In the Roman Martyrology, the second entry after that of St Thomas of Canterbury reads as follows: “At Jerusalem, (the birth into heaven) of St David, King and Prophet.” David is not among the handful of Old Testament Saints to whom there is any historical devotion in the West, but his feast is extremely ancient in the East. In one of the oldest liturgical books of the Rite of Jerusalem, he is commemorated in a joint feast with St James, the Holy City’s first bishop, and assigned to December 25th; this indicates that this observance is even older than the adoption of Christmas as a separate feast in the East, which happened towards the end of the fourth century. It was soon moved, however, first to the 26th, then to the 28th; in the modern Byzantine Rite, it is kept on the Sunday after Christmas, whatever its date may be, and St Joseph has been added to it. (See Liturgy and Byzantinization in Jerusalem, by Dr Daniel Galadza, table 4.5; Oxford, 2017)
In the Roman Rite supplement for the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem issued in 1935, his feast is kept as a double major, and has its own proper Mass. English translations of the texts, and some recordings of its chant parts, most of which come from other Masses, are given below. The Mass is celebrated with commemorations of St Thomas of Canterbury and the octave of Christmas.
The Introit is that of the Fourth Sunday after Easter, with the extra Allelujas of the Easter season removed. This was obviously selected to celebrate David’s role as the author of the Psalms; Psalm 97, from which it is taken, also figures prominently in the Roman Divine Office of Christmas. “Sing to the Lord a new song, for the Lord hath done wondrous things; before the sight of the nations He hath revealed His justice. Ps. His right hand hath wrought for Him salvation, and His arm is holy. Glory be... Sing to the Lord...”
The Collect: God, almighty Father, who by the mouth of David made hymns to be sung in Thy Holy Spirit; grant, we ask, that by his intercession, we may be able to worthily make the sacrifice of praise. Through our Lord...”
The Epistle, 1 Samuel 16, 4-13, recounts David’s election as the new king of Israel in place of Saul, through the anointing administered to him by the prophet Samuel.
The Anointing of David, 1555, by Paolo Veronese. In this typically overcrowded Mannerist composition, there are fourteen people to either side of the central figures of Samuel and David, reminding us of the three groups of fourteen into which St Matthew divides the ancestors of Christ named at the beginning of his Gospel. That this is a deliberate reference is demonstrated by the presence of three women, as there are three women mentioned in the Genealogy, Rahab, Ruth, and the wife of Uriah, i.e. Bathsheba. (Image from Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0)
The Gradual is taken from the first Mass of a bishop and martyr, even though David himself fits neither of these categories, since he is mentioned in it by name. “I have found David my servant: with my holy oil I have anointed him. For my hand shall help him: and my arm shall strengthen him. V. The enemy shall profit nothing against him: nor shall the son of iniquity hurt him.” Psalm 88 from which both it and the Communio are taken is also sung at Matins of Christmas.
The Alleluja is taken from the book of Judges, 5, 3, which is very rarely cited anywhere in the liturgy, and appears to be unique to this Mass. “Hear, O ye kings, give ear, ye princes: It is I, it is I, that will sing to the Lord, I will sing to the Lord the God of Israel.”
Of the various Gospel passages that mention King David, Matthew 22, 41-44, seems to have been chosen for this Mass because in it Christ, whose Birth is celebrated a few days before, obliquely asserts His own divinity. The Messiah must come from the house of David, yet David himself calls him “the Lord”, which would make no sense if the former were no more than a distant descendent. The liturgy of the Christmas octave is very much concerned to assert that the Child who is born in Bethlehem is not a mere mortal, but God Himself revealed in the Incarnation for our salvation.
“At that time: the Pharisees being gathered together, Jesus asked them, saying, ‘What think you of Christ? whose son is he?’ They say to him, ‘David’s.’ He saith to them, ‘How then doth David in spirit call him Lord, saying: The Lord said to my Lord, Sit on my right hand, until I make thy enemies thy footstool?’ ”
The Offertory is taken from the First Sunday of Advent. “To thee have I lifted up my soul; in thee, o my God, I put my trust; let me not be ashamed; neither let my enemies laugh at me: for none of them that wait on thee shall be confounded.”
The Secret: God, who are moved by humbling and appeased by satisfaction, look with kindness upon the contrite and humbled heart of Saint David, that by his example, we, being filled by the spirit of compunction, may be able worthily to offer Thy sacrifice. Through Our Lord... ”
The Communio is also taken from the first mass of a martyr and bishop, another clearly appropriate choice for this feast. “Once have I sworn by my holiness: His seed (i.e. Christ) shall endure for ever. And his throne as the sun before me: and as the moon perfect for ever, and a faithful witness in heaven.”
The Post-Communion: “Lord God, whose only-begotten deigned to be the son of David, , grant we ask, that we by the participation on the his mystery, we may be joined by adoption to the sons of the King of kings by adoption. Through the same...” This also obviously reflects the Christmas season.
The Byzantine Divine Office has an enormous number of proper texts for each feast, and for many days of the temporal cycle. (In the liturgical seasons which are equivalent to the Roman times after Epiphany and Pentecost, most of the proper of the season is repeated on an eight-week rotation.) Two of these texts, which are called the Troparion and the Kontakion, are then repeated as the specific liturgical day requires at the Divine Liturgy, which has far fewer variable parts than the Roman Mass does. Here are the troparion and kontakion of King David, Joseph the Betrothed, and James, the brother of Lord and first bishop of Jerusalem, which unite the Saints in a very clever way for their joint commemoration.
The Troparion Proclaim, o Joseph, the good and wondrous tidings to David, the father (i.e. ancestor) of God; Thou didst see the Virgin with child, thou didst adore with the Magi, thou gavest glory with the shepherds, divinely warned by the angel. Beseech Christ God that our souls may be saved.
The Kontakion Today the divine David is filled with rejoicing, and Joseph brings forth praise with James, for having received a crown by their kinship with Christ, they rejoice, and in hymns exalt Him that is ineffably born on earth, and cry out: O Merciful One, save them that praise Thee!
