“What Child Is This?”
At Christmas, Christians around the world sing a question that followers of Jesus have been asking since his time on earth. The Nicene Creed provides one early answer. Another comes in another hymn: “O come, O come Emmanuel.” This carol derives from the “Great O Antiphons,” liturgical texts, nearly as ancient as the creed, which apply seven metaphors from Jewish tradition to Christ. Like the creed, they express the early Church’s understanding of the two natures of the Lord who is “with us.” But they also expand on the creed by associating Christ with God’s saving actions from Creation to Incarnation: He is not just “king,” but also wisdom that is the source of creation, the giver of the Law, “God with us.”
“Antiphons” are sacred sentences said or sung before and after a psalm or canticle such as the Venite, often pertaining to a season or occasion (see BCP, 43-44 or 80-82). These antiphons developed around the same time as the creed: Of uncertain origin and authorship, at least some antiphons may have been known to Boethius (d. 524) and Pope Gregory the Great (d. 604). At least by the eighth century, monastic houses began chanting a special series of them with the Magnificat at Vespers in the seven days leading to Christmas Eve, a practice adopted by many Anglicans at Evening Prayer or Evensong to this day.
The antiphons pray longingly for the coming One. But also, without ever mentioning his name, they help to define his being, by using metaphors — one might even call them verbal icons — each describing an aspect of Christ. Some relate to his divinity: Wisdom, Adonai, and (most explicitly) Emmanuel. Some apply to his human lineage: “Root of Jesse,” “Key of David.” Together, they reiterate the credal definition of his two natures, divine and human.
Originating in Jewish tradition, these metaphors depict Christ arising out of, and even embodying, the people of Israel, implicitly amplifying the credal statement that the Jesus who lived, died, and rose did so “according to the Scriptures.”
Above all, they inherently connect the coming One with God’s saving acts in creation, with Israel, and in the world. Notice their sequence (the verse of Hymn 56 is in brackets; note that it begins and ends with “Emmanuel”):
Sapientia/Wisdom, God’s creating force [2]
Adonai/Lord, giver of the law [3]
Radix Jesse/Root of Jesse [4]
Clavis David/Key of David [5]
Oriens/Rising Sun/Dayspring, hope of Israel [6]
Rex Gentium/King of nations/Desire of nations [7]
Emmanuel/“God with us” [1, 8]
In their traditional arrangement, the Latin initials of each in reverse order spell out ERO CRAS, “tomorrow I come.” In using one antiphon each day beginning on December 17, the sequence culminates on the eve of Christmas Eve with Emmanuel, “God with us.”
As our Prayer Book collects follow a particular format, so do the antiphons:
-
- The acclamation “O,” which a ninth-century liturgical scholar called an exclamation of “wonderment”;
- A Christological title or metaphor derived from Jewish tradition;
- An expansion recalling some aspect of salvation history;
- A plea for his coming that relates the metaphor to those offering the prayer.
For example, the first antiphon reads (as translated in the Church of England’s Common Worship),
-
- O
- Wisdom
- Coming forth from the mouth of the Most High, reaching from one end to the other mightily, and sweetly ordering all things:
- Come and teach us the way of prudence.
Each metaphor abounds in meaning. Consider the first, “Wisdom.” The Old Testament describes a quality bestowed by God upon a mortal like Solomon (1 Kgs. 3:3-14). But what God gives must be of God. Psalm 104:24, among many passages, attributes wisdom to the divine: “O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.” That verse connects wisdom with creation itself, as does Proverbs: “The Lord by wisdom founded the earth” (3:19a). As the antiphon states, it “come[s] forth from the Most High …. sweetly ordering all things.”
Thus it is cosmic in its embrace. As God’s creative force, wisdom holds universal power: “I came forth from the mouth of the Most High, and covered the earth like a mist. I dwelt in the highest heavens, and my throne was in a pillar of cloud. … Over waves of the sea, over all the earth, and over every people and nation I have held sway” (Ecclus. 24:3-4, 6). In the antiphon’s words, it “reach[es] from one end [of creation] to another.” (Note the hints of two other metaphors, Adonai in relationship to the exodus, and Rex gentium, king of all nations.)
