Veni creator spiritus

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Veni creator spiritus
Veni creator spiritus.jpg
General
Use: Hymn
Liturgical calendar : Pentecostave prayer of the hour
Text origin: Rabanus Maurus
Mode : Eighth tone
Choral book : Graduale Romanum (1908), p. 121 *

Veni creator spiritus (in German: "Come, creator spirit") is a Latin hymn from the 9th century, the majority of which is attributed to Rabanus Maurus . According to a thesis of Heinrich Lausberg , it was written on the occasion of the Aachen Council of 809 in order to get its participants in the programmatic mood for the imperial mandate to prove the theological admissibility of the insertion of the Filioque into the great creed . In any case, it is certain that the hymn was written in the theological context of this council.

The hymn is one of the few prayers in the liturgy of the Western Church that addresses directly to the Holy Spirit . At least since the 10th century, he was in the Liturgy of the Hours in the Pfingstoktav used at least since the 11th century, even in synods , consecrations and ordinations . It is also sung when the cardinals enter the conclave .

Text history

The poems of Rabanus Maurus were first published in 1617 by Christoph Brouwer based on an old Fulda manuscript under the title Hrabani Mauri, ex Magistro et Fuldensi Abbate Archiepiscopi Moguntini, poemata de diversis . This manuscript - as can be seen from other surviving fragments - as such goes back to the 10th century, but is no longer preserved today, so that Brower's imprint now takes the place of this oldest source.

In addition, there is the more recent tradition of liturgical books, some of which have passed on the text with melodies. Because of the close proximity of the hymn to the form of an iambic quaternar of the classical Latin metric , small “corrections” in a humanistic sense have been made in a few places .

In the tradition of the liturgical books are the Graduale Romanum (like its predecessor, the Liber Usualis ), the Catholic hymnbook Gotteslob (GL 341, 342 and 351), the Evangelical hymnbook with Martin Luther's translation (EG 126) and the Reformed hymnbook of Switzerland (RG 499, 500).

Text with transfers

The hymn has been translated over and over again since the 12th century. After Franz Josef Worstbrock , it is the most frequently translated hymn of the German Middle Ages. In addition to the Latin text, the most widespread versions in the German-speaking world today are the translations by Martin Luther and Heinrich Bone . In Luther's version, however, the order of the third and fourth stanzas is reversed. The hymn has been included in the praise of God under song number 341 . The German version (song number 342) is a counterfacture with a translation by Friedrich Dörr .

Latin text (GL 341) Martin Luther (1524) Heinrich Bone (1847)

1. Veni, creator Spiritus,
mentes tuorum visita:
imple superna gratia,
quae tu creasti pectora.

2. Qui diceris Paraclitus,
donum Dei altissimi,
fons vivus, ignis, caritas
et spiritalis unctio.

3. Tu septiformis munere,
dextrae Dei tu digitus,
tu rite promissum Patris
sermone ditans guttura.

4. Accende lumen sensibus,
infunde amorem cordibus,
infirma nostri corporis
virtute firmans perpeti.

5. Hostem repellas longius
pacemque dones protinus;
ductore sic te praevio
vitemus omne noxium.

6. Per te sciamus da Patrem
noscamus atque Filium,
te utriusque Spiritum
credamus omni tempore.

7b. Deo Patri sit gloria
et Filio, qui a mortuis
surrexit, ac Paraclito,
in saeculorum saecula.

1. Come, God Creator, Holy Spirit,
visit the hearts of men,
fill them with grace, for you know
that they are your creatures.

2. For you are called the Comforter,
dear gift of the Most High,
a spiritual ointment given to us,
a living well, love and fire.

4. With gifts you are sevenfold
the finger on God's right hand;
You will soon give the word of the Father in
tongues to every country.

3. Light up a light in our minds,
give us fervor in the heart of love,
the weak flesh in us, known to you,
keep your strength and favor firmly.

5. Drive the enemy's cunning away from us,
your grace create peace with us,
that we will gladly follow your guidance
and avoid harm to souls.

6. Teach us to know the Father well,
and Jesus Christ, his Son, so
that we may become full of faith
, to understand you, both spirits.

7b. Praise be to God the Father and to the Son
who rose from the dead;
be done
to the Comforter for ever and ever .

1. Come, Creator Spirit, come to us,
visit the hearts of the children of yours: those who
created your power,
now fill them with your grace.

2. You are called the comforter,
a pledge of grace from the highest God,
you fountain of life, light, love and glow,
the anointing of the soul, the highest good.

3. O treasure, which adorns sevenfold,
O finger of God who guides us,
gift promised by the Father,
you who make the tongues speak.

4. Ignite the glow of light in us,
pour love into
our hearts,
strengthen our body's frailty with your strength at all times.

5. Drive far from us the violence of the enemy,
in your peace keep us,
that we, led by your light,
do not fall into sin and misery.

6. Grant that through you we will
recognize the Father and also the Son here
and that as the spirit of both
we will firmly believe you at all times.

7b. Praise be given to the Father in the highest throne
and to his risen Son, to
the Comforter also,
now and for all eternity.

The last stanza in the Rabanus text was originally:

7. Praesta hoc, Pater piissime,
Patrique compar unice,
cum Paracleto Spiritu
regnans per omne saeculum.

7.
Do this, dearest father, And, like the father, you only one,
together with the assistance of the Spirit,
ruling for all eternity.

Other translations come from Angelus Silesius (1668) and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (April 9, 1820).

