Ἀναστάσεως ἡμέρα

translated as
The day of resurrection
Come and let us drink of that new river
Thou hallowed chosen morn of praise

with
LANCASHIRE
ELLACOMBE
NEW RIVER
MACH’S MIT MIR, GOTT

I. Text: Greek Origins 

In the Greek tradition, a canon (or kanon) is a long hymn containing nine sections called odes. Each ode must relate to a song from Scripture in a set order: 

1. Song of Moses at the Red Sea (Ex. 15) 

2. Second Song of Moses (Deut. 32) 

3. Song of Hannah (1 Sam. 2) 

4. Song of Habakkuk (Hab. 3) 

5. Song of Isaiah (Is. 26) 

6. Song of Jonah (Jonah 2) 

7. Song of the Three Children (Dan. 3:26–56) 

8. Song of the Three Children (Dan. 3:57–88) 

9. Songs of Mary & Zachariah (Lk. 1) 

The first ode, relating to the crossing of the Red Sea, also carries with it a textual association with the Passover. Celebratory canons usually omit the second ode, which relates to the overwhelmingly negative second Song of Moses. John of Damascus (or St. John Damascene, c. 676–749) was a prominent contributor to this genre. After being raised in a wealthy family and serving in a high fiscal position in Damascus government, he resigned ca. 706 and is traditionally believed to have lived a life of monasticism at St. Sabas, which “stands on a lofty cliff overhanging the Kedron Valley about ten miles south-east of Jerusalem, and not far from the western shores of the Dead Sea.”[1] Modern scholars are less certain about his connection to St. Sabas; Andrew Louth asserted, “Even if we cannot be certain of his monastery, it is clear from rare autobiographical references in his works that John was a monk in one of the monasteries in or close to Jerusalem.”[2]

His best-known canon is for Resurrection Sunday, beginning “αναστάσεως ἡμέρα” (“The day of resurrection”). This is often called “The Golden Canon,” “The Paschal Canon,” or “The Queen of Canons.” This canon by John of Damascus includes eight odes, omitting the second ode, and therefore omitting any allusion to the Second Song of Moses. Each ode has a different poetic meter, and thus also a different melody. The first stanza of each ode is called the irmos, which sets the meter and melody, followed by additional troparia (stanzas) of the same type. The odes of this Paschal Canon are of different lengths, containing either three or four stanzas. The full Paschal Canon is shown here in an edition by W. Christ & M. Paranikas, Anthologia Graeca Carminum Christianorum (Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1871 | Fig. 1).

Fig. 1. W. Christ & M. Paranikas, Anthologia Graeca Carminum Christianorum (Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1871).

John Mason Neale (1818–1866), in his multi-volume History of the Holy Eastern Church (Fig. 2), translated all nine odes of the canon (minus the second, of course) as part of an account of a Greek vigil liturgy, apparently taken from a 1634 Venice edition of the Greek Pentecostarion, a service book intended to be used from Resurrection Sunday to All Saints Sunday (the Sunday after Pentecost). In this translation, the nine odes are interspersed throughout the liturgy.

In this edition, Neale also included an eyewitness account of such a vigil service in Athens, “beautifully described by a modern traveller”:

As midnight approached, the archbishop, with his priests, accompanied by the king and queen, left the church, and stationed themselves on the platform, which was raised considerably from the ground, so that they were distinctly seen by the people. Everyone now remained in breathless expectation, holding their unlighted tapers in readiness when the glad moment should arrive, while the priests still continued murmuring their melancholy chant in a low half-whisper. Suddenly a single report of a cannon announced that twelve o’clock had struck, and that Easter Day had begun; then the old archbishop, elevating the cross, exclaimed in a loud, exulting tone, “Christos anesti,” “Christ is risen!” and instantly every single individual of all that host took up the cry, and the vast multitude broke through and dispelled forever the intense and mournful silence which they had maintained so long, with one spontaneous shout of indescribable joy and triumph, “Christ is risen.”[3]

