Savior of the Nations, Come

This coming Friday is St. Andrew's Day. Advent begins, according to tradition, "on the Sunday nearest." Soon, then we will break out the glorious Advent hymns, including Savior of the Nations, Come (number 263, for those of us suffering under the yoke of Evangelical Lutheran Worship).

Savior is a fine hymn, with a complicated history.  Its ultimate source is Ambrose of Milan's Veni, Remptor Gentium. No less than Martin Luther translated it into German, and his Nun Komm, der Heiden Heiland was appointed for the first Sunday of Advent, and therefore printed as the first hymn in most of the early Lutheran hymnals. It remains a favorite, at least among us Evangelicals.

Luther fiddled with his original, adding a stanza, and English translators (including Neale) have fiddled a bit more. You can find their work readily available in hymnals. For the record, though, we will offer the Latin and (medieval) German:

AMBROSE:

Veni, redemptor gentium,
ostende partum Virginis;
miretur omne saeculum:
talis decet partus Deum.

Non ex virili semine,
sed mystico spiramine
Verbum Dei factum est caro
fructusque ventris floruit.

Alvus tumescit Virginis,
claustrum pudoris permanet,
vexilla virtutum micant,
versatur in templo Deus.

Procedat e thalamo suo,
pudoris aula regia,
geminae gigas substantiae
alacris ut currat viam.

Aequalis aeterno Patri,
carnis tropaeo cingere,
infirma nostri corporis
virtute firmans perpeti.

Praesepe iam fulget tuum
lumenque nox spirat novum,
quod nulla nox interpolet
fideque iugi luceat.

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Sit, Christe, rex piissime,
tibi Patrique gloria
cum Spiritu Paraclito,
in sempiterna saecula. Amen.

LUTHER:

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Nu kom der Heyden heyland

der yungfrawen kynd erkannd.

Das sych wunnder alle welt

Gott solch gepurt yhm bestelt.

Nicht von Mans blut noch von fleisch

allein von dem heyligen geyst

Ist Gottes wort worden eyn mensch

vnd bluet eyn frucht weibs fleisch.

Der yungfraw leib schwanger ward

doch bleib keuscheyt reyn beward

Leucht erfar manch tugend schon

Gott da war yn seynem thron. 

Er gieng aus der kamer seyn

dem könglichensaal so reyn.

Gott von art vnd menscheyn hellt

seyn weg er zu lauffen eyllt. 

Seyn laufft kam vom vatter her

vnd keret wider zum vater.

Fur hynvndtern zu der hell

vnd wider zu Gottes stuel. 

Der du bist dem vater gleich

fur hynnaus den syegym fleisch

das dein ewig gotsgewalt

ynnvnns das kranck fleysch enthallt. 

Dein kryppen glentzt hell vnd klar

die nacht gybt eyn new liecht dar

tunckel muß nicht komen dreyn

der glaub bleib ymer ym scheyn. 

Lob sey Gottd em vatter thon

Lob sey got seym eyngen son.

Lob sey got dem heyligen geyst

ymer vnnd ynn ewigkeyt.

Now, it will be obvious to most readers that Ambrose is going after the Arians here, as well he might have considering the way they went after his flock. There is a strong emphasis upon the equality of the three Nicene persons. The Spirit has breathed the Word, and the Son is equal to the Father.

The unattributed version in ELW, which is only six stanzas long, has a great deal to accomplish: reflecting the ideas of two important poets, making it fit the familiar meter, and keeping it to a length attractive to modern congregations. It doesn't do a bad job, although we desperately miss the stanza that begins Aequalis aeterno Patri. It both makes the anti-Arian point, and describes the effect of the Lord's earthly ministry upon us human beings:

...The weakness of our mortal state

With deathlesss might invigorate. (Neale)

But the stanza that concerns us most is the third, dealing with the Blessed Virgin.  In ELW, this is:

Wondrous birth -- o wondrous child -- 

from his throne, a virgin mild!

Very God, and Mary's Son, 

eager now his race to run.

Now, for starters, we despise the frequent rhyme "Virgin mild." Mary is not mild in Luke's Gospel. The Magnificat is not the utterance of a sweet little nothing.  It is a declaration of holy war against injustice. If one must rhyme with "child," we think the only word for Mary is "wild."

That said, other translations of this hymn use the more timeworn "undefiled," which we freely admit  comes closer to St. Ambrose's original idea. And we recognize that several stanzas are being compressed into one here. But on the whole, this stanza is weak. Crudely translated, Ambrose says:

The Virgin's womb swelled;

The door of chastity remained and,

Virtue's flags waving,

Was turned into God's Temple.

That's quite a powerful set of images.  It combines the physicality of birth -- the swollen belly and miraculously intact hymen -- with the sort of waving military flags that, in later years and courtesy of Venantius Fortunatus, Christians would associate with Palm Sunday.  As much as Jesus marching to his death is a battle against death and hell, so too is his mother's pregnancy.

And bluntly put: Mary's uterus becomes God's Temple.

This is a stirring idea, utterly lost in our English version. It is also lost in Luther's. He says that "her chastity remained," and reminds us that Mary's body is the Lord's "throne." He's certainly working on the same idea, but, in our opinion, loses the graphic power of Ambrose.

Still, even watered-down, it is worth singing.  We hope you will.