In Part One of this article, I outlined the
historical literary genre known as the epic, and I suggested that we cannot
“fully appreciate and honor the Prophet Elijah without consciously reading his
life story as that of an epic hero.” (I also included a technical explanation
for the different versions of his English name, if that sort of thing interests
you. If it doesn’t, here’s the synopsis: The Hebrew name אֵלִיָּה would have
sounded like “eleeyah,” the spelling “Elijah” has been around a long time but
no longer encourages Hebraic pronunciation, and the spelling “Elias” came to
English from Greek via Latin.)
Now it’s time to look at how we can understand and honor the
Holy and Glorious Prophet Elijah, whose feast is July 20th in the Byzantine
rite, through the lens of epic heroism.
“Into the Midst of Things”
One of the most well-known features of epic literature is
the convention of beginning in medias res, which literally means “into
the midst of things” and is used in literary theory for works that dive right
into the primary narrative. The epic poet is expected to quickly capture the
reader’s attention by dispensing with any sort of preamble and, at least
initially, with events that led to the main action of the poem. The Aeneid
gives us a fine example:
I sing of arms, and of the man who first
Came from the coasts of Troy to Italy
And the Lavinian shores, exiled by fate.
Much was he tossed about upon the lands
And on the ocean by supernal powers,
Because of cruel Juno's sleepless wrath.
These are the first lines of the poem, and Virgil’s song is
already recounting Aeneas’ tempestuous voyage away from Troy. The narrative
does not begin with the Trojan War or even the fall of Troy; we will, however,
hear about some of that action later, in a flashback. (By the way, I’m using
Christopher Pearse Cranch’s 1872 translation here; I’ve sampled many Aeneid
translations, and this is my favorite. It’s truly excellent, and not well
known.)
The opening lines of the Iliad have an even stronger in
medias res feeling, and they also give you an idea of the stylistic
differences between Virgil and Homer. (In fairness, though, this is from the
Robert Fagles translation, which is superb but probably amplifies those
differences.)
Rage – Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles,
murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses,
hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls,
great fighters’ souls, but made their bodies carrion,
feasts for the dogs and birds,
and the will of Zeus was moving toward its end.
This is how the story of the Prophet Elijah begins:
And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the sojourners of
Gilead, said unto Ahab, As the Lord, the God of Israel, liveth, before whom I
stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.
(1 Kings 17, 1)
No prelude, no family history, no tales of his previous
life, not even the typical prophet-introducing phrase “The word of the Lord
came to...” (this comes after his introduction, in the next verse). Elijah
simply bursts onto the scene, and before the end of the first verse in which he
is mentioned, he is already defying the wicked King Ahab. Biblical scholars
puzzle over this abrupt entrance. They observe that we never learn his
parentage or tribe, and the epithet “Tishbite” deepens, rather than clarifies,
the mystery of his origin.
From a literary standpoint, though, this technique makes
sense, as the German commentators Keil and Delitzsch at least partially
recognized: “This abrupt appearance of Elijah ... is rather a part of the
character of this mightiest of all the prophets.” It is an appearance in
medias res, eminently appropriate for an epic hero.
Sacred Digressions
Epic poems are carefully enriched by digressions from the
main storyline. This occurs as a story-within-a-story that narrates prior
events, as prophecies uttered by a seer, or as episodes that are connected rather
loosely to the principal action.
Elijah is fundamentally a prophet, so that connection
already exists, and furthermore, his life is episodic, consisting of sudden,
brief appearances within the larger frame of a grand mission to defend the
cause of God when Israel was drowning in its own iniquity. We feel this
especially in the homely stories of the ravens and the widow of Zarephath, which
directly follow an introduction that portrays his prophetic mission as intense
and momentous.
And the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening; and he drank of the brook. And it came to
pass after a while, that the brook dried up, because there was no rain in the
land. (1 Kings 17, 6–7)
So he arose and went to Zarephath; and when he came to the
gate of the city, behold, a widow woman was there gathering sticks: and he
called to her, and said, Fetch me, I pray thee, a little water in a vessel,
that I may drink. (1 Kings 17, 10)
Digressions bring variety and interest to a narrative, and
more importantly, they allow an author to communicate themes and character
traits that might be lost amidst the primary action of the epic story. Elijah
is not only the bold, fiery prophet of Mount Carmel; he is also a humble,
compassionate Israelite who promised the widow that her cruse of oil would not
fail, and raised her son from the dead. And that brings us to our next epic
moment in the prophet’s life.
The Underworld
The katabasis, from the Greek word for “descent,” is
a distinctive feature of epic literature. It refers specifically to a descent
into the underworld—that is, the world of the dead. The paradigmatic example
occurs in Book 6 of the Aeneid, but not until Dante’s Inferno would
epic katabasis reach its poetic and theological summit.
Elijah never descends to the underworld, but we hear echoes
of katabasis in the story of the widow’s son, when Elijah confronts
death and overcomes it. There are only three instances of someone being raised
from the dead in the Old Testament, which suggests that great significance is
involved in such events. The detail of Elijah stretching himself upon the dead
child three times emphasizes his participation in the death, as though he
mystically entered the realm of the dead in order to draw the child out of it.
And he stretched himself upon the child three times, and
cried unto the Lord, and said, O Lord my God, I pray thee, let this child’s
soul come into him again.
And the Lord hearkened unto the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came
into him again, and he revived. (1 Kings 17, 21–22)
The Heroism of Faith
The last epic moment that I’ll mention requires little
comment. It radiates the heroic energy that we naturally sense in the feats and
conquests of ancient heroes, while also utterly surpassing them—for this is a
feat of the spirit, not of the body. This is not a conquest of valor and
strength and martial skill, however good and noble those things may be, but a
conquest of one who prays, and who trusts—against overwhelming odds—that
his prayer will be heard.
The passage is simply a masterpiece of epic literature.
Saint Elijah the Prophet, defender of Israel against the impious tyrant Ahab,
pray for us.
