I remember going to school carol services as a 14 year old boy and having to sing the line ‘the swelling of the merry organ.’ Not fair, I’d certainly ban that.
That may be down to a 14-year-old’s hormonally-influenced imagination. The text actually speaks of ‘the playing of the merry organ’, though no doubt a 14-yo could place certain interpretations upon that as well.
I remember Spitting Image’s Mary Whitehouse puppet making a big deal of that!
Douglas H
4 months ago
Great article! Very enjoyable – thanks.
Chris Whybrow
4 months ago
I recall once in RE class at school they showed us a parody of that particular hymn made by an atheist. It was mostly just a list of all the animals he didn’t like. Including squid, for some reason. Certainly the strangest argument I’ve heard against the existence of a deity. “How could a just and ever loving God make squid?”
Squid are amazing. The giant squid, the colossal squid, Humboldt’s squid. If there were no squid, toothed whales would starve to death. If squid had longer lifespans, like more than five years, they’re smart enough to have civilizations.
That was a Monty Python parody song:
All things dull and ugly / All creatures short and squat / All things rude and nasty / The Lord God made the lot.
Each little snake that poisons / Each little wasp that stings / He made their brutish venom / He made their horrid wings.
All things sick and cancerous / All evil great and small / All things foul and dangerous / The Lord God made them all.
Each nasty little hornet / Each beastly little squid / Who made the spikey urchin? / Who made the sharks? He did!
All things scabbed and ulcerous / All pox both great and small / Putrid, foul and gangrenous / The Lord God made them all.
I never saw this as an argument against the existence of a deity, per se. It just pokes playful fun, in a delightful way, at theodicy, or a sentimentalist form of Christianity that presents the pleasant and beautiful things in nature as proof of the existence of God while ignoring the unpleasant and not-so-beautiful things
Bravo! Not ‘ignoring’ per se, but the explanation of Life the Universe and Everything is likely to have a bit more to it than beautiful colours and tiny wings. Besides, people who mock the idea of God always mock a strawman ‘god’ who couldn’t logically exist, instead of the real God, who has declared himself to be knowable in our deepest intellect as well as our souls. The unmatched New Testament unlocks the spiritual door to that journey.
In the States we primarily recognize those lyrics from the “James Herriott” books and, moreso, the TV shows of yours we watched, about the veterinarians in rural interwar England.
For a long time, we assumed that vets all spoke in flawless BBC/RP English, and farmers mostly sounded like Ozzy Osbourne’s road crew.
And, speaking of malted beverages, that the local pub was basically an extension of one’s living room.
Last edited 4 months ago by Andrew Vanbarner
Andrew Wise
4 months ago
OK, now we’ve started on the subject … let’s all sing the 6th verse of the National Anthem & implore Marshal Wade to crush a few rebellious Scotts 🙂
Happy Christmas one and all
UnHerd Reader
4 months ago
We were singing Hills of the North Rejoice in church on Sunday. For whatever reason, it has been so completely rewritten since the version I sang in primary school that it is basically the Ship of Theseus.
We sang it but I thought the words were those I sang at school. I didn’t need the hymn book. Unless I was belting out something different to everyone else. Wouldn’t be the first time.
As far as I know there are still rich men in their castles, some of which can literally rise into the air, and among the multitude of poor a few that still have gates to lean on. The next two lines could be read as resigned realism, or to create a rhyme, or simple nonsense. One should take culture seriously, but not necessarily its content.
There is little point in serious criticism of absurdity unless that absurdity is taken seriously. Even when it appears to be taken seriously, it may be only a consensual indulgence, such as the one we saw in May, though of course one should be vigilant.
I have a wonderful old 1891 copy of Edward Lear’s Book of Nonsense. I haven’t checked it for content offensive to the modern self-conscious sensibility, but it makes no claim other than to be nonsense, albeit intelligent nonsense.
By the age of 14, I had concluded that the litanies and hymns of the Christian church were unintelligent nonsense (though had I encountered the ‘swelling organ’ I might have changed my mind – maybe some sharp-eyed teacher spotted that one). I wonder actually whether hymns are fit for anyone other than children.