II. Text: Analysis

The following analysis of the entire canon is based on Andrew Louth (2007), who in turn relied heavily on the commentary by Nikodimos (1987). Louth, who provided a literal English translation, noted how the first ode is based in part on the first and last Easter homilies by Gregory of Nazianzus (4th century):

From the first homily, John takes the opening words: “The day of resurrection . . . let us be radiant.” From the last homily, John takes “Pascha, the Lord’s Pascha”; in fact, as Nikodimos points out, in Gregory’s original homily the words are: “The Lord’s Pascha, Pascha, and again I say Pascha, in honour of the Trinity.” John also takes from Gregory the explanation of the word pascha, derived not from the Greek word, paschein, to suffer, but from the Hebrew, pesach, to pass over, referring historically to the passing over from Egypt to Canaan, and spiritually “to the passage from below to above, and the procession and ascent to the land of the promise.” This makes the link with the first ode, Moses’ song of deliverance after crossing the Red Sea. . . . These are themes that are fresh in the memories of those who hear and sing this canon, for the Song of Moses is part of the vesperal liturgy of Holy Saturday.[4]

The third ode follows the custom of alluding to the Song of Hannah, except here John has alluded to the interchange between Eli and Hannah in 1 Samuel 1 (“I have been pouring out my soul before the Lord,” v. 15) and Moses drawing water from the rock in Numbers 20. The third stanza (second troparion) refers to being buried and resurrected with Christ, as in 1 Corinthians 15, and it relates to the first homily of Gregory. Egon Wellesz noted the connection between the three biblical figures:

In the third ode, John of Damascus uses a bold simile: Hannah, the wife of Elkanah, was barren, yet through the grace of God she became the mother of Samuel. Moses smote the barren rock and brought forth water for the “thirsty congregation and their beasts.” We, John says, do not need water “produced by miracle from the barren rock”; through Christ we drink the new drink from “the fountain of immortality.”[5]

The fourth ode, in referring to the song (prayer) of Habakkuk, actually points to the opening of chapter 2, “I will take my stand at my watchpost and station myself on the tower,” in addition to the last verse of chapter 3, “God, the Lord, is my strength; . . . he makes me tread on my high places.” The second stanza (first troparion) refers to Christ as the first to open the womb, a nod to Exodus 13:2, quoted in Luke 2:23 when the Christ child was presented at the temple. He is also the Paschal lamb (1 Cor. 5:7), unblemished (Exod. 12:5). The third stanza speaks more of the Passover lamb and refers to the “Sun of Justice,” another borrowing from Gregory. The fourth stanza refers to David’s dancing before the ark (2 Sam. 6:16).

The fifth ode refers primarily to Isaiah 26:9 (“With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early,” KJV). Here the irmos (first stanza) takes worshipers to the early morning of the resurrection; instead of the myrrh (or spices) the women brought to the tomb (Luke 24:1; see also John 19:39), worshipers should bring a hymn of praise. The writer also uses the name Sun of Righteousness from Malachi 4:2. The second stanza (first troparion) speaks of the dead being loosed from the bonds of Hades, which ties nicely to Isaiah 26:19 (“Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy!” ESV). The third stanza speaks of Christ the Bridegroom emerging from the tomb and inviting worshipers to celebrate together with the angels.

The sixth ode, in referring to Jonah, is able to make the connection to the prophecy of Jesus in Matthew 12:40 (“For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth,” ESV). The first troparion speaks of Christ leaving the tomb sealed, while also being born of a virgin womb, which Louth says, “the Fathers saw prefigured in the gate of the Temple, in Ezekiel’s vision, which ‘shall remain shut . . . for the Lord, the God of Israel, has entered by it’ (Ezek. 44:2). By passing through what remains sealed, Christ has opened for us the gates of Paradise.” The second troparion is a borrowing of Gregory’s second Easter homily.