And he put the wood in order, and cut the bullock in pieces, and laid it on the wood. And he said, Fill four barrels with water, and pour it
on the burnt offering, and on the wood. And he said, Do it the second time; and
they did it the second time. And he said, Do it the third time; and they did it
the third time. And the water ran round about the altar; and he filled the
trench also with water. And it came to pass at the time of the offering of the
evening oblation, that Elijah the prophet came near, and said, O Lord, the God
of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known this day that thou art God
in Israel, and that I am thy servant, and that I have done all these things at
thy word. Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that thou, Lord,
art God, and that thou hast turned their heart back again.
Then the fire of the
Lord fell, and consumed the burnt offering, and the wood, and the stones, and
the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. And when all the
people saw it, they fell on their faces: and they said, The Lord, he is God;
the Lord, he is God. (1 Kings 18, 33–39)
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July 20th in the Byzantine rite is the feast of the Holy and Glorious Prophet Elijah, a man whose singularly exalted status in salvation history suggests that his life deserves more attention than it receives. In my experience, eastern Christianity has been more faithful than western Christianity in celebrating the monumental figures of the Old Testament—men and women whose actions and interior lives emerge not from the records of mere mortals but from the Holy Bible, wellspring of divine Wisdom and the world’s greatest work of literature.
Elijah rebuked a king, brought down “the fire of the Lord” upon Mount Carmel with his prayers, vanquished four hundred and fifty pagan prophets, brought abundance to a desolate widow, raised the widow’s son from the dead, received nourishment from the hand of an angel, conversed with the Almighty on Mount Horeb, divided the Jordan River, and ascended to heaven in a flaming chariot. This is a life
that has been studied and contemplated for millennia. This is a story that
ignites and ennobles the imagination, and will until the end of time. This is a
man who demonstrates to every nation and every age that Christianity is, or at
least should be, a religion of heroes.
The interminable doctrinal disputes that began with the Protestant Reformation
have turned our attention away from the literary qualities of the Bible.
Indeed, one of the delights of being Catholic is the freedom to savor the
Bible as a work of art, without fretting over how exactly its poetic,
narrative, and epistolary texts should be translated into dogmas. Mother Church
has done this work for us—if we humbly accept her magisterial teachings, we
ipso facto accept that the Bible cannot contradict them, and then the many
obscure passages of Scripture become as so many dark caves and shadowy
woodlands where wonders await us if we are willing to explore, and contemplate,
and pray.
Elijah and the widow’s son. Early sixteenth century.
Among the Bible’s forgotten literary qualities are genres
and poetic forms that enrich the Truth-telling stories which the good God has
written for us. John Milton, of Paradise Lost fame, believed
that the Bible was superior to the classics as a work of literature. That’s a
bold assessment coming from a Renaissance humanist, and also a compelling one
given that Milton was a prodigiously intelligent scholar and classicist.
The epic, defined as “a long narrative poem of heroic
action,” is arguably the most influential literary genre in history. The three
most famous examples in Western culture are the Iliad, the Odyssey,
and the Aeneid, but we could also mention the Divine Comedy, Beowulf,
Hesiod’s Theogony, the Song of Roland, and even
humanity’s oldest surviving work of written literature, the Epic of
Gilgamesh. It is only natural that we would find epic in Holy Scripture as
well. Milton interpreted the Book of Job, which was written almost entirely in verse, as an
epic, and traces of epic are found, for example, in the poetical prose of
Genesis, Exodus, and the Gospels.
Elijah awakened by an angel. Fifteenth century.
The epic mode of thought was more instinctual for
inhabitants of the pre-modern world. Not only timeless masterpieces like
the Aeneid but also countless oral poems, folk tales, and
sagas formed minds and hearts in the poetics of heroism, mortality, prophecy,
noble adventure, divine intervention, sacred tradition, majestic language, and
communal identity. Modern readers such as ourselves have been raised in and
influenced by a very different imaginative and artistic environment, and I
don’t think we can fully appreciate and honor the Prophet Elijah without
consciously reading his life story as that of an epic hero. I’ll provide some
guidance on how to do that in Part Two of this essay.
Addendum: Elias vs. Elijah; or, The Prophet and His English
Names
The prophet’s name is a source of much confusion in the
English-language biblical tradition. To my great consternation, modern bibles
prefer “Elijah,” which has normalized the pronunciation /ɪˈlaɪdʒə/, with the
final consonant pronounced like the “j” in “jump” or the “s” in
“pleasure.” There is no such sound in the Hebrew name אֵלִיָּה, which if we
ignore the initial aleph would resemble “eleeyah.” The consonant in question
here is Hebrew yod, which corresponds to English “y” in “you” (and also happens
to be a name for the phonetic
symbol ⟨j⟩).
During the surge of English-language bible translation in
the sixteenth century, “i” and “j” were two different forms of the same letter.
We see an example of this in the 1587 Geneva Bible, where the prophet’s name is
spelled once as “Elijah” and once as “Eliiah” in the same verse. The more
common spelling by far in the Geneva Bible is “Eliiah,” where the second “i”
may have had a consonantal value similar to that of modern English “y.” The
first edition of the King James Bible also used both “Eliiah” and “Elijah.”
Glenn Bauscher’s translation of the Syriac Bible has
“Elyah,” which, though novel, is highly commendable. The most anomalous
spelling appears in a nineteenth-century translation of the Septuagint carried
out by Sir Lancelot Charles Lee Brenton: he predominantly used “Eliu,” because
the Septuagint predominantly used the genitive form Ηλιου (“Eliou”)
instead of the nominative form Ηλιας (“Elias”). I don’t like the sound of
“Eliu,” but neither am I inclined to argue with anyone whose name includes “Sir
Lancelot.”
The spelling “Elias” appears in the Coverdale Bible (1535),
the Bishops’ Bible (1568), and the Douay-Rheims (1609). The prophet’s Hebrew
name ends in the letter hei, equivalent to English “h”; the “-s” ending is a Greco-Roman phenomenon: Greek pronunciation didn’t allow for an “h”
sound at the end of a word, and translators of the Septuagint replaced the
“-ah” in names such as “Elijah,” “Isaiah,” and “Jeremiah” with “-as.” This was
carried over into the Vulgate and thence to some English versions of the Bible.