As for what ‘Christ’ meant, or is supposed to have said, it’s been there in black and white for two thousand years, so there should be no room for dispute. But I struggle to find any connection between those stories and the pews, bells, smells, cassocks and candles in the photograph and in what it represents. It’s culture, an encrustation of time and trivia, and if the children sing, and the words go right over their heads, what harm is done?
This is traditionally a time of year for not taking absurdity too seriously.
Begging your pardon, but hymns are not nonsense, at least not to the people who originally wrote and sang them. What may be nonsense is to sing something you don’t understand because the context and application have long since been forgotten. But in today’s comments, we just learned today that the reason for God not abhorring the Virgin’s womb had nothing to do with virgins or wombs or any other anatomy, but omniscient Creator God stooped from eternity to become a human fertilized egg, and yet that was not abhorrent to him. He couldn’t (or wouldn’t) save humanity from heaven, so he became human to begin the process of defeating evil on our behalf. That revelation, “God with us”, is what Christmas is actually all about.
The hymns of Mrs. C.M. Alexander were certainly written for children and were intended to illustrate clause by clause the elements of the Apostle’s Creed. So “All things bright and beautiful” illustrates “Maker of Heaven and Earth, “Once in Royal David’s City”illustrates “Born of the Virgin Mary”, and “There is a Green Hill Far Away” illustrates “Was crucified, dead and buried”. She covered the whole creed in this way
UnHerd Reader
4 months ago
I remember singing that verse at my CofE primary school in the early 70’s so it wasn’t banned everywhere.
Peter Principle
4 months ago
Many thanks to Alwyn W. Turner for this seasonal invitation to Unherd readers to vent their spleen about hymns and carols. So let me set the ball rolling. (Full disclosure: I am a member of the Church of Scotland who regrets the Kirk’s drifting away from its traditional Bah Humbug stance on Christmas carols.)
There is no point in objecting to the lines stating that there are rich folk in castles and poor folk elsewhere. The dodgy bit (IMHO) is whether the assertion that this has been “ordered” implies that there should be no questioning of the status quo, even if the bloke in the castle is Blue Beard. More importantly, the words suggest that there is no point in aspiration on the part of the poor bloke. It is no wonder that the UK has 5 million people of working age not gainfully employed if such sentiments are generally accepted.
My least favourite line of a hymn is in ‘O Come all ye Faithful’: “Lo, He abhors not the virgin’s womb’. I have never been able to figure out a reason why anyone’s womb should be abhorred, though I expect some Unherd readers can assist with plausible-sounding explanations as to why some wombs are more abhorrent than others. 150 million years ago, our ancestors were egg laying until a retroviral infection settled into our ancestors’ egg cells. So did He cause the retroviral infection to give Himself something to abhor?
They are coming less and less. My church is about to be shut down. These days, the Church wouldn’t dare to abhor anything whatsoever, for fear of an accusation of being something-or-other-phobic.
My least favourite line of a hymn is in ‘O Come all ye Faithful’: “Lo, He abhors not the virgin’s womb’. I have never been able to figure out a reason why anyone’s womb should be abhorred, though I expect some Unherd readers can assist with plausible-sounding explanations as to why some wombs are more abhorrent than others.
I don’t know whether it is plausible-sounding, but my understanding is that this is pointing to the astonishing fact of the incarnation – the fact that God became man – and therefore did not abhor human existence. The reference to one particular womb rather than another is merely an allusion to the specifics of the story, which are known to most Christians. God might have been expected to abhor human existence, bound up as it is with sin, suffering, and death, but didn’t.
I get that. But what what made a virgin’s womb less abhorrent? Would it not be even more astonishing if He had chosen any old womb, one that had had previous occupants? And why would God abhor human existence when He is its omniscient creator? That sounds to me like an anthropomorphization too far.
Maybe it symbolises the radical break with the hitherto “normal” state of mankind?