Structure of the hymn after Heinrich Lausberg

The hymn is composed in seven Ambrosian hymn stanzas and structurally shows in a special way a relationship with the hymn Ave maris stella .

The first stanza, as the proemium of the entire hymn, asks for the charismatic presence of the spirit. Only after six stanzas, addressing the Holy Spirit, does the seventh stanza address the entire Trinity as a doxology .

The “corpus” of the poem form the stanzas 2 to 6. They start from the already accepted designations of the Holy Spirit, namely paraclete , gift of God, living spring, etc. and lead to the formulation “utriusque spiritum”, the theological aim of the hymn , namely the doctrine to be established that the Holy Spirit does not only proceed from the Father, but as "both Spirit" also from the Son ( Filioque ).

"Indeed, one cannot fail to recognize a formal 'preciousness' and an 'artist vanity' aimed at the 'first audience' of the poet."

- Lausberg : The hymn "Veni Creator Spiritus", p. 23

After the end of the Council of Aachen, the climax of the composition - credamus in its original sense of the inclusion of the Filioque formulation in the Credo - was no longer comprehensible and was either in the sense of a deeper understanding of faith (as with Luther) or an intensified power of faith (as with Bone) reinterpreted.

In some surviving versions, the original seventh stanza has been omitted or has been replaced by a doxology that is hardly poetically linked to the rest of the hymn.

According to Lausberg, the individual stanzas are based on learned allusions and without the respective terms themselves being mentioned, the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit , but not in the order as they are called in Isa 11: 2-3  VUL , but in reverse order, which since Augustine has been regarded as the “pedagogical” sequence particularly suitable for humans. The following assignment results for Lausberg:

verse Gift Latin Explanation
1 Fear of God Timor Domini There is a linguistic relationship between the words imple superna gratia in the first stanza and the word combination adimple eos Spiritu timoris tui from the confirmation rite for children in Roman rituals. In addition, the term creator implies in the first straw the attitude of the fear of God on the part of the creature. Last but not least, the first stanza of the hymn is similarly isolated as the gift of the fear of God in relation to the other six gifts.
2 piety pietas The invocation of the Holy Spirit through “consolatory” names refers to the gift of piety, which is to be understood both as “the mercy of Christ” and as “the piety of man towards God”.
3 science scientia The gift of science is assigned to the gift of speech , which is addressed in the third stanza by sermone ditans guttura .
4th Strength fortitudo The gift of strength is used as a remedy against the infirmitas (weakness) of humans mentioned in the fourth stanza .
5 advice consilium The fifth verse "asks the Holy Spirit to the against the malitia acting alcohol consilii" , d. H. the gift of counsel.
6th understanding intellectus According to the sixth stanza, the believer knows the Father and the Son through the Holy Spirit. This, in turn, is the very function of the gift of the mind.
7th wisdom sapientia The seventh stanza as a description of the eschatological vision of God corresponds to the gift of wisdom, which works in earthly life as striving for the final goal, but in reaching the final goal brings the gift of the intellect to perfection.

Settings

Gregorian chant (Latin, first stanza)

The oldest Gregorian melody (in the eighth church tone ) has been handed down from Kempten around the year 1000 .

Vocal works

Organ arrangements

Other musical arrangements

  • Ross Edwards : Veni Creator Spiritus for string orchestra (1997).

reception

The title of the hymn is the final word of the Stuttgart confession of guilt , which in autumn 1945 asks for a new spirit for the Protestant churches after the Second World War .

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Veni Creator Spiritus  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Markus Bautsch: On Contrafactures of Gregorian Repertoire - Veni Creator Spiritus , accessed on December 8, 2014
  2. ^ Goethe Berlin edition. Aufbau-Verlag 1973. Volume 2, page 774, can also be found online at: https://archive.org/details/s01werkegoethe04goet/page/328/mode/2up
  3. ^ Heinrich Lausberg, The hymn "Veni Creator Spiritus" , Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen, 1979, § 8 and § 11.3, with reference to dens., Ave Maris Stella, § 36.3: Lausberg argues with the term "projection ". The first stanza touches on key words that are taken up and developed in the middle five stanzas (before the doxology).
  4. ^ Heinrich Lausberg, The hymn "Veni Creator Spiritus" , Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen, 1979, pp. 36–37.
  5. ^ Heinrich Lausberg, The hymn "Veni Creator Spiritus" , Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen, 1979, pp. 27-29.
  6. ^ Heinrich Lausberg, The hymn "Veni Creator Spiritus" , Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen, 1979, pp. 54–55.
  7. ^ Heinrich Lausberg, The hymn "Veni Creator Spiritus" , Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen, 1979, pp. 74-75.
  8. ^ Heinrich Lausberg, The hymn "Veni Creator Spiritus" , Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen, 1979, p. 84.
  9. ^ Heinrich Lausberg, The hymn "Veni Creator Spiritus" , Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen, 1979, pp. 115-118.
  10. ^ Heinrich Lausberg, The hymn "Veni Creator Spiritus" , Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen, 1979, pp. 118-119.
  11. ^ Heinrich Lausberg, The hymn "Veni Creator Spiritus" , Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen, 1979, pp. 133-135.
  12. ^ Heinrich Lausberg, The hymn "Veni Creator Spiritus" , Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen, 1979, pp. 153-154.
  13. ↑ According to the publisher's homepage  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.universaledition.com  
  14. ↑ According to the composer's homepage
  15. ↑ According to the composer's catalog raisonné
  16. ↑ Stuttgart declaration of guilt. Retrieved June 29, 2020 .