Bicentennial of John Mason Neale

Today is the 200th anniversary of the birth of John Mason Neale, the greatest hymn translator of the 19th century and a pioneer of the Anglo-Catholic liturgical revival that followed the Oxford Movement.

Neale (January 24, 1818-August 6, 1866) was the son and grandson of evangelical Anglican priests. His ordained ministry included being the rector of Sackville College (an almshouse founded in 1609) and, 1855, founding the Society of St. Margaret, an Anglican women’s order that provided nurses to the industrial poor (and today has chapters in England and Boston). Both groups are this week holding events marking the occasion.

As an undergraduate at Trinity College Cambridge, he cofounded the Cambridge Camden Society (later the Ecclesiological Society) which he headed for many years. The society focused on the aesthetics of church worship — both architecture and liturgy — and was credited with spurring the English gothic revival of the 19th century. Much of this was disseminated through the society’s journal (The Ecclesiologist), published from 1841-1868, for which Neale was one of the primary authors and co-editor.

Neale spent considerable time researching ancient and medieval liturgies of both the Eastern and Western church, publishing a five volume set: A History of the Holy Eastern Church as well as various Western liturgies in Latin and English translation. However, he made his greatest impact as a hymn writer and translator.

Neale’s Hymn Compilations

Neale was a prodigious author, translator and editor of hymns. The books of original hymns included

• Hymns for Children (1842) 
• Hymns for the Sick (1843)
• Hymns for Youth (1844)
• Hymns for Children, Third Series (1845) 

His compilations of translations (mostly his own) include

• Medieval Hymns and Sequences (1851)
• Hymnal Noted (various editions, 1851-1856)
• Carols for Christmas Tide (1853)
• Carols for Easter Tide (1854).
• Hymns of the Eastern Church (1862)
• Hymns Chiefly Medieval on the Joys and Glories of Paradise (1865)

Most of these books are on Google Books or the Internet Archive.

Lasting Impact

Neale is the top source of hymn texts for most US or American Anglican hymnals published from 1861-2000. He is listed as the author or translator of 45 texts in Hymnal 1982, and his influence was greater in Hymnal 1940, The English Hymnal (1906) and particularly Hymns Ancient & Modern in its various editions from 1861-1904.

Among the hymns Neale translated are

• All glory, laud and honor
• Christ is made the sure foundation
• Come ye faithful raise the strain
• Creator of the stars of night
• Good Christian Men, Rejoice
• Good King Wenceslas
• O come, O come Emmanuel
• O sons and daughters, let us sing
• Of the Father’s love begotten
• That Easter Day with joy was bright
• The Day of Resurrection

The accolades for Neale’s contributions are numerous, and I hope to summarize them another time.

Further Information

A good overview is provided by Julian’s A Dictionary of Hymnology; I have uploaded just the Neale entry here. Good capsule biographies are also found in HymnsAndCarolsOfChristmas.com and The CyberHymnal.

Two biographies by his daughters help considerably in understanding his history:

• Eleanor A. Towle, John Mason Neale, DD: A Memoir, London: Longmans, Green, 1907. Available at Google Books.
• Mary Sackville Lawson, ed., Letters of John Mason Neale, London: Longmans, Green, 1910. Available at Google Books and the Internet Archive.

They also supply the pictures that appear on Wikipedia and other websites (including the picture above from Towle’s memoir).

Because he died on August 6 (the Feast of the Transfiguration), the Anglican church remembers him on August 7. Anglican.org includes two prayers for Neale; the first appears taken from the Episcopal Church’s liturgies for lesser feasts and fasts:

Grant unto us, O God, that in all time of our testing we may know Thy presence and obey thy will; that, following the example of thy servant John Mason Neale, we may with integrity and courage accomplish what thou givest us to do, and endure what thou givest us to bear; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Almighty God, beautiful in majesty, majestic in holiness, who Hast shown us the splendor of creation in the work of thy servant John Mason Neale: Teach us to drive from the world the ugliness of chaos and disorder, that our eyes may not be blind to thy glory, and that at length everyone may know the inexhaustible richness of thy new creation in Jesus Christ our Lord; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Second Thoughts about Three Kings

This time seven years ago, I wrote a blog post skeptical of two seasonal hymns — the Christmas hymn “In the Bleak Midwinter” and the Epiphany hymn “We Three Kings“. After several years both to learn and mature, during today’s Epiphany I observance I feel compelled to modify that earlier position.

What do we know about the visitors from the East?

• Matthew 2 refers clearly to “wise men”
• We assume there were three of them because there are clearly three gifts. 
• There is no mention of kings

Rather than summarize the old post (available via the magic of hyperlinks), let me summarize the arguments as I now see them. Arguments against “three kings” are

1. There is no mention of kings and if there were really kings they would be mentioned
2. It is illogical to expect they are kings, either because multiple kings aren’t going to travel months (or years) to Jerusalem, or because “wise men” (magoi, μάγοι) aren’t going to be kings.

Let me come back to #1. For #2, one of our clergy points out that in some nations of the East, there would be multiple kings because a king is more like a governor, duke or prince than an emperor or pharaoh. Meanwhile, there are examples of wise kings in the line of David, and the rulers before Saul (the Judges) tended to be chosen for their wisdom rather than their inheritance.

Arguments in favor of the “three kings”:

1. Tradition, dating to the first millennium. This is enough for many Anglo-Catholics.
2. Predictions from the Old Testament

I was struck by the latter today, from both the psalm and old testament readings of morning prayer:

The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall give presents; * the kings of Arabia and Saba shall bring gifts. (Psalm 72:10)

A multitude of camels shall cover you,
    the young camels of Midian and Ephah;
    all those from Sheba shall come.
They shall bring gold and frankincense,
    and shall bring good news, the praises of the Lord.  (Isaiah 60:6)

So the question is: is this prophecy fulfilled by the birth of Jesus? Such argument would require

• Accepting the principle that OT prophesies are fulfilled by the NT
• Concluding that these prophesies refers to a coming Messiah and not some other event
• Deciding that this specific is fulfilled by the events of Matthew 2

The earlier posting was accurate in suggesting that many theologians and other Christians reject the idea of kings visiting Joseph, Mary and baby (or toddler) Jesus. It was inaccurate in suggesting that there was only one possible conclusion, because clearly more than one interpretation is possible. It also raised (but did not answer) the question of what doctrine should be presented in hymns if the theological issues are not conclusively resolved.