The seventh ode relates to the song of the three men in the furnace (an Apocryphal addition to Daniel 3), and therefore speaks of Christ releasing the men from the furnace. The first troparion mentions again the women at the tomb with spices (Luke 24), this time more clearly narrating the experience and alerting the disciples. The second troparion speaks of death and the first fruits of eternal life (1 Cor. 15:23), while the third contains another reference to Gregory’s second homily.

The eighth ode, covering the second part of the song of the three men, draws on the themes of praise and festivity. The first troparion mentions the new “fruit of the vine” described by Christ at the Last Supper (“I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom,” ESV). The second troparion is psalmic, calling upon Zion to look to the worshipers coming from all four directions to bless Christ. The third recalls the trinitarian formula of baptism found in Matthew 28:19.

Finally, the ninth ode points to the songs of Mary (magnificat) and Zechariah (benedictus) in Luke 1. In referring to Mary’s rejoicing and the favor shown to her, John of Damascus has also incorporated the prophecy of Isaiah 60:1 (“Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you,” ESV). The first troparion refers to the promise of Christ in Matthew 28:20 to be with us always. The second and last refers to Christ as the Paschal Lamb, the Wisdom (Prov. 8:12), the Word of God (John 1), and the Power of God, and concludes with a prayer for the eternity to come, looking ahead to that day with no evening (Rev. 21:25). Wellesz called this final stanza or troparion “one of his most inspired stanzas”; “returning to the praise of Christ, he ends the kanon in the same exultant mood in which he began it.”[6]

In total, the Great Canon of John of Damascus is a rich theological and doxological meditation on the resurrection of Christ, especially the way the resurrection is woven and prefigured throughout Scripture. Nineteenth-century hymnologist H. Leigh Bennett said of it:

Nowhere are the best characteristics of the Greek canon exhibited so splendidly. The formal allusions to the canticles on which the several odes are founded, and the introduction of types, which in later poets become often monotonous and irrelevant, are here in complete keeping, and give a fitting and natural enrichment; and the brilliant phrases, culminating in acclamation, the freedom of the thoughts, the ringing, victorious joy, and the lofty presentation of the import of the Resurrection, compose a series of magnificent efforts of imaginative devotion.[7]

III. Text: English Hymn

This great hymn is known in English churches primarily through the hymnic translation by John Mason Neale (1818–1866), originally beginning “’Tis the day of resurrection,” first published in Hymns of the Eastern Church (London: J.T. Hayes, 1862), shown here as in the third edition (1866), which included his revisions and his acknowledgment of some new tune settings. Neale translated the entire canon. Since the Greek text varies metrically between each ode, Neale also allowed himself to use more than one meter, meaning his English versions cannot all be sung to the same tune. The first ode, therefore, bearing only three stanzas, is taken as its own hymn. Among the others, ode 3, “Come and let us drink of that new river,” has had some limited currency, as has ode 8, originally beginning “That hallowed chosen day! that first,” etc. in the first edition, then revised in the 2nd ed. (1863) as “Thou hallowed chosen morn of praise.”

Fig. 3. Hymns of the Eastern Church (London: J.T. Hayes, 1866).

Neale’s metrical translation is generally regarded as being faithful and suitable, even if it doesn’t preserve all the details of the original Greek. In the first ode, he injected an idea of his own, an outgoing proclamation (“tell it out abroad”). Both the original Greek and Neale’s text include a reference to Christ’s salutation to the women at the tomb (“All hail!” from Matthew 28:9 in the KJV). In the fourth ode, biographer Leon Litvack felt something was lost in the diminished aspect of Christ’s humanity:

