Immortal, invisible, God only wise

with
ST. DENIO

I. Text: Origins and Development

The author of this hymn, Walter Chalmers Smith (1824–1908), was at the time pastor of the Free Tron Church, Glasgow (1862–76), within the Free Church of Scotland. He was an avid poet, although most of his poems were not written for public worship as hymns. Most of his hymns were published in Hymns of Christ and the Christian Life (London: MacMillan & Co., 1867). “Immortal, invisible, God only wise” was originally given in six stanzas of four lines, headed “Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, &c.” from 1 Timothy 1:17.

Much of the success of the hymn is owed to its adoption by W. Garrett Horder (1841–1922) into Congregational Hymns: A Hymnal for the Free Churches (London: Elliot Stock, 1884 | Fig. 2). Smith’s original text was metrically irregular, so this printing included adjustments to make it suitable for singing. The most significant change was made in the third stanza, from “Thy blossom and flourish only are we” to “We blossom and flourish as leaves on the tree.” Notice also the different rhyme of the final two lines of stanza 6. Horder appears to have been unable to suggest a suitable alternative to the construction of the last two lines of the fifth stanza, where Smith wrote too many syllables rather than too few.

In his instructive book, The Hymn Lover: An Account of the Rise and Growth of English Hymnody (1889, rev. 1895), Horder gave some insight into his experience with Smith’s hymns:

In 1867, Dr. Smith published a small volume, Hymns of Christ and the Christian Life, and though he afterwards regretted its publication, it contains fine materials, which only need revision and slight alterations to render their metre correct, to make noble hymns for worship. Two of these were subjected to this at my request by Dr. Smith, and included in my Congregational Hymns. They have already become favourites in the churches in which that collection is used.[1]

The two hymns mentioned above were “Immortal, invisible, God only wise” and “Lord, God omnipotent.” From this account, Horder appears to say the hymns were altered by Smith. Horder also included Smith’s hymn in Worship Song (London: Novello, 1905 | Fig. 3), where it was given pride of place as the first hymn, set to OLRIG GRANGE, newly composed for that hymnal by John Frederick Bridge (1844–1924), who at the time was professor of music at the University of London. The tune was named after Smith’s 1872 poem.

Here, the original fourth stanza was omitted. Given the extra syllables in the text in the fourth stanza as printed, the beginnings of the third and fourth musical phrases include corresponding accommodations. The reasons for the alternate notes in the second full measure are less clear.

The text of the hymn as it is most commonly transmitted was edited by Percy Dearmer for The English Hymnal (Oxford: University Press, 1906 | Fig. 4). This version escapes the syllabic conundrum of the penultimate stanza by combing the first two lines of that stanza with the first two lines of the last. In this way, the text could also be set musically without visual and mental gymnastics. In this hymnal, Smith’s text was paired for the first time to the Welsh tune ST. DENIO (more on the tune below).

II. Text: Analysis

Smith’s hymn is an expansion of the Apostle Paul’s doxology in 1 Timothy 1:17, conveying some of God’s grander and less tangible attributes. As Albert Edward Bailey put it, “One might say that the hymn is a rather florid attempt to express the inexpressible, and so rather a stimulus to the imagination than a clarifier of thought or an incentive to action.”[2] At the same time, the hymn is rooted in scriptural ideas, making it both lofty and doctrinal.

The idea expressed in 1 Timothy 1:17, of God the invisible, is continued in 1 Timothy 6:16, describing Christ, “who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see” (ESV). The name “Ancient of Days” refers to Daniel 7:13–14, which again describes a glorious vision of the coming Christ, presented before God the Father:

I saw in the night visions,
and behold, with the clouds of heaven
    there came one like a son of man,
and he came to the Ancient of Days
    and was presented before him.
And to him was given dominion
    and glory and a kingdom,
that all peoples, nations, and languages
    should serve him;
his dominion is an everlasting dominion,
    which shall not pass away,
and his kingdom one
    that shall not be destroyed.

In the second stanza, the notion of a God who never rests is reflected in Psalm 121:4 (“he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep,” NIV), or framed as a mighty ruler who is always watching, see Psalm 66:7 (“we rejoice in him, who rules by his might forever, whose eyes keep watch on the nations,” ESV). Regarding the first two lines of the second stanza, literary scholar Anthony Esolen observed:

Notice how the first two lines of this stanza echo one another and the first two lines of the opening stanza: The immortality and invisibility of God are related to His being both unresting—He is always in act—and unhasting—He is always at rest, never hurried. He is a God of exuberant abundance—He is not wanting—yet all things work together in His providence—He is not wasting. The paradoxes are brilliantly expressed in the rhymes: God is as silent as light; and yet He rules in might.[3]

Esolen saw the last two lines of the second stanza as possibly coming from Isaiah 55.8–11:

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
    neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so are my ways higher than your ways
    and my thoughts than your thoughts.
For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
    and do not return there but water the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
    giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
    it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
    and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it (ESV).

