it this way: “The hymn is a sublime command, and the invocation of silence adds emphasis to the awe-inspiring greatness of God which is signaled in this hymn. This is the opposite of those hymns which express the kindness and closeness of God (‘What a friend we have in Jesus’): here God appears in majesty and light, accompanied by the glory of the heavenly host. The Lord’s Supper is celebrated as an event in which this glory is given to the faithful.”

Who would have thought that a preparatory hymn for communion would become a richly treasured Christmas hymn? The word of God, when set to appropriate music, enjoys another medium to cheer God’s people down through the ages.

 

Sources: HymnologyArchive.com and Hymnary.org.

Like this? Consider sharing it to Facebook by clicking the linked icon below.

Visitor Comments (0)

Be the first to post a comment.