The ode also accentuates his human side, through the words “as mortal” in the prose translation. This idea is not emphasized as strongly in the verse translation, which speaks of the Lamb and Passover, but in using metaphors does not explicitly point to Jesus’ humanity. Christ’s full partaking of man’s lower nature is central to the concept of salvation, in that he took on not only a human form, but also a human spirit, mind, and soul. . . . By clearly identifying Christ as “mortal,” as having a human mind, it is understood that salvation involves reaching the central point of human need.[8]

Litvack also noticed an important omission from the final ode:

At the end, the verse translation does not evoke the image of partaking of Christ, which includes both a sharing in the Eucharist and an imitation of Christ’s life, which lies at the centre of the canon’s theology. In its place is a passive manifestation of Christ’s presence; it thereby loses the force which St. John Damascus intended.[9]

Neale’s hymn was first adopted into a hymnal in The Parish Hymn Book (London: Saunders, Otley, & Co., 1863), words only. Some commentaries say Neale’s first line was altered to read “The day of resurrection” in this collection, but this is not the case; that hymnal used Neale’s original opening line. The most influential early appearance of Neale’s first ode was in the appendix to Hymns Ancient & Modern (London: William Clowes & Sons, 1868 | Fig. 4), where the editors made the important change of omitting the first word (“’Tis”) to make the text properly iambic. The most extensive changes were made to the final stanza, including the replacement of the awkward “Invisible and visible” with “Let all things seen and unseen.” The tune here is DORKING by George Cooper, written for this text and this publication. Cooper’s tune has not endured.

IV. Tunes

1. Traditional Greek

Scholarly editions of the Paschal Canon generally print only the text, not the melody, yet this canon was meant to be sung. One example of the tune for the first ode appeared in Rassegna Gregoriana, vol. 4 (Rome, 1905 | Fig. 5). This Greek melody (with an Italian translation) was transcribed from the singing of Alessi, a former archpriest of Greek ritual in the Palazzo Adriano, Sicily, by D. Ugo Gaisser, who was so confident about his notation that he called it a fotografia musicale—a musical photograph. 

H.J.W. Tillyard published a transcription of the music from Trinity College Cambridge MS James 1165 [O.2.61] (14th/15th century) in “The Canon for Easter,” Laudate: The Quarterly Magazine of the Benedictine Community at Nashdom Abbey, vol. 1 (1923), pp. 61–71. Egon Wellesz published a transcription from Codex Iviron 4590 (12th century) in Trésor de musique byzantine, vol. 1 (Paris, 1934), pp. 3–6. In his later masterwork, A History of Byzantine Music and Hymnography (1949), Wellesz offered a summary of the manuscript tradition of the music for this canon:

The melodies of the eight odes of the Resurrection Kanon have come down to us in many musical manuscripts, dating from the tenth century to the fifteenth, most of them providing slight variants, but some of them showing a structure substantially different from that in the bulk of the Hirmologia.[10]

For his book, Wellesz gave the music for the entire canon, in some places offering a comparison of three similar tune variants (Fig. 6), from Codex Iviron 470 (12th century), fol. 5r, Codex Saba 599 (15th century), fol. 2r, and Codex Koukouzeles (1302).

2. LANCASHIRE

According to the official biography of Henry Smart (1813–1879) by William Spark (1891), Smart composed the tune LANCASHIRE while he was organist of the parish church of Blackburn in Lancashire (1831–1836). Spark offered only a very simple account: “For a missionary meeting among the Nonconformists he wrote the beautiful hymn tune now so well known as LANCASHIRE.”[11] Other sources report, either in error or without substantiation, the connection between the composition of this tune and a Reformation celebration. Spark treated this as a separate event (4 October 1835), held at the parish church in Blackburn, in which Smart composed a large anthem, “really a grand work, which might now be heard to advantage, though it is all but unknown.” LANCASHIRE, therefore, is properly connected to the Nonconformist missionary meeting, whereas his Reformation anthem was described as having fallen out of use. Another biographical treatment of Smart printed in The Musical Times, 1 May 1902, placed the composition of the tune at the missionary meeting and claimed the text was Reginald Heber’s hymn “From Greenland’s icy mountains.”[12]

The earliest known (or surviving) publication of the tune was in Psalms and Hymns for Divine Worship (London: James Nisbet, 1866 | Fig. 7), where it was set to “Ere God had built the mountains,” a text by William Cowper (1731–1800).