Proverbs personifies this wisdom, and that personification is feminine: “She is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire can compare with her” (Prov. 3:15). This sophia (the Greek word for “wisdom”), “who has built her house,” beckons mortals: “Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. Lay aside immaturity, and live, and walk in the way of insight” (Prov. 9:1, 5-6). Moreover, God’s wisdom bears intimate and personal implications. As Proverbs again advises, “My child, … keep sound wisdom and prudence, and they will be life for your soul” (Prov. 3:21b-22a).
So how does this relate to Christ? Jesus, of course, showed characteristics that astonished his onetime neighbors: “Where did this man get this wisdom/sophia?” (Mark 6:2). Nicodemus recognizes Jesus as a “teacher who has come from God” (John 3:2); but is he a sage blessed with divine wisdom, or something more? Though modern biblical scholars debate where the Gospel of Matthew, in particular, lands on the issue, early Christian writers like Augustine had no doubt. “How is the Son not almighty, through whom all things were made, who is also the power and the wisdom of God, that wisdom about which it is written, ‘Being one, she can do all things’?” (Sermon 212.1). In short, Jesus doesn’t merely teach God’s wisdom; he embodies God’s wisdom. So the antiphon declares: Wisdom “came out of the mouth of the Most High.”
Augustine made another link: of Christ with creation, “through whom all things were made” — the same wording as the Creed’s. Gregory of Nyssa called Christ “the maker of all things” (“On Perfection”) reflecting both John’s prologue (“All things came into being through [the Word] … who became flesh and lived among us” [1:3, 14]) and Hebrews’ description of the Son “through whom [God] also created the worlds” (1:2b).
As patristic writers contemplated Jewish Scriptures as well as what they knew of Jesus, a consensus developed points expressed in the antiphon. Christ is Wisdom, emanating “from the mouth of the Most High” as the creative power that “reaches mightily from one end of the earth to the other,” and, as stated in Scripture, “order[s] all things” (Wis. 8:1; See also Prov. 8:22, 27, 29-31, and 3:19; Col. 1:15–20). This wisdom underlies all else, including the attributes of Christ that follow in later antiphons. Ambrose, for instance, called wisdom more dazzling than the sun, enhancing the significance of Christ as the “dayspring from on high” (“Duties of the Clergy” 2.13.64), the focus of the fifth antiphon, Oriens.
Like every metaphor of the antiphons, wisdom presents implications for Christians. “Teach us the way of prudence,” we pray, perhaps with discretion, foresight, and sheer good sense in mind, the everyday, heavenly wisdom that allows (among other things) discerning between good and evil as Solomon asked (1 Kgs. 3:9), bound by time yet based in eternity.
But this wisdom challenges assumptions. It can subvert what Paul called “the wisdom of the world” that really “is foolishness with God” (1 Cor. 3:19). When Pharisees asked Jesus if healing on the Sabbath was lawful (they presumed not), he responded with wisdom based in common sense yet radical in its understanding of the Law. As he said in another context, “The sabbath was made for humankind, not humankind for the sabbath” (Matt. 12:9-13; Mark 2:27). God’s wisdom contradicts human presumptions, then and since.
John the Baptist asked of Jesus, “Are you he who is to come?” (Matt. 11:3) In the antiphons, and the hymn that derived from them, we declare that he is: he who came at Christmas shall come again in glory, and meanwhile comes to us unceasingly. The O Antiphons convey seven ways the church understands the God who is “with us” in the person of Jesus Christ — and imply what those ways may mean for us. So, while tremendously appropriate for Advent, these ancient texts merit meditation in any season of the year. They provide a means to contemplate our Lord, to pray for his presence, and to challenge how we live by our faith in the One who came as child and reigns as Lord.
The Rev. Dr. David Cox is professor of history at Southern Virginia University.
Michael McLaughlin is program director for campus ministry at Grace Episcopal Church in Lexington, Virginia.