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A presidential debate recently occurred in a nation-state
that some consider the modern world’s first democracy. Though I did not watch
the debate, I have read enough about it to recognize that this is an
appropriate time to reflect on the benefits of hereditary monarchy.
The Middle Ages produced many kings and queens of the first order, and many
also of the second (or third, or fourth...) order. Dante, for one, had grown
weary of monarchs—“regi, che son molti, e ’ buon son rari” (“kings,
who are many, and the good are rare”; Paradiso 13). Anyone who
had that much close contact with Italian politics can be excused for growing a
bit cynical. Likewise, anyone who has endured close contact with modern
electoral democracies can be excused for reminiscing, perhaps with immoderate
affection, on the days when a king reigned for life and left the kingdom to his
heir.
The halls of Christendom are adorned with heroic kings, holy kings, even
sainted kings. Their exemplary lives, which have ennobled monarchy itself, are
a precious inheritance and deserve our greatest admiration. And yet, the ruler
who most excites my imagination—the one that seems the very incarnation of human monarchy, in all its mysteries and contradictions—was born long before the
Middle Ages, and even before Christ Himself. His name was David.
David is anointed by Samuel.
He was a shepherd and a warrior, an adulterer and a murderer, a penitent and a
poet, a prophet and a king. He is the archetypal religious musician: a harpist
(1 Samuel 16, 16), a singer (2 Samuel 22, 1), and a composer (2 Samuel 23, 1).
He brought prosperity to Israel, death to Goliath, glory to God, and an example
of faithful, pious, courageous leadership to princes of all ages. Nowhere else in
the great works of literature is such a monarch to be found. The charm and
power of his life story is beautifully expressed in Psalm 77, a masterpiece
which I elsewhere described as “a soaring journey in verse through Israel’s
epic history and tempestuous relationship with God”:
[The Lord] appointed David his servant, and took him up from the flocks of sheep,
out from the ewes in milk he brought him, to be the shepherd of Jacob his people: of Israel, his possession;
and in the innocence of his heart, he pastured them, he led them forth: with the skill of his hands.
To live in the days of David was to live in the reign of a
liturgist. I don’t mean that David was a liturgical scholar (though he must
have been); that is but one definition of “liturgist.” Two others are attested:
“one who advocates the use of liturgy,” and “one who celebrates divine
worship.” David was a celebrant indeed:
And David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of
Obed-edom into the city of David with joy.... And David danced before the
Lord with all his might; and David was girded with a linen ephod.... And it was
so, as the ark of the Lord came into the city of David, that Michal the
daughter of Saul looked out at the window, and saw king David leaping and
dancing before the Lord. (2 Samuel 6, 12-16)
“Leaping and dancing”—this is not the solemn, celestial liturgy of traditional
Christianity, to be sure. The New Covenant is not one with the Old; it is
the fulfillment of the Old, just as the sublime poetry of the
Catholic Mass is the fulfillment of David’s joyful dance in procession with the
Ark, which in the sacred author’s bold metonymy is simply “the Lord.” No
metonymy is needed when speaking of the Catholic priest, for he faces the tabernacle,
and thus his angelic dance—a dance of the soul rather than the body—is seen by
the Lord Himself. And I, a
layman, can only imagine how the priest’s heart must leap with wonder and holy
fear when he leans in close and whispers to the Beloved—and in a mystical
sense, to himself, for he speaks in the first person, and acts in
persona Christi—“this is My body.” The bread, now God, is lifted up into
divine Life, and the priest, now victim, is lifted up onto the Cross, there to
complete, as St. Paul says, the sacrifice of his Lord.
It’s easy to overlook, I think, this mysterious mirroring of the eucharistic
oblation: the sacramental Christ and His sacerdotal servant, gazing at each
other in that liturgical embrace of mutual self-sacrifice. It is said that
Padre Pio suffered grievously while offering Mass. King David was all gladness
on that day when he processed in homage to the Ark, but his royal vocation led
him through the via crucis as well. Postbiblical Jewish
writers were reluctant to accept that David was a sinner; they sought an almost
mythical hero—a supernaturally innocent king who would more perfectly prefigure
the messiah. They didn’t realize that his sins were prefiguration,
for David suffered agonies on their account, much as his divine Descendant
suffered agonies for sins that, though not His in commission, were made His for
the sake of Redemption.
The Scripture says that David “was girded with a linen
ephod.” This is the garment of a priest. Though not of the sacerdotal class,
David was anointed by God, and his kingship was a sacred one:
And they brought in the ark of the Lord, and set it in its place,
in the midst of the tent that David had pitched for it: and David offered burnt
offerings and peace offerings before the Lord. And when David had made an
end of offering the burnt offering and the peace offerings, he blessed the
people in the name of the Lord of hosts. (2 Samuel 6, 17-18)
O how dull and desolate is the timeworn face of modern secular politics when we
must compare it to the warrior-king of Israel, dancing before the Ark of the
Lord “with all his might”! Eyes alight with interior fire, he exchanges his
royal robes for priestly vesture, offers a pleasing sacrifice unto the Lord,
blesses his people in God’s holy name, and sends every man and woman home with
“a cake of bread, and a portion of flesh, and a cake of raisins” (2 Samuel 6,
19).
This was a fine liturgy indeed, with a fine gift from the king—and it was also a vivid
foreshadowing of liturgies to come, when a pure and perfect sacrifice would be
offered, and the people would receive the flesh of the incarnate God.
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It is difficult to overstate the significance of fire in the collective imagination of Judeo-Christian civilization. It is, perhaps, the ultimate symbol. In ancient Greek thought, it represented the uniquely human; in Jewish thought, the divine. Young children are fascinated by it, perhaps because they sense its paradox—so easily snuffed out, like man, and yet so powerful, like God.
