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Christian Men, Rejoice
    Good Christian men, rejoice

With heart and soul and voice
.
Give ye heed to what we say:

News! News!

Jesus Christ is born today!

Ox and ass before Him bow
,
And He is in the manger now
.
Christ is born today!

Christ is born today!

Sweet Song of the Angels
    W ell, what would
you
do if you stumbled upon some angels having a singsong? Henry Suso (no doubt after he had picked himself up from the floor) joined right in the singing and did a little dance for good measure. Then, once the angels were gone, he wrote down the lyrics.
    Try taking that to a copyright lawyer!
    Suso (or Heinrich Seuse) was a student of the German monk Meister Eckhart, and his angelic encounter is said to have taken place just before the song’s publication in 1328.
    “
In Dulci Jubilo
,” the original title of the piece, means “In Sweetest Rejoicing.” It concentrated on the wonder that was Christ’s birth and what it meant for humankind. The music, by the same name, has to be one of the most recognizable of all Christmas melodies. J. S. Bach wrote a choral prelude around it, and Franz Liszt included it in his Weihnachtsbaum piano suite. Nearly 650 years after the song was first published, Mike Oldfield, composer of
Tubular Bells
, took the tune to number four on the British pop charts.
    The Suso version of the song was written in Latin. In the early nineteenth century, English composer Robert Lucas de Pearsall widened the song’s appeal by producing a version combining Latin and English lyrics. Shortly afterward the English hymn writer John Mason Neale “freely” adapted “In Dulci Jubilo” into “Good Christian Men, Rejoice” and gave the world the version we now know.
    Neale’s words differed considerably from the original, but in the spirit of the song, he deviated not at all. Both versions are full of wonder at the fact that Christ would be born for us—and would die to save us.
    Suso’s version mentions the joys to be found “
in Regis curia
” (in the King’s court), and Neale has Jesus call us to “His everlasting hall.” Whether the song is in Latin or English, the joy therein surely gives good Christian men and women cause to sing “in dulci jubilo,” in sweetest rejoicing.
    And thou shalt have joy and gladness; and many shall rejoice at his birth
.
    L UKE 1:14

O Come, All Ye Faithful
    O come, all ye faithful
,
Joyful and triumphant
.
O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem
.
Come and behold Him—

Born the King of angels!

O come, let us adore Him!

O come, let us adore Him!

O come, let us adore Him—

Christ, the Lord!

The Fideles Code
    F ans of books like
The Da Vinci Code
will appreciate the story behind the Christmas carol “O Come, All Ye Faithful.”
    Originally written in Latin as “
Adeste Fideles
,” the origins of the piece are tantalizingly obscure. The lyrics may have originated in the thirteenth century, or they may have been written in the seventeenth century by a Portuguese king. But the best claim to authorship is held by the man who first published the hymn. John Francis Wade, a Jacobite sympathizer in exile in France, published his
Cantus Diversi
, including “Adeste Fidelus,” in 1751.
    A supporter of Bonnie Prince Charlie, who attempted to capture the British crown in 1745, Wade decorated his manuscript with imagery that held significance for the Jacobite “faithful.”
    According to the theory, “Bethlehem” was a well-known code word for England, and
angelorum
(“angels” in the hymn) would be replaced with
Anglorum
, meaning “English.” So “born the king of angels” became “born the king of the English.”
    It is always possible that the song had a hidden meaning, but it’s more likely that Wade, who also wrote other hymns, was a man of God celebrating the birth of his Savior.
    Frederick Oakley, a canon at Westminster Cathedral, translated the first four verses into English, and William Brooke, a hymn writer, completed the job. The version modern