Pastor Robert Cottrill saw those same lines as coming from Psalm 36.5–6:

Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens,
    your faithfulness to the clouds.
Your righteousness is like the mountains of God;
    your judgments are like the great deep (ESV).

J.R. Watson, in the Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology, has noted how the lack of punctuation in the last two lines creates some ambiguity in the grammar, which often has to be resolved by editors.

The third stanza appeals to 1 Timothy 6:13 (“God, who gives life to all things,” etc.). The last two lines allude to passages such as Isaiah 40:8 (“The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever,” ESV) or Psalm 103:15–18, or Hebrews 1:10–12. The fourth stanza, typically omitted from hymnals, carries on the idea of the timelessness of God, as in Hebrews 13:8 (“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever”) or Revelation 1:4/1:8/4:8 (“who was and is and is to come”).

In the fifth stanza, Smith has returned to the imagery of light. The name “Father of light(s)” comes from James 1:17. The angels veil their faces in front of the throne of God in Isaiah 6:2, but in the next two lines, the author asks God to remove the veil from our faces and hearts. This is discussed in some length in 2 Corinthians 3, pertaining to the glory of God and the spiritual condition of the Israelites (Jews):

But their minds were hardened. For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away. Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their hearts. But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit (ESV).

Regarding the sixth stanza, Albert Edward Bailey explained how God can hide in light, because it “reveals objects while it obscures its source.”[4] Finally, the hymn ends with a prayer for the glory of God to be manifested through Christ in the hearts of worshipers (Eph. 3:14–19).

Some scholars dislike or disapprove of the condensed final stanza from The English Hymnal. Lutheran scholar Gregory Just Wismar remarked, “After the hymn’s editing, the prayer that was to be on the lips of singers in the final stanza . . . is no longer expressed.”[5] The ever-outspoken hymnologist Erik Routley opined the overall abridgment of the hymn, insisting, “The theological set of the whole poem is so radically altered by this . . .”

Most readers will think they know this hymn, the work of another Free Kirk minister. But it never now appears as its author wrote it, and a closer look at it in its fuller form shows that it was by no means designed to be one of those general hymns of praise that the parson slams into the praise-list when he is in too much of a hurry to think of anything else but a hymn about the reading of Scripture. Just occasionally editorial tinkering changes the whole personality of the hymn; it has certainly done so here.[6]

Unfortunately, Routley did not explain what he felt was lost. If anything, the condensed version bookends the hymn competently by returning to the imagery of light.

III. Tune

ST. DENIO (JOANNA)

This hymn is most widely sung to the Welsh folk tune ST. DENIO, first paired this way in The English Hymnal (1906 | Fig. 4 above). The earliest known variant of the tune was published in Edward Miller’s Dr. Watts’s Psalms and Hymns, Set to New Music (London: 1800 | Fig. 5), paired with “Thy mercies, my God, is the theme of my song,” a hymn generally attributed to John Stocker.

Here, the tune was labeled “An old original Welsh melody never before printed,” and named ROWLANDS. Welsh scholar Huw Llewelyn Williams believed the tune might have been named after Daniel Rowlands (1713–1790), a Methodist evangelist in Wales, whose evangelistic meetings could have included the tune.[7]

In the Journal of the Welsh Folk Song Society, vol. 1, pt. 3 (1911), the editors presented three tunes of the same type, in which “the opening three-note phrase is either repeated or imitated, and correspondingly the first three words (or syllables) are repeated in the text.” The last of the three was “Can Mlynedd i ’Nawr” (“A hundred years from now”). The editors considered it to be an early form of JOANNA (ST. DENIO). It was transcribed from the manuscripts of John Jenkins of Kerry (1770–1829), now held in the National Library of Wales (NLW MS 1816D), and it is similar to the ROWLANDS tune as above.

Fig. 6. Journal of the Welsh Folk Song Society, vol. 1, pt. 3 (1911).

For another version of “Green gravel”—which has the same textual meter as “Immortal invisible” and could act as a substitute for ST. DENIO—see English County Songs (London: Leadenhall, 1893), pp. 26–27 (Google Books).