In Greek mythology, there are two fires: the celestial fire, which Zeus withheld from mankind, and human fire, given to mankind by Prometheus, who stole it from the Olympian gods. The former is immortal; the latter, like man, is ever on the verge of death.
The fire men have now at their disposal ... is a fire that is “born”—so it is also a fire that dies; it must be kept burning, it must be tended. This fire has an appetite like mortal man’s; unless it is constantly fed, it goes out.... It constantly recalls both his divine origin and his animal nature; it partakes of both—like man himself. [1]
The basic Hebrew word for fire is ’ēsh, which begins with א (aleph), the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, the letter of origins, creation, and the perfect Unity—despite apparent dualities—of the divine Essence. Fire, like God, creates ex nihilo, and enables life: from darkness, light; from cold, warmth; from grain, bread; from rock, iron. It also destroys.
The first occurrence of ’ēsh in the Bible is Genesis 15, 17: “And it cometh to pass—the sun hath gone in, and thick darkness hath been—and lo, a furnace of smoke, and a lamp of fire, which hath passed over between those pieces.” The lamp, casting light amidst the gloom, signifies the majesty of the Almighty and seals a covenant between Abram and his God. The next occurrence is Genesis 19, 24: “Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven.” The next is Genesis 22, 6: “And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took in his hand the fire and the knife; and they went both of them together.” First, the love of God, eternal and true, promised to Abraham and his seed forever. Second, His justice, enacted upon men for whom Abraham prayed. Third, His justice turned upon a Victim—Isaac, Christ—who will burn with agony to save men from burning in eternity.
In Exodus, fire becomes the prevailing manifestation of God. He appears to Moses in a bush that “burned with fire and … was not consumed,” He leads the Israelites as a pillar of fire, and He comes in elemental, awe-inspiring magnificence to Mount Sinai, “which was altogether on smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly.”
The theophany on Sinai is a sublimely liturgical moment. The people must purify themselves, fasting from carnal pleasures: estote parati in diem tertium, “be ye ready against the third day.” They gather and prepare to encounter the living God, but only from a distance, and only through signs and wonders. The privilege of entering into the sanctum is reserved for Aaron, the high priest, and Moses, the supreme prophet. Moses returns with an inestimable gift—the laws of God, so delightful to the faithful soul that in the Hebrew Bible’s longest chapter, Psalm 118, the inspired poet sings a love song to them.
Could fire, with a sacred history as illustrious as this, be absent from the Christian liturgy? Such a thought is not to be borne. But Christianity has no place for the funerary bonfires of the pagan Greeks, nor for the burnt offerings of the Jews. Instead, we have the orderly and aromatic fire of incense, which has been burned in Christian worship since the early centuries of the Church. This Christian fire burns hot indeed, but gently and discreetly; it is a fire of coals, hidden inside the thurible, whose shape is often reminiscent of a mountain, and whose smoke is that of silent prayer.
Exodus 24, 17 tells us that for the children of Israel, “the glory of the Lord was like devouring fire on the top of the mount.” For Christians—living in the age of grace, and called to worship in spirit and truth—the fire of the Lord is not so physically vast, not so externally tremendous. Rather than blazing in awesome splendor from mountain heights, it burns with infinite intensity in the Heart of Jesus Christ. Saint Margaret Mary saw what most of us must imagine:
Flames issued from every part of His Sacred Humanity, especially from His Adorable Breast, which resembled an open furnace and disclosed to me His most loving and most amiable Heart, which was the living source of these flames.
Catholic artists have struggled to worthily depict the Sacred Heart. Were I a painter, I would approach the task with fear and trembling, very much as the Israelites must have approached the mountain of the Lord: “when the trumpet soundeth long, they shall come up to the mount,” but “whosoever toucheth the mount shall be surely put to death.”
Perhaps the most worthy depiction of the Sacred Heart is not a depiction at all, but a symbol. The thurible shows us the Sacred Heart as a beautiful enclosure in which the sacred fire burns, and which swings and flows with the rhythms of life—the slow, solemn heartbeat of the liturgy. Hanging from a chain, as Our Lord hung from the Cross, the thurible reminds us that the divine Heart burns for men, was pierced by a man, and is entrusted to men when distributed in Holy Communion. [2]
From the crown of the thurible, as from the holy mountain of which the psalmist speaks, the smoke of prayer rises steadily, ever ascending from the Heart of Christ to the throne of His heavenly Father. But Our Lord wills that it be renewed from time to time by the devotion of His servants. The priest does this on our behalf, sprinkling grains of incense as the Gospel sower sprinkled “the word of the kingdom ... upon good ground” (Matthew 13, 19; 23). Indeed, the thurible is an enclosure, but it is not sealed. The Heart of Our Lord is ineffably holy yet offered to all who approach Him with humility and love, striving to “hear the word of God and keep it” (Luke 11, 28).
Finally, we can reflect on the resilience of the thurible, an object made of metal and subjected repeatedly to heat that no flesh could endure. After St. Margaret Mary felt endangered by the overwhelmingly ardent fire of the divine Heart, Our Lord consoled her with these words: “I will be your strength. Fear nothing.”
NOTES
1. Jean-Pierre Vernant, The Universe, the Gods, and Men: Ancient Greek Myths, translated by Linda Asher, pp. 55–56.
2. I am referring here to the Eucharistic miracle of Lanciano, which suggests, by means of twentieth-century scientific analysis, that the Flesh received in Holy Communion bears a special relationship with Our Lord’s physical Heart.