The earliest known pairing of Smart’s tune and Neale’s resurrection text was in The Scottish Hymnal with Tunes (London: T. Nelson & Sons, 1885 | Fig. 8).

3. ELLACOMBE

“The day of resurrection” is also commonly set to ELLACOMBE, a German tune first published in Vollstandige⸗Sammlung der gewöhnlichen Melodien zum Mainzer⸗Gesangbuche (ca. 1827). The first hymnal to pair Neale with ELLACOMBE was The English Hymnal (Oxford: University Press, 1906 | Fig. 9). For more information about the history of ELLACOMBE, see the article on “Hosanna, loud hosanna.”

4. NEW RIVER

Several twentieth-century Catholic songbooks have used the third ode, “Come and let us drink of that new river,” as altered by Anthony Petti (1932–1985) and set to music by Kenneth D. Smith, first published in the New Catholic Hymnal (London: Faber Music, 1971 | Fig. 10). Petti at the time was a professor of English at the University of Calgary, Canada, and Smith was a composer living in England.

5. MACH’S MIT MIR, GOTT

The ninth ode, “Thou hallowed chosen morn of praise” is most commonly set to the tune MACH’S MIT MIR, GOTT (or EISENACH), by Bartholomäus Gesius (1562–1613), from Das ander Theil des andern newen Operis Geistlicher Deutscher Lieder (1605 | Fig. 11, image pending), where it was set to the text “Ein wahrer Glaub’ Gottes Zorn stillt.”

Gesius’ tune was altered and harmonized by Johann Hermann Schein (1586–1630), who was Thomaskantor (director of the Thomanerchor) in Leipzig from 1616 until his death. Schein’s revision was reportedly first printed as a broadsheet in 1628 (“Trost-Liedlein à 5. Vber den seligen Hintritt der Frawen Margariten”), by the testimony of Salomon Kümmerle in the Encyklopädie der evangelischen Kirchenmusik, vol. 2 (1890), p. 108 (Google Books). This broadsheet could not be located for review. Schein’s arrangement was then included in Caspar Cramer’s Animæ sauciatæ medela Das ist (Erfurt, 1641 | Fig. 12), harmonized for five parts, where it appeared with Schein’s text “Gott mach’s mit mir nach deiner Güt” (“God, deal with me according to your kindness”).

It also appeared in Cantional Oder Gesang-Buch Augspurgischer Confession (1645 | Fig. 13), in five parts, credited to Schein, with the more widely accepted form of the text, “Mach’s mit mir, Gott, nach deiner Güt.”

Of these two composers, Lutheran scholar Paul Westermeyer wrote:

Gesius represents the flowering of music that the Lutheran Reformation stimulated. He wrote music for church and school. . . . Johann Hermann Schein is a more viable and important musician than Gesius; he also represents the flowering of music among Lutherans. . . . He built Italian influences into German Lutheran musical syntax, wrote almost a hundred chorale tunes and harmonizations, and also composed sacred songs, madrigals, motets, and instrumental pieces.[13]

The pairing of Neale with the German tune is the work of the editors of The English Hymnal (1906 | Fig. 14).

by CHRIS FENNER
for Hymnology Archive
9 April 2020

Footnotes:

1. Duncan Campbell, Hymns and Hymn Makers (London: A. & C. Black), p. 8: Archive.org

2. Andrew Louth, “St. John Damascene as Monastic Theologian,” The Downside Review, vol. 125, no. 440 (1 July 2007), p. 199: https://doi.org/10.1177%2F001258060712544004