Either way, there appear to be those with ears to hear, and others who are bewildered rationalists.
Rationalism does not preclude a deeply spiritual approach to our existence, despite what it may be comforting for some to believe. Bewilderment would rather be the state of those who choose to trust in faith, should it then falter.
It’s a reference to the Te Deum, which contains the line (in the Book of Common Prayer translation) “When thou tookest upon thee to deliver man : thou didst not abhor the Virgin’s womb” (non horruisti Virginis uterum) – meaning that he did not fear (horreo) to be born as a human. There’s no implied contrast between the Virgin’s womb and any other womb – simply that the womb of which he was actually born was that of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Yes, but why does the Te Deum say that it was a virgin’s womb that was not abhorred. Why not wombs in general not being abhorred? I suspect it is related to the sick idea, dreamt up by the early fathers of the church, that original sin is transmitted from Adam and Eve through sex and childbirth down to the present day. They needed an excuse for mysogyny and that was the best that they could come up with.
With respect, you seem to be reading into it things which are simply not there. The reference to “the Virgin’s womb” (not, be it noted, just a virgin’s womb) is simply because his mother was the Blessed Virgin Mary. Why would it have gone off into a wider discourse on the nature of wombs in general? He did not fear, or dread, or shun (any of those or possible translations) birth from the womb of his mother, “the Virgin”. What’s misogynistic about that?
…and to clarify further the Te Deum (once known as the tedium to the children in our family) goes on to talk about Him experiencing the sharpness of death. So the human birth and death opens the kingdom of heaven to all believers. (Am off to rehearse Bizet’s version tonight. A pre-Christmas jolly)
Interestingly, the original Latin version ,Adeste fideles’ only mentions that the viscera (womb) of the maiden had carried God from God, Light from Light (as a baby in her womb). In his popular traslation, Frederick Oakeley took – apparently for rhyming purpose – a sentence from the Te Deum: Tu ad liberandum suscepturus hominem, non horruisti Virginis uterum (when you resolved to save the human race, you did not spurn the Virgin’s womb). It is a way of expressing the wonder that the infinite God took it upon himself to become a restricted human being, that the almighty God became an helpless embryo. That the absolute ruler over the universe let himself be imprisoned in the tiniest space a human being can inhabit – the uterus – to free Man from Man’s self inflicted prison of sin. And the mention is of course of the Virgin Mary, not any unspecified virgin. But I understand that a schoolboys fantasy might be misled by the faintest possible allusion to sex. Maybe not only a schoolboy’s, as purity always attracts lewdness.
And please pardon my English, it is not my first language.
So was it just a coincidence that she happened to be a virgin?
I am not sure who you are accusing of “lewdness”, but the word seems to fit the early father’s of the church who dreamt up the notion of how original sin is transmitted.
I suspect that ‘abhor’ had a slightly softer meaning at the time the hymn/carol was written. Perhaps ‘God was not distainful……’
Victoria Cooper
4 months ago
Stuff and nonsense, the object of education is to encourage the young people to think for themselves.
Saul D
4 months ago
Carols. Are they hymns or hyrs?
Nicholas Taylor
4 months ago
No wonder they never get past the first verse! I think the 2nd verse would be more appealing to my 14 year old aesthetic. We ought to print the whole lot on a big banner and take it on a tour of European cities – excluding Edinburgh unless you wish to have your ears nailed to a door – to see which ones have the greatest sense of humour.
I remember going to school carol services as a 14 year old boy and having to sing the line ‘the swelling of the merry organ.’ Not fair, I’d certainly ban that.
That may be down to a 14-year-old’s hormonally-influenced imagination. The text actually speaks of ‘the playing of the merry organ’, though no doubt a 14-yo could place certain interpretations upon that as well.
The version I sang was ‘swelling’ as a musical term. I wouldn’t have enjoyed singing ‘playing’ either.
Why not?
Dear William,
I think we can all be confident that if a14 year old Doug played his organ, it would also swell.
Merry Christmas all.