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In the Roman Martyrology, the second entry after that of St Thomas of Canterbury reads as follows: “At Jerusalem, (the birth into heaven) of St David, King and Prophet.” David is not among the handful of Old Testament Saints to whom there is any historical devotion in the West, but his feast is extremely ancient in the East. In one of the oldest liturgical books of the Rite of Jerusalem, he is commemorated in a joint feast with St James, the Holy City’s first bishop, and assigned to December 25th; this indicates that this observance is even older than the adoption of Christmas as a separate feast in the East, which happened towards the end of the fourth century. It was soon moved, however, first to the 26th, then to the 28th; in the modern Byzantine Rite, it is kept on the Sunday after Christmas, whatever its date may be, and St Joseph has been added to it. (See Liturgy and Byzantinization in Jerusalem, by Dr Daniel Galadza, table 4.5; Oxford, 2017)
In the Roman Rite supplement for the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem issued in 1935, his feast is kept as a double major, and has its own proper Mass. English translations of the texts, and some recordings of its chant parts, most of which come from other Masses, are given below. The Mass is celebrated with commemorations of St Thomas of Canterbury and the octave of Christmas.
The Introit is that of the Fourth Sunday after Easter, with the extra Allelujas of the Easter season removed. This was obviously selected to celebrate David’s role as the author of the Psalms; Psalm 97, from which it is taken, also figures prominently in the Roman Divine Office of Christmas. “Sing to the Lord a new song, for the Lord hath done wondrous things; before the sight of the nations He hath revealed His justice. Ps. His right hand hath wrought for Him salvation, and His arm is holy. Glory be... Sing to the Lord...”
The Collect: God, almighty Father, who by the mouth of David made hymns to be sung in Thy Holy Spirit; grant, we ask, that by his intercession, we may be able to worthily make the sacrifice of praise. Through our Lord...”
The Epistle, 1 Samuel 16, 4-13, recounts David’s election as the new king of Israel in place of Saul, through the anointing administered to him by the prophet Samuel.
The Anointing of David, 1555, by Paolo Veronese. In this typically overcrowded Mannerist composition, there are fourteen people to either side of the central figures of Samuel and David, reminding us of the three groups of fourteen into which St Matthew divides the ancestors of Christ named at the beginning of his Gospel. That this is a deliberate reference is demonstrated by the presence of three women, as there are three women mentioned in the Genealogy, Rahab, Ruth, and the wife of Uriah, i.e. Bathsheba. (Image from Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0)
The Gradual is taken from the first Mass of a bishop and martyr, even though David himself fits neither of these categories, since he is mentioned in it by name. “I have found David my servant: with my holy oil I have anointed him. For my hand shall help him: and my arm shall strengthen him. V. The enemy shall profit nothing against him: nor shall the son of iniquity hurt him.” Psalm 88 from which both it and the Communio are taken is also sung at Matins of Christmas.
The Alleluja is taken from the book of Judges, 5, 3, which is very rarely cited anywhere in the liturgy, and appears to be unique to this Mass. “Hear, O ye kings, give ear, ye princes: It is I, it is I, that will sing to the Lord, I will sing to the Lord the God of Israel.”
Of the various Gospel passages that mention King David, Matthew 22, 41-44, seems to have been chosen for this Mass because in it Christ, whose Birth is celebrated a few days before, obliquely asserts His own divinity. The Messiah must come from the house of David, yet David himself calls him “the Lord”, which would make no sense if the former were no more than a distant descendent. The liturgy of the Christmas octave is very much concerned to assert that the Child who is born in Bethlehem is not a mere mortal, but God Himself revealed in the Incarnation for our salvation.
“At that time: the Pharisees being gathered together, Jesus asked them, saying, ‘What think you of Christ? whose son is he?’ They say to him, ‘David’s.’ He saith to them, ‘How then doth David in spirit call him Lord, saying: The Lord said to my Lord, Sit on my right hand, until I make thy enemies thy footstool?’ ”
The Offertory is taken from the First Sunday of Advent. “To thee have I lifted up my soul; in thee, o my God, I put my trust; let me not be ashamed; neither let my enemies laugh at me: for none of them that wait on thee shall be confounded.”
The Secret: God, who are moved by humbling and appeased by satisfaction, look with kindness upon the contrite and humbled heart of Saint David, that by his example, we, being filled by the spirit of compunction, may be able worthily to offer Thy sacrifice. Through Our Lord... ”
The Communio is also taken from the first mass of a martyr and bishop, another clearly appropriate choice for this feast. “Once have I sworn by my holiness: His seed (i.e. Christ) shall endure for ever. And his throne as the sun before me: and as the moon perfect for ever, and a faithful witness in heaven.”
The Post-Communion: “Lord God, whose only-begotten deigned to be the son of David, , grant we ask, that we by the participation on the his mystery, we may be joined by adoption to the sons of the King of kings by adoption. Through the same...” This also obviously reflects the Christmas season.
The Byzantine Divine Office has an enormous number of proper texts for each feast, and for many days of the temporal cycle. (In the liturgical seasons which are equivalent to the Roman times after Epiphany and Pentecost, most of the proper of the season is repeated on an eight-week rotation.) Two of these texts, which are called the Troparion and the Kontakion, are then repeated as the specific liturgical day requires at the Divine Liturgy, which has far fewer variable parts than the Roman Mass does. Here are the troparion and kontakion of King David, Joseph the Betrothed, and James, the brother of Lord and first bishop of Jerusalem, which unite the Saints in a very clever way for their joint commemoration.
The Troparion Proclaim, o Joseph, the good and wondrous tidings to David, the father (i.e. ancestor) of God; Thou didst see the Virgin with child, thou didst adore with the Magi, thou gavest glory with the shepherds, divinely warned by the angel. Beseech Christ God that our souls may be saved.
The Kontakion Today the divine David is filled with rejoicing, and Joseph brings forth praise with James, for having received a crown by their kinship with Christ, they rejoice, and in hymns exalt Him that is ineffably born on earth, and cry out: O Merciful One, save them that praise Thee!
A couple of years ago, my family discovered the work of Israeli-born and Basel-trained early music specialist Elam Rotem (b. 1984), a keyboardist and singer who founded and directs the splendid vocal ensemble Profeti della Quinta (Prophets of the Perfect Fifth — a very Augustinian and Boethian name). Moreover, Rotem runs a delightful website called Early Music Sources, which contains superb educational videos on such questions as 17th-century monody, historical pitch, cadences, high clefs and transposition, Italian basso continuo, tuning and temperaments, tactus and proportions around 1600, the romanesca, improvisation, and intabulations.