3. John Mason Neale, A History of the Holy Eastern Church: General Introduction, vol. 2 (London: Joseph Masters, 1850), pp. 878–879: HathiTrust; quoting Felicia Skene, Wayfaring Sketches Among the Greeks and Turks (London: 1847), pp. 63–64: Archive.org

4. Andrew Louth, “St. John Damascene as Monastic Theologian,” The Downside Review, vol. 125, no. 440 (1 July 2007), pp. 210–211: https://doi.org/10.1177%2F001258060712544004

5. Egon Wellesz, A History of Byzantine Music and Hymnography (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1949), pp. 184–185.

6. Egon Wellesz, A History of Byzantine Music and Hymnography (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1949), p. 186.

7. H. Leigh Bennett, “Greek hymnody: St. John of Damascus,” A Dictionary of Hymnology, ed. John Julian (London: J. Murray, 1892), p. 464.

8. Leon Litvack, John Mason Neale and the Quest for Sobornost (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), p. 136.

9. Leon Litvack, John Mason Neale and the Quest for Sobornost (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), p. 143.

10. Egon Wellesz, A History of Byzantine Music and Hymnography (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1949), p. 186.

11. William Spark, Henry Smart: His Life and Works (London: William Reeves, 1891), p. 12: Archive.org

12. “Henry Smart,” The Musical Times, vol. 43, no. 711 (1 May 1902), p. 299: Google Books

13. Paul Westermeyer, “MACH’S MIT MIR, GOTT,” Companion to Evangelical Lutheran Worship (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2010), p. 672.

Related Resources:

Johannes Zahn, Die Melodien der deutschen evangelischen Kirchenlieder, vol. 2 (Gütersloh: C. Bertelsmann, 1890), No. 2383: Archive.org

H. Leigh Bennett, “Greek hymnody: St. John of Damascus,” A Dictionary of Hymnology, ed. John Julian (London: J. Murray, 1892), p. 464.

Egon Wellesz, A History of Byzantine Music and Hymnography (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1949).

Johann Hermann Schein, Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke, ed. Adam Adrio, vol. 2, pt. 2 (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1967), no. 303, p. 138.

St. Nikodimos, Pentekostarion, vol. 2 (Thessaloniki: Ekdosis Orthodoxos Kypseli, 1987), pp. 277–336.

Leon Litvack, John Mason Neale and the Quest for Sobornost (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994).

Carl F. Schalk, “MACH’S MIT MIR, GOTT,” The Hymnal 1982 Companion, vol. 3A (NY: Church Hymnal Corp., 1994), pp. 399–400.

Marilyn Kay Stulken & Catherine Salika, “Come and let us drink of that new river,” Hymnal Companion to Worship—Third Edition (Chicago: GIA, 1998), pp. 169, 204, 426.

Andrew Louth, St John Damascene: Tradition and Originality in Byzantine Studies (Oxford: University Press, 2002), pp. 252–268.

Andrew Louth, “St John Damascene as Monastic Theologian,” The Downside Review, vol. 125, no. 440 (1 July 2007), pp. 197–220: https://doi.org/10.1177%2F001258060712544004

Paul Westermeyer, “MACH’S MIT MIR, GOTT,” Companion to Evangelical Lutheran Worship (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2010), p. 672.

Robert A. Sorenson & Joseph Herl, “The day of resurrection,” Lutheran Service Book Companion, vol. 1 (St. Louis: Concordia, 2019), pp. 378–381.

Joseph Herl, “Mach’s mit mir, Gott,” Lutheran Service Book Companion, vol. 1 (St. Louis: Concordia, 2019), pp. 925–926.

C. Michael Hawn, “The Day of Resurrection,” Sing with Understanding, 3rd ed. (Chicago: GIA, 2022), pp. 223–224.

“The day of resurrection,” Hymnary.org:
https://hymnary.org/text/the_day_of_resurrection_earth_tell_it