That’s hilarious!
And let us tactfully pass over “the purple headed mountain” in “All Things Bright and Beautiful”…
I remember Spitting Image’s Mary Whitehouse puppet making a big deal of that!
Great article! Very enjoyable – thanks.
I recall once in RE class at school they showed us a parody of that particular hymn made by an atheist. It was mostly just a list of all the animals he didn’t like. Including squid, for some reason. Certainly the strangest argument I’ve heard against the existence of a deity. “How could a just and ever loving God make squid?”
Squid are amazing. The giant squid, the colossal squid, Humboldt’s squid. If there were no squid, toothed whales would starve to death. If squid had longer lifespans, like more than five years, they’re smart enough to have civilizations.
They taste good too with chilli & lime juice.
That was a Monty Python parody song:
All things dull and ugly / All creatures short and squat / All things rude and nasty / The Lord God made the lot.
Each little snake that poisons / Each little wasp that stings / He made their brutish venom / He made their horrid wings.
All things sick and cancerous / All evil great and small / All things foul and dangerous / The Lord God made them all.
Each nasty little hornet / Each beastly little squid / Who made the spikey urchin? / Who made the sharks? He did!
All things scabbed and ulcerous / All pox both great and small / Putrid, foul and gangrenous / The Lord God made them all.
I never saw this as an argument against the existence of a deity, per se. It just pokes playful fun, in a delightful way, at theodicy, or a sentimentalist form of Christianity that presents the pleasant and beautiful things in nature as proof of the existence of God while ignoring the unpleasant and not-so-beautiful things
Bravo! Not ‘ignoring’ per se, but the explanation of Life the Universe and Everything is likely to have a bit more to it than beautiful colours and tiny wings. Besides, people who mock the idea of God always mock a strawman ‘god’ who couldn’t logically exist, instead of the real God, who has declared himself to be knowable in our deepest intellect as well as our souls. The unmatched New Testament unlocks the spiritual door to that journey.
Good ‘ole Monty Python! Love it.
As AE Houseman had it: “Malt does more than Milton can, to justify God’s ways to man”.
In the States we primarily recognize those lyrics from the “James Herriott” books and, moreso, the TV shows of yours we watched, about the veterinarians in rural interwar England.
For a long time, we assumed that vets all spoke in flawless BBC/RP English, and farmers mostly sounded like Ozzy Osbourne’s road crew.
And, speaking of malted beverages, that the local pub was basically an extension of one’s living room.
OK, now we’ve started on the subject … let’s all sing the 6th verse of the National Anthem & implore Marshal Wade to crush a few rebellious Scotts 🙂
Happy Christmas one and all
We were singing Hills of the North Rejoice in church on Sunday. For whatever reason, it has been so completely rewritten since the version I sang in primary school that it is basically the Ship of Theseus.
We sang it but I thought the words were those I sang at school. I didn’t need the hymn book. Unless I was belting out something different to everyone else. Wouldn’t be the first time.
The new words for this hymn are grim:
https://cathythinks.blogspot.com/2006/12/hills-of-north-rejoice.html
.
As far as I know there are still rich men in their castles, some of which can literally rise into the air, and among the multitude of poor a few that still have gates to lean on. The next two lines could be read as resigned realism, or to create a rhyme, or simple nonsense. One should take culture seriously, but not necessarily its content.
There is little point in serious criticism of absurdity unless that absurdity is taken seriously. Even when it appears to be taken seriously, it may be only a consensual indulgence, such as the one we saw in May, though of course one should be vigilant.
I have a wonderful old 1891 copy of Edward Lear’s Book of Nonsense. I haven’t checked it for content offensive to the modern self-conscious sensibility, but it makes no claim other than to be nonsense, albeit intelligent nonsense.
By the age of 14, I had concluded that the litanies and hymns of the Christian church were unintelligent nonsense (though had I encountered the ‘swelling organ’ I might have changed my mind – maybe some sharp-eyed teacher spotted that one). I wonder actually whether hymns are fit for anyone other than children.