His accomplishments as a performer along with these educational resources would already be more than enough feathers in the cap of any 33-year old musician. But there is something much more fascinating about Elam Rotem. He is a first-class composer of music in the style of the early 17th-century, not as an academic exercise or as an ironic postmodern reconstruction, but simply because he so deeply understands and loves the music of the early Baroque that he thinks musically in this language and speaks it in the form of new compositions. What is more, he sets to music texts of the Old Testament in their original Hebrew. The result is stunning new music that communicates with the dramatic intensity, lush elegance, and sonorous beauty of Monteverdi — as in this setting by Rotem of the Song of Songs 4:8–11, “Come from Libanus, my spouse, come from Libanus, come…” (the composer is the one playing, and singing from, the harpichord):
Or in this Sinfonia à 3:
Rotem has written two large-scale multi-movement works in this style, both of which have been recorded in sumptuous performances that I have listened to many times with great enjoyment, and cannot recommend too highly:
The links at Amazon include samples of all the tracks.
Naturally, such a countercultural but brilliantly successful endeavor is of immense interest to me, and I would think to many NLM readers, since those of us who celebrate or assist at the usus antiquior are promoting a liturgy (and its musical repertoire) that embraces the ancient, medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque periods, yet remains present among us down into our own times, and is still being enriched with new works of art — be they new churches, new vestments, new furnishings, or new musical compositions in Latin. For us, too, old forms of art are still alive, and that which may seem to some to be “dead” has never ceased to be the living language in which we worship.
I asked Mr. Rotem if he would be willing to do an interview for NLM about his work in the ongoing (and evidently burgeoning) early music revival. He graciously consented.
Interview with Composer and Early Music Specialist Elam Rotem
Peter Kwasniewski (PK): Mr Rotem, thank you for sharing your time and expertise with readers of New Liturgical Movement. We are interested in the question of the continuing relevance of the past to the present, particularly in the use of ancient religious rites, languages, and art forms. Music is frequently discussed in so-called “traditional” Catholic circles, above all the extensive use of Gregorian chant and Renaissance polyphony, which are treasures of our heritage. So we are well-disposed to the work you are doing.
You have written some magnificent music in a late Renaissance or early Baroque style. How did you end up coming to this style as opposed to an earlier or later one? What is special about the early 17th century in your eyes and ears?
Elam Rotem (ER): The period around 1600 is unique in music history. New ways of composition, which are almost opposite to the ways in which music was composed until then, were invented and used. The concept of a single soloist that is half-singing and half-reciting (recitar cantando) and accompanied by simple harmonies, made it possible to tell stories in an immediate and dramatic manner. In addition, composers were exploring new harmonies that were not used before, and took the liberty to do so based on the texts that they were setting. If the character of the text was soft and sweet, so was the music. But if it was harsh, they didn’t mind composing harsh music that was intentionally unpleasant. The music’s main purpose was to amplify the text. Such stylistic environment is great for communicating emotions to the listeners, and especially for storytelling.
PK: Strikingly, your works are composed in Hebrew, which is not a language that has been much used for choral music intended for Western European and American audiences. What’s it like to set Hebrew in a musical style whose main languages were Latin and Italian? Do you have precursors or models you can look to? Do the Latin versions of texts from the Hebrew scriptures and their historic settings influence your work with the original language?
ER: I was inspired by the Hebrew psalms of Salomone Rossi (1622). Rossi, on the one hand, was a “normal” court musician, playing and composing instrumental and secular vocal music. He worked at the Gonzaga court in Mantua together with Claudio Monteverdi, and took part in Monteverdi’s productions. On the other hand, he also attempted to introduce Western/Christian musical traditions into the Synagogue. His Psalms and prayers in Hebrew were meant to be performed as part of the liturgy. Rossi was the first to bring such an idea to life and to print music in Hebrew. When trying to fill the big gaps in Rossi’s biography, I imagined how, in addition to his rather conservative liturgical works, he might have also composed some dramatic works in Hebrew for some special holidays, and how such works had little chance of survival, as the only surviving documents related to Rossi are his Venetian musical prints.
When composing, I had much pleasure working with the original texts in all their untranslatable beauty. Composing biblical Hebrew in stille rappresentativo is quite different from the motet style of Rossi, so I had to find my own way of doing so. The accents of the words in Hebrew are typically on the last syllable, which proved to be quite a challenge when trying to make the text flow in a recitar cantando manner.
Renaissance polyphony in Hebrew by Salomone Rossi
PK: You have composed many works from biblical texts on love (Quia Amore Langueo) and have written a veritable oratorio on the story of Joseph (Rappresentatione di Giuseppe e i suoi Fratelli). What attracted you to these parts of the Scriptures, and in general, is there something you are looking for when you choose your texts or themes?
ER: I composed Joseph and His Brethren first. I love the story, and I love how the original text tells it; very condensed and to the point, in an almost dry manner. So when suddenly a touching or poetic moment occurs it is amplified by the contrast to the other drier parts and the result is very moving. It was an enjoyable challenge to use this biblical text as a kind of libretto and bring the story to life. Apart from Joseph and His Brethren, in Quia Amore Langueo there are also some dramatic scenes (“Amnon and Tamar” and “Samson and Delilah”), as well as poetic motet-like texts from the Song of Songs. What I loved about the Song of Songs is the colorful texts full of images and contrasts — very appropriate and similar to the texts used around 1600 in general.
PK: Do you think it would be legitimate to compare the nation of Israel’s revival of Hebrew as a spoken language, when it had more or less been extinct, with your revival of Baroque musical language?
ER: This was suggested by Barney Sherman in an article about my compositions. I will just comment that I didn’t make a “revival of the Baroque musical language,” I merely took one more step on the same path that the early music scene was taking: instead of only adding ornaments or parts to existing compositions, or improvising pieces, I did a bit more. And I’m certainly not the only one; for example, Guido Morini performed and published his Baroque opera Solve et Coagula.
