When Augustus reigned alone upon earth, the many kingdoms of men came to an end, * and when Thou wast made man of the pure Virgin, the many gods of idolatry were destroyed. * The cities of the world passed under one single rule, and the nations came to believe in one sovereign Godhead. * The peoples were enrolled by the decree of Caesar, and we, the faithful, were enrolled in the Name of the Godhead, when Thou, our God, wast made man. * Great is Thy mercy: glory to Thee!
In the recording, this hymn is sung in alternation with the original Greek text, changing over at the places marked with an asterisk.Αὐγούστου μοναρχήσαντος ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, ἡ πολυαρχία τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἐπαύσατο, * καὶ σοῦ ἐνανθρωπήσαντος ἐκ τῆς Ἁγνῆς, ἡ πολυθεΐα τῶν εἰδώλων κατήργηται. Ὑπὸ μίαν βασιλείαν ἐγκόσμιον αἱ πόλεις γεγένηνται, καὶ εἰς μίαν Δεσποτείαν Θεότητος τὰ Ἔθνη ἐπίστευσαν. * Ἀπεγράφησαν οἱ λαοὶ τῷ δόγματι τοῦ Καίσαρος, ἐπεγράφημεν οἱ πιστοὶ ὀνόματι Θεότητος, σοῦ τοῦ ἐνανθρωπήσαντος Θεοῦ ἡμῶν. * Μέγα σου τὸ ἔλεος· δόξα σοι!
At Vespers of Christmas Eve in the Byzantine Rite, and again at Vespers on December 30th, the first service of the Leave-taking of the feast, this text is sung at the end of the stikhera, the first set of proper hymns. (In Byzantine terminology, “hymn” is the generic word for a wide variety of compositions used in many different ways, similar in form to Roman Office antiphons, but generally much longer.) It was written by one of the most famous composers of Byzantine liturgical poetry, a nun named Kassiani (or Kassia), who lived in the ninth century. Many of her hymns are extant, and still used in the Byzantine Rite to this day; she is one of the very first composers whose original scores are known and useable. I have previously described the charming legend about her most famous piece, a hymn which is sung on Great and Holy (i.e. Spy) Wednesday about the woman who anointed Christ’s feet.
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| An icon of Kassiani, holding a scroll on which are written the first words of her famous hymn for Holy Wednesday. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons, date and artist unknown.) |
The Roman Martyrology’s entry for Christmas Eve gives several dates based in sacred history for the year of Christ’s coming “according to the flesh”: 5199 from the creation of the world, 2957 from Noah’s flood, etc. But it also gives three secular dates, one Greek (the 194th Olympiad) and two Roman: “in the 752nd year from the founding of the city of Rome; in the 42nd year of the rule of Octavian Augustus, when all the world was united in peace.” These entries reflect the idea that the achievements of Greek culture, and the peace and stability created by the Roman Empire, served in God’s providence to prepare the world for the arrival of the Savior and the preaching of the Gospel.
The same idea is expressed in Kassiani’s hymn, but there is some interesting historical context related to it to be kept in mind. In the 8th century, the Byzantine emperors had, not for the first time, invented a heresy and attempted to impose it upon their subjects, turning persecutor against their fellow Christians. The essence of this heresy, iconoclasm, was the idea that the veneration of sacred images constituted a form of idolatry. But it also rejected the honor which the Church pays to the Saints, and prayers for their intercession, claiming, just as many protestants do today, that these amount to a kind of polytheism.
The iconoclast heresy was formally condemned by the Seventh Ecumenical Council, the second to be held at Nicaea, in 787. Kassiani was born in Constantinople ca. 805/10; when she was still very young, the heresy was revived by the emperor Leo V in 814, and lasted for nearly 30 more years. Kassiani herself was once presented as a possible bride to the last iconoclast emperor, Theophilus, and later scourged for her opposition to the heresy under his rule.
In light of this, an interesting point emerges regarding the words of the hymn given above as “the many gods of idolatry were destroyed.” A strictly literal translation would be “the polytheism of the idols has been made of no effect.” The perfect tense of the verb “katērgētai” conveys the idea that the result is complete and lasting until the present. (The same is true of the word “kekharitōmenē” in the Gospel of St Luke, which we know in English as “full of grace.”) There are many other ways this could have been said, but Kassiani very cleverly chose a word which states that with the revelation of the Incarnation, idolatry was not merely defeated, but permanently deprived of its power, and therefore, the Church has nothing to fear from the use of sacred images.
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| An icon of the Nativity by an anonymous Cretan painter, second half of the 15th century. |
The hymn in Church Slavonic.
Аѵгусту единоначальствующу на земли, многоначалїе человѣкωвъ преста; и Тебѣ вочеловѣчшусѧ ωт Чистыѧ, многобожїѧ ідωлωвъ оупразднисѧ, подъ единѣмъ царствомъ мїрскимъ гради быша, и во Едино Владычество Божества ꙗзыцы вѣроваша. Написашесѧ людїе повелѣниїмъ кесаревымъ, написахомсѧ вѣрнїи, Именемъ Божества, Тебе вочеловѣчшагосѧ Бога нашегω. Велїѧ Твоѧ милость, Господи, слава Тебѣ.
And a Greek version in traditional liturgical chant.