As for what ‘Christ’ meant, or is supposed to have said, it’s been there in black and white for two thousand years, so there should be no room for dispute. But I struggle to find any connection between those stories and the pews, bells, smells, cassocks and candles in the photograph and in what it represents. It’s culture, an encrustation of time and trivia, and if the children sing, and the words go right over their heads, what harm is done?
This is traditionally a time of year for not taking absurdity too seriously.
Begging your pardon, but hymns are not nonsense, at least not to the people who originally wrote and sang them. What may be nonsense is to sing something you don’t understand because the context and application have long since been forgotten. But in today’s comments, we just learned today that the reason for God not abhorring the Virgin’s womb had nothing to do with virgins or wombs or any other anatomy, but omniscient Creator God stooped from eternity to become a human fertilized egg, and yet that was not abhorrent to him. He couldn’t (or wouldn’t) save humanity from heaven, so he became human to begin the process of defeating evil on our behalf. That revelation, “God with us”, is what Christmas is actually all about.
Begging your pardon, but having read your comment, i have doubts about your ‘nonsense detector’ – and you might wish to note my name isn’t Thomas.
Of course, Hymns were originally written for Sunday School and children and were not sung as part of Christian worship.
The hymns of Mrs. C.M. Alexander were certainly written for children and were intended to illustrate clause by clause the elements of the Apostle’s Creed. So “All things bright and beautiful” illustrates “Maker of Heaven and Earth, “Once in Royal David’s City”illustrates “Born of the Virgin Mary”, and “There is a Green Hill Far Away” illustrates “Was crucified, dead and buried”. She covered the whole creed in this way
I remember singing that verse at my CofE primary school in the early 70’s so it wasn’t banned everywhere.
Many thanks to Alwyn W. Turner for this seasonal invitation to Unherd readers to vent their spleen about hymns and carols. So let me set the ball rolling. (Full disclosure: I am a member of the Church of Scotland who regrets the Kirk’s drifting away from its traditional Bah Humbug stance on Christmas carols.)
There is no point in objecting to the lines stating that there are rich folk in castles and poor folk elsewhere. The dodgy bit (IMHO) is whether the assertion that this has been “ordered” implies that there should be no questioning of the status quo, even if the bloke in the castle is Blue Beard. More importantly, the words suggest that there is no point in aspiration on the part of the poor bloke. It is no wonder that the UK has 5 million people of working age not gainfully employed if such sentiments are generally accepted.
My least favourite line of a hymn is in ‘O Come all ye Faithful’: “Lo, He abhors not the virgin’s womb’. I have never been able to figure out a reason why anyone’s womb should be abhorred, though I expect some Unherd readers can assist with plausible-sounding explanations as to why some wombs are more abhorrent than others. 150 million years ago, our ancestors were egg laying until a retroviral infection settled into our ancestors’ egg cells. So did He cause the retroviral infection to give Himself something to abhor?
I like your style, PP. The only thing i could add would be to point out that if the Faithful were to “abhor the virgin’s womb”, they’d never Come.
They are coming less and less. My church is about to be shut down. These days, the Church wouldn’t dare to abhor anything whatsoever, for fear of an accusation of being something-or-other-phobic.
A different article on this site alludes to just such a fear what with the Catholics shifting views on same sex unions.
Can we then hope that this is the beginning of the end of religion?
I don’t know whether it is plausible-sounding, but my understanding is that this is pointing to the astonishing fact of the incarnation – the fact that God became man – and therefore did not abhor human existence. The reference to one particular womb rather than another is merely an allusion to the specifics of the story, which are known to most Christians. God might have been expected to abhor human existence, bound up as it is with sin, suffering, and death, but didn’t.
I get that. But what what made a virgin’s womb less abhorrent? Would it not be even more astonishing if He had chosen any old womb, one that had had previous occupants? And why would God abhor human existence when He is its omniscient creator? That sounds to me like an anthropomorphization too far.
Maybe it symbolises the radical break with the hitherto “normal” state of mankind?