PK: Naturally, there will be critics who wonder how it is possible to “express oneself freely as an artist” if one must adopt the strictures or constraints of a certain musical style. What would you say to those critics?
ER: Art was and is always based on constraints. I don’t believe it’s important which constraints you use. As a performer and researcher, I did (and do) all that I can in order to “feel at home” with the music of around 1600. I’m playing this music for a living and this is my primary musical language. If I want to create and not only execute music, I will naturally use the language I know best in order to do so.
PK: I guess I would also ask the “inverse” of the last question. Modern art has boasted about “originality” for a long time now, but to be realistic, we do not seem to be living in an age of many great composers and great masterpieces. Do you think the modern idea of creativity or originality — that we must always be seeking something “new” — has something to do with our lack of worthy output?
ER: I do believe in the concept of “something new,” but on a smaller scale. It was not different in past periods: for example, Monteverdi composed a madrigal based on texts that had already been used by other composers, but there was still a place for his version — a new version of the music — although the text, musical language, and medium were the same as in other existing compositions. I think that the difficulty starts when the musical language and the medium must also be reinvented by the composer; it’s as if every time we want to say something we would have to invent a new language. Even assuming that the invented language is coherent and contains inner logic, it could be compared to trying to communicate using a language unknown to one’s interlocutor; if the listeners don’t understand the language, their experience is limited because they lack a stylistic frame of reference.
My focus on the style of the early 17th century frees me of this concern, seeing that composers of that time were bound to specific stylistic conventions.
Profeti della Quinta
PK: You and your colleagues in Basel are dedicated to the art of paradox: early music played in the contemporary world, on new instruments of period design. Can a historic musical style speak to moderns with the same “grammar, logic and rhetoric” with which it spoke to its original audience?
ER: I can’t know how the original audience experienced the music. I do know that around 1600 musicians were interested in expressing human emotions and moving the hearts of the listeners, and I believe that this can still be done today.
PK: Would you say that the qualities of early instruments are a major influence on and inspiration for your desire to compose in this style? Which comes first, the style or the instruments? Does something as subtle as the tuning system — which, as we know, went through so many variations in Western history — also influence your compositional voice?
ER: Instruments and temperaments are just certain details in the whole picture. They are important and inspirational, and it’s a good place to start (indeed this is how the early music movement started), but they are not the essence. The essence is the understating of the musical language, and in the case of dramatic music, the communication of the text and emotions.
PK: Our times have seen a remarkable increase in the use of male vocalists (altos, countertenors, falsettists) for parts that (outside of English choir schools) were conventionally given to female altos and sopranos. What do you think of this development? What motivated you to choose only male singers?
ER: Indeed the period around 1600 is the beginning of the inclusion of female singers in performances; before that period, one can say that generally music was performed predominantly by males. Most of the repertoire we are singing in Profeti della Quinta was probably performed by male singers, but we do include female singers sometimes (and definitely female instrumentalists). Otherwise, since this is the ensemble I’m working with, I composed the pieces especially for its singers, and tailored it to their abilities. This is, by the way, yet another aspect of historical composition, since baroque composers often composed a part with a specific performer in mind.
PK: How has your work — your compositions and the playing of your ensemble — been received in the early music world at large? Of course, early music specialists learn to improvise (and organists have never stopped doing it), but do you see any other musicians beginning to compose in the early Baroque style?
ER: My works were received warmly by the public, but with mixed feelings by some critics. It is always much appreciated, but some (especially musicologists but not only) still are not sure if such a thing is a “legitimate” work of art. I obviously think it is, and the public in the concerts seems to agree. By the end of 2018 Joseph and His Brethren will be performed for the fourteenth time and more performances are planned in the future. I think that this is not bad for a piece composed in the 21st century, in which many of the newly composed pieces are only performed once… As I mentioned above, there are other musicians in the early music scene that are doing similar things, but perhaps not on the same scale.
PK: Where have you found your work best received?
ER: Whether it was just one or two small pieces, or the complete Joseph and His Brethren, my compositions have been well received everywhere we perform them. Naturally, because of the language and cultural relevance, the performances in Israel were received with even more appreciation. As I mentioned above, when the human emotional experience is in the center of attention, it can and does speak to a wide public.
PK: Do you ever compose in other styles, whether earlier or later than the early 16th-century idiom? If so, will you share those works with your public, or are they just for private use? Are you working on any big projects at the moment, either of composition or of recording?
ER: Up to this time, I haven’t composed music in other styles. Unless I would also perform and research music in other styles, I don’t think I would compose in them. My intention is not to imitate music from other periods, but to express myself in the language I know best. At the moment I’m not working on any new compositions, but some new CDs of Profeti della Quinta are coming out soon: Psalms by Alexander Utendal (ca.1530-1581) and a collection of madrigals (Amor, fortuna, e morte - Madrigals by de Rore, Luzzaschi, Gesualdo & Monteverdi).
***
I would like to express my thanks to the composer for this interview and for sharing the gift of his music with us.
Here is a trailer for Joseph and His Brethren:
A final thought. The philosopher Charles Taylor is famous for claiming that modern man, who is a conscious and free self negotiating a world of optional beliefs and engagements, is forever cut off from the “enchanted cosmos” of pre-modern man, who naively saw himself as dwelling in a world of spiritual realities as real as, or more real than, material ones. We moderns are irreducibly different — there is “no way back.” I would think that a confirmed Taylorite would consider Rotem’s enterprise impossible, or merely academic or parodical. And yet, it only takes a pair of functional ears to discover that it is no such thing: it is eminently possible, convincing, passionate, and powerful. Crucially, it is experienced immediately and intuitively by those capable of understanding music; in other words, not as the result of a “lifestyle choice,” as Taylor imagines religion must now be, thanks to our awareness of alternatives. Might this give us a reason for thinking that the art of music is one way of refuting the thesis that naive access to an “enchanted cosmos” is no longer available to us, that we are cut off from our premodern ancestors?
Please visit my new personal website, www.peterkwasniewski.com, for news, information, article links, sacred music, and the home of Os Justi Press.
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