Veni Creator

Sing with the Understanding

G.R. Balleine (1954)

 

CHAPTER IV

VENI CREATOR

 

Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire

 

OF the old Latin hymns the most familiar is the Veni Creator, of which an abridged translation, "Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire," is found in almost every hymnal. No one has discovered who wrote it. It has been attributed to St. Ambrose, St. Gregory the Great, Charlemagne, and Rabanus Maur, an Archbishop of Mainz; but these are guesses based on no jot of evidence, and the first three are highly improbable. Like many other famous hymns from the Te Deum downwards we must label it "Author unknown." It first appears in manuscripts of the tenth century.

 

It was primarily a Whitsuntide hymn, used at Terce, the Office held at the third hour of the day, the time when the first disciples were filled with the Spirit, But for the last nine hundred years no Church Council or Synod has met, no Pope has been elected, no Bishop consecrated, no Priest ordained, no King crowned, without the singing of this hymn. Its use was by no means confined to the walls of churches. Joinville, when describing the departure in 1248 of Louis IX for the Crusade, says: "When the Priests embarked, the Captain made them mount to the ship's castle, and, as they sang the Veni Creator, the mariners set sail." When Joan of Arc marched out of Blois to relieve Orleans, Pasquerel, her Confessor, writes: "She made the Priests lead the march, and the soldiers followed, all singing Veni Creator." In the Middle Ages rubrics ordered the bells to be pealed, incense to be burnt, and the best vestments to be worn, whenever these words were sung.

 

In some French cathedrals flowers of varied colours were scattered from the triforium to illustrate how great is the diversity in the gifts of the Spirit, fragments of flaming tow were dropped, and flights of doves were released, all to impress on the people the importance of this appeal to the Holy Spirit.

 

When the English Prayer-book was compiled, the Reformers felt that they could not omit this historic hymn from the Ordinal, and their translation of it into English verse, "Come, Holy Ghost, eternal God," can still be found there. But this was far too long-winded. For example, it spins out three Latin words, which mean "Give peace now," into:

 

And help us to obtain

Peace in our hearts with God and man,

The best and truest gain,

Of strife and of dissension

Dissolve, O Lord, the bands,

And knit the knots of peace and love

Throughout all Christian lands.

 

Forty words for three! So, when the Prayer-book was revised in 1662 a conciser version was added, "Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire," which Bishop Cosin had made thirty-five years before for his Collection of Private Devotions. There are more than fifty fuller translations, of which the best known are Dryden's "Creator Spirit by Whose aid," and Robert Bridges' "Come, O Creator Spirit, come," both of which are in the English Hymnal.

 

If the old version was too wordy, Cosin made the opposite mistake. He entirely ignored some points in the Latin, and he packed the remaining thoughts so tight, that it is not easy, as we sing, to grasp their full meaning. Why, for example, does the hymn speak of "the anointing Spirit," and what are the "sevenfold gifts"? Let us look at some of these problems.

 

The first thing to do when we pray is to get into our minds some idea of the Person to Whom we are speaking. Who is this Holy Ghost Whom we are inviting to come ? The hymn recalls in a brief creed what we believe about Him. "Thou the Anointing Spirit art." Everyone in ancient days knew the meaning of anointing. The anointer summoned people to high and unexpected duties. Saul, a young farmer, was looking for lost donkeys, when Samuel "took a vial of oil and poured it on his head," and commissioned him to be King. When Saul proved a failure, Samuel "took the horn of oil and anointed" the shepherd-lad David. Elisha was ploughing, when Elijah passed and anointed him to be a Prophet, Elisha anointed the young soldier Jehu, and bade him seize the throne. And the hymn asserts that the Holy Spirit moves invisibly among men calling people to definite tasks. For everyone He has a call of some kind, a vocation.

 

But He does more than impose a task. God's call is God's enabling. In Bible days the anointing implied endowment with the power needed to accomplish the work. And the hymn asserts that the Spirit grants to those whom He calls His "sevenfold gifts." Medieval theology loved to tie its teaching into neat little bunches of sevens, the Seven Deadly Sins, the Seven Cardinal Virtues, the Seven Works of Mercy, and so on; and in a verse in Isaiah it found Seven Gifts of the Spirit. Four are mental: Wisdom, which is common sense in an uncommon degree, the opposite of Stupidity; Understanding, ability to see the reason for things, the opposite of Misunderstanding; Counsel, which the Whitsuntide collect calls "a right judgement in all things," and Knowledge, the opposite of Ignorance. The other three are moral: Ghostly (i.e. spiritual) Strength, the opposite of Back- bonelessness; True Godliness, Godlikeness, doing what God would do if He. were in our place; and Holy Tear, the opposite of shallow Flippancy.