The version of the tune more closely following the shape of ST. DENIO first appeared in Caniadau y Cyssegr (1839 | Fig. 7), edited by John Roberts of Henllan. In this printing, the tune was called PALESTINA. Notice how the Welsh text by Morgan Rhys (1716–1776) has the characteristic repeated text, as described by the Welsh Folk Song Society. The first two notes of the last phrase were in a different order, outlining the triad 6–1–4 rather than 1–6–4.

In Welsh collections, the tune came to be known as JOANNA, some time before Thomas Levi’s Gweddiau teuluaidd (1864) or Daniel Evans’ Hymnau a thonau (1865), and it circulated as ST. DENIO as early as Thomas Jones’ Welsh Church Tune and Chant Book (1859). Regarding the name ST. DENIO, various proposals have emerged; the editors of the Irish Companion to Church Hymnal (2005) equated it with St. Deiniol (6th century), but it could similarly be a nod to the church parish of St. Denio Cilrhedyn in Carmarthenshire, Wales.

Analysts sometimes observe how the opening triad is unusual in the way it outlines the subdominant chord (IV) rather than the tonic (I). Percy Dearmer described it this way:

It is a straightforward tune, in triple time, which, however, gains a rather strange flavour from the impression, given by the 1st line, of its being in D-flat rather than A-flat, the G-natural [middle note of the second triad] feeling like a modulation; and, though the rest of the tune is most indubitably in the key, this initial effect seasons the whole melody.[8]

In addressing this harmonic sequence, Paul Westermeyer remarked, “That may be expected to snare a congregation, but by leading so naturally to the dominant and then to the tonic, the result is rather to increase the interest and engender a happy surprise.[9]

by CHRIS FENNER
for Hymnology Archive
11 September 2020
rev. 30 October 2020

Footnotes:

1. W. Garrett Horder, The Hymn Lover: An Account of the Rise and Growth of English Hymnody, 3rd ed. Rev. (London: J. Curwen & Sons, 1895), p. 277: Archive.org

2. Albert Edward Bailey, “Immortal, invisible, God only wise,” The Gospel in Hymns (1950), p. 456.

3. Anthony Esolen, Real Music: A Guide to the Timeless Hymns of the Church (2016), p. 256.

4. Albert Edward Bailey, “Immortal, invisible, God only wise,” The Gospel in Hymns (1950), p. 456.

5. Gregory Just Wismar, “Immortal, invisible, God only wise,” Lutheran Service Book Companion to the Hymns, vol. 1 (2019), p. 1203.

6. Erik Routley, An English-Speaking Hymnal Guide, rev. by Peter Cutts (2005), p. 88, no. 414; Erik Routley, A Panorama of Christian Hymnody (1979), p. 132.

7. Huw Llewelyn Williams, Taro Tant (1994), p. 64.

8. Percy Dearmer, “Immortal, invisible, God only wise,” Songs of Praise Discussed (Oxford: University Press, 1933), pp. 282–283.

9. Paul Westermeyer, Let the People Sing: Hymn Tunes in Perspective (Chicago: GIA, 2005), p. 213.

Related Resources:

Percy Dearmer, “Immortal, invisible, God only wise,” Songs of Praise Discussed (Oxford: University Press, 1933), pp. 282–283.

Albert Edward Bailey, “Immortal, invisible, God only wise,” The Gospel in Hymns (NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1950), p. 456.

Huw Llewelyn Williams, “Apêl y ceinciau gwerin: ar drywydd ‘Joanna,’” Taro tant: detholiad o ysgrifau ac erthyglau (Denbigh: Gwasg Gee, 1994), pp. 59–65.

Thomas A. Remenschneider & Alan Luff, “Immortal, invisible, God only wise,” The Hymnal 1982 Companion, vol. 3B (NY: Church Hymnal Corp, 1994), pp. 793–795.

Edward Darling & Donald Davison, “Immortal, invisible, God only wise,” Companion to Church Hymnal (2005), p. 6.

Robert Cottrill, “Immortal, invisible, God only wise,” Wordwise Hymns (18 Nov. 2011):
https://wordwisehymns.com/2011/11/18/immortal-invisible/

Gregory Just Wismar & Joseph Herl, “Immortal, invisible, God only wise,” Lutheran Service Book Companion to the Hymns, vol. 1 (St. Louis: Concordia, 2019), pp. 1202–1205.

J.R. Watson, “Immortal, invisible, God only wise,” Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology:
http://www.hymnology.co.uk/i/immortal,-invisible,-god-only-wise

“Immortal, invisible, God only wise,” Hymnary.org:
https://hymnary.org/text/immortal_invisible_god_only_wise