Either way, there appear to be those with ears to hear, and others who are bewildered rationalists.
Ears to hear need to be used in conjunction with little grey cells, otherwise the result is a bewildered irrationalist.
Indeed, it’s a balance of faculties, isn’t it.
Rationalism does not preclude a deeply spiritual approach to our existence, despite what it may be comforting for some to believe. Bewilderment would rather be the state of those who choose to trust in faith, should it then falter.
The Latin original of Adeste fideles names neither virgin nor abhorrence:
Gestat puellae viscera
I like it. The whole second verse is an affirmation and restatement of the Nicene Creed.
It’s a reference to the Te Deum, which contains the line (in the Book of Common Prayer translation) “When thou tookest upon thee to deliver man : thou didst not abhor the Virgin’s womb” (non horruisti Virginis uterum) – meaning that he did not fear (horreo) to be born as a human. There’s no implied contrast between the Virgin’s womb and any other womb – simply that the womb of which he was actually born was that of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Have learnt something. I also never understood this line. Thank you!
You could have got the info from the Wikipedia page on this subject.
Yes, but why does the Te Deum say that it was a virgin’s womb that was not abhorred. Why not wombs in general not being abhorred? I suspect it is related to the sick idea, dreamt up by the early fathers of the church, that original sin is transmitted from Adam and Eve through sex and childbirth down to the present day. They needed an excuse for mysogyny and that was the best that they could come up with.
With respect, you seem to be reading into it things which are simply not there. The reference to “the Virgin’s womb” (not, be it noted, just a virgin’s womb) is simply because his mother was the Blessed Virgin Mary. Why would it have gone off into a wider discourse on the nature of wombs in general? He did not fear, or dread, or shun (any of those or possible translations) birth from the womb of his mother, “the Virgin”. What’s misogynistic about that?
I do not say “He” is mysogynist. I said that the early fathers of the church were mysogynist.
…and to clarify further the Te Deum (once known as the tedium to the children in our family) goes on to talk about Him experiencing the sharpness of death. So the human birth and death opens the kingdom of heaven to all believers. (Am off to rehearse Bizet’s version tonight. A pre-Christmas jolly)
It’s all so damn cryptic and open to interpretation. That’s why it gets co-opted by cults.
Interestingly, the original Latin version ,Adeste fideles’ only mentions that the viscera (womb) of the maiden had carried God from God, Light from Light (as a baby in her womb). In his popular traslation, Frederick Oakeley took – apparently for rhyming purpose – a sentence from the Te Deum: Tu ad liberandum suscepturus hominem, non horruisti Virginis uterum (when you resolved to save the human race, you did not spurn the Virgin’s womb). It is a way of expressing the wonder that the infinite God took it upon himself to become a restricted human being, that the almighty God became an helpless embryo. That the absolute ruler over the universe let himself be imprisoned in the tiniest space a human being can inhabit – the uterus – to free Man from Man’s self inflicted prison of sin. And the mention is of course of the Virgin Mary, not any unspecified virgin. But I understand that a schoolboys fantasy might be misled by the faintest possible allusion to sex. Maybe not only a schoolboy’s, as purity always attracts lewdness.
And please pardon my English, it is not my first language.
So was it just a coincidence that she happened to be a virgin?
I am not sure who you are accusing of “lewdness”, but the word seems to fit the early father’s of the church who dreamt up the notion of how original sin is transmitted.
Prurience might have been a better word choice than lewdness.
I suspect that ‘abhor’ had a slightly softer meaning at the time the hymn/carol was written. Perhaps ‘God was not distainful……’
Stuff and nonsense, the object of education is to encourage the young people to think for themselves.
Carols. Are they hymns or hyrs?
No wonder they never get past the first verse! I think the 2nd verse would be more appealing to my 14 year old aesthetic. We ought to print the whole lot on a big banner and take it on a tour of European cities – excluding Edinburgh unless you wish to have your ears nailed to a door – to see which ones have the greatest sense of humour.