Here’s a question. What ancient Christian hymn and popular Christmas carol contains a verse that is based upon a deueterocanonical book? No, it’s not Rudolf the Deuterocanonical Reindeer. It’s O Come, O Come, Emmanuel. The second verse is:
“O come, Thou Wisdom from on high,
Who orderest all things mightily;
To us the path of knowledge show,
And teach us in her ways to go.”
This verse is based upon Wisdom. 8:1, 3, which reads, “She [God’s wisdom] reacheth therefore from end to end mightily, and ordereth all things sweetly…For it is she [God’s Wisdom] that teacheth the knowledge of God, and is the chooser of his works.”
The words to this hymn come from the 12th century and it has found a home within many Protestant hymnals, which is no surprise since the Deuterocanon (or what Protestants call the Apocrypha) was once considered part of the Protestant Bible. As these books began to be disparaged and eventually dropped from Protestant Scripture, the hymn lived on. Today, most people sing this hymn without the slightest awareness that verse two comes from a book that once occupied a place in the Protestant Bible.
Keep this in mind next time you go caroling with non-Catholic Christians and use it as an opportunity to re-introduce them to one of the lost books of the Protestant Bible.
In case you forgot the melody, here is a link with music and lyrics.
http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/o/c/ocomocom.htm
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December 14, 2006 at 6:38 pm
Not a bad idea at all really. The Protestants have nothing against the Deutero-canonical books though, do they? It’s just that they don’t consider them holy writ. They think them worthwhile to read though, I think.
As for a passage from this part of the Bible appearing in a Christmas carol, this might bring them to read the Apocrypha, of course. But do we know whether their singing “Good King Wenceslas” has led to their reading Bohemian history?
I’m sorry if this sounds like I’m throwing cold water on your suggestion. I don’t want it to sound like this. It’s really not a bad one.
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