 

There is more to follow. His "blessed unction" (i.e. anointing) confers "comfort, life, and fire of love," The word "comfort" has changed its meaning since Cosin wrote. In Latin fortis means "strong." So to "fortify" is to "make strong" and "fortitude" is "courage," and in Old English "comfort" meant "strength," The chronicler of St. Edmond's speaks of a schoolmaster who ' comforted his boys with the cane. ' In modern parlance he made them tough. How tough

those early Christians were! No tortures could turn them from their faith. And this toughness was one of the Holy Spirit's gifts.

 

And His anointing gives Life. Psychologists declare that most of us are only half alive. Our powers are only half developed. We could do far more than we imagine.

 

"Tis life of which our souls are scant.

Life, and more life, is what we want.

 

Our physical vitality, our mental vitality, our spiritual vitality are flagging. The Nicene Creed reminds us that the Holy Spirit is the "Giver of Life."  Another gift is "fire of love," We know that our duty is to love God and to love our neighbours. But we are also conscious that our love is woefully tepid. There is no fire, no passion in it, till the Spirit makes it glow. And the hymn adds one truth more: "Where Thou art Guide no ill can come." The Prayer-book teaches us to pray, ' Grant that Thy Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts." No one walks safer than those who in St. Paul's words are "led by the Spirit."

 

Here then is the Creed of the Holy Ghost laid down in this ancient hymn. Believing this we can now offer our prayers. The first is a startling one: "Our souls inspire. ' ' The Latin hymn had three petitions, ' Come! Visit! Fill!" Cosin compressed them into one arresting word, "Inspire." We know that the Prophets were inspired, the Evangelists were inspired, that holy men of old spake as they were inspired by the Holy Ghost; but can modern bank clerks, lorry driven, waitresses be inspired? Yes, says St. Peter, "the promise is to you and your children." The Spirit can breathe into your mind as He did into the mind of Amos the herdsman or St. John the fisherman.

 

And inspired men become seers. They see things to which others are blind. By nature we are shockingly short-sighted. We notice everyone's faults and never observe their good points. We overlook innumerable opportunities of getting and giving help. Even –when we see the surface of things we are sadly lacking in insight. So we pray: "Enable with perpetual light the

dullness of our blinded sight." We ask too for cheerful faces. We are responsible for what our faces say to other people. In one large firm of caterers the test applied to every would-be waitress is, Has she a pleasant smile? And God needs sunny-faced servants. Gloomy Christians are a libel on their Religion. "The fruit of the Spirit is joy." So we pray, "Anoint and cheer our soiled face." Then we can "serve the Lord with gladness"; and gladness is a form of service.

 

The next petition is, "Keep far our foes; give peace at home"; a life that never worries, that never gets entangled in squabbles, that maintains in every trial a perfect serenity of spirit. God, Who is "the Author of peace and Lover of concord," is the only Person Who can give us that delightful disposition.

 

And the last prayer is, "Teach us to know the Father, Son." Dryden translates this:

 

Give us Thyself, that we may see

The Father and the Son by Thee.

 

The words "of Both," so emphatically inserted in the last verse, are an echo of a theological controversy that was raging so fiercely, when this hymn was written, that it eventually caused the schism between the Eastern and the Western Church. The West declared that the Holy Spirit "proceedeth from the Father and the Son." The East preferred the phrase "from the Father through the Son. ' ' Into this obscure dispute we need not intrude. All branches of the Church agree that the only reliable evidence about God must come from God Himself, and the only available Source of information is the Holy Spirit. Our Lord's promise was, "He will guide you into all truth."

 

The plainsong tune to which this hymn has been sung for eleven hundred years is attributed to St. Notker the Stammerer, a Church musician of the ninth century. An early Life of him says that one night he was kept awake by a creaking water-wheel, that was working by jerks owing to a shortage of water. And, as he listened, "straightway he composed this sweet melody." And the hymn forms a good prayer for those who feel that their work lacks rhythm and regularity, because it has not behind it a sufficient flow of power. "Ye shall receive power after the Holy Ghost is come upon you."