Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty

The ‘tersanctus’, ‘trisagion’, or thrice-holy acclamation comes in Scripture at Isaiah 6 and Revelation 4, in each case during a visionary experience which has led to much other writing and singing. Here it forms the repeated basis of one of the classic hymns in the English language and many others, since the tune has assisted its passage round the world. Ken Nafziger writes of its range, conveying ‘the overwhelming splendor of the holiness of God … The hymn exudes energy, and its familiarity makes it easy for people to enter an inviting sound’ (see The Hymn, Jan 2004, pp35–37). By contrast with the previous text 158, the Triune Godhead is presented here simply as the object of adoration and praise. It was Reginald (later Bishop) Heber’s contribution for Trinity Sunday, the one church festival marking not a biblical event but simply the Being of God himself, and for which one appointed reading is from Revelation 4. But like 158, it became widely known only after its author’s death. In 1826, the year that he died in India, it was published in A Selection of Psalms and Hymns for the Parish Church of Banbury, although he had not ministered there and wrote these words while Vicar of Hodnet in Shropshire. A year later it appeared with his other work in Hymns written and adapted to the Weekly Church Service of the Year. The present book, like others before it, moves the language from ‘thee’ to ‘you’ form and emends the original line ‘which wert and art and evermore shalt be’ (where CH2004 follows Sing Glory in being more radical). The main difficulty coming in line 2 here has been considered less than the overall gain in revision, as the introductory ‘About Praise!’ indicates. J R Watson finds here several signs of the ‘Romantic’ theory and contemporary views of ‘the sublime’ (The English Hymn, pp324–5). A curious imitation by J H Eames appeared in Hymns … for the Little Flock, 1973 edn: Holy, holy, holy! Blessèd God, we praise thee. But although Heber’s text was too dogmatic for the hymnologist W Garett Horder, most others rate it very highly and it is placed at no.1 in a great many hymn-books including all 3 edns to date of the classic Chinese Hymns of Universal Praise (1936, 1977, 2006).

Another similarity with 158 is that its tune appeared in the 1861 A&M, being one of 7 by John B Dykes. NICAEA (sometimes NICEA) commemorates the Council of Nicaea in AD325, which defined orthodox belief in the person of Christ, and that of Constantinople in 381 which produced the Trinitarian ‘Nicene Creed’ to counter current and potential denials and distortions. Erik Routley thought that Heber’s words were not always wisely chosen, but counted Dykes’ tune his ‘one piece of perfection’. It has affinities, notably in its beginning and end, with Nicolai’s WACHET AUF, 1599.

HEBER, Reginald, b Malpas Rectory, Cheshire 1783, d Trichinopoly, India 1826. Whitchurch Grammar Sch, Shrops, and private tuition at Neasden, Middlesex; Brasenose Coll Oxford; Newdigate Prize (1803) for his poem Palestine. John Ellerton, who became familiar with Heber’s native Cheshire 70 years later, says that he almost ‘took Oxford by storm…and he never lost a friend save by death’. In 1805 he became a Fellow of All Souls; after travels in Germany and Russia with John Thornton he was ordained to succeed his father (who held 2 livings several miles apart) as Rector of Hodnet in 1807, where he remained for 16 years. Rowland Hill (qv) was for a time a somewhat fiery and eccentric neighbour. Heber admired Newton and Cowper’s Olney Hymns and his own texts appeared in the firmly evangelical journal The Christian Observer from 1811; they were signed only ‘D.R.’, the final letters of his two names. Heber had begun to base new texts on the Sunday Epistle and Gospel, to be sung (daringly then!) after the sermon and creed, as part of an integrated approach within the service. His work was refused official authorisation, but he begged texts from poets such as Scott, Southey and Milman, and revived older material, for an influential collection published after his death (1827) including 57 of his own hymns written at Hodnet: Hymns written and adapted to the Weekly Church Service of the Year. 11 of these are found in EH, as also in the 1950 A&M Revised. Remarkably for his time, a national hymn includes, ‘From foes that would the land devour,/ from guilty pride and lust of power…’.

Heber was a reviewer, Bampton lecturer (1815), Lincoln’s Inn preacher (1822), biographer and editor of the complete works of Jeremy Taylor (1822), and for relaxation he loved sketching. From a distance he was attracted by India, but when offered the bishopric of Calcutta (with a diocese which then included Australia) he twice refused. In 1823, against his friends’ advice, he finally accepted, and began an energetic, gracious and prayerful ministry (as Calcutta’s 2nd bishop). He ordained the first Indian Anglican clergyman, Christian David, and founded the Bishop’s College, Calcutta. He was tireless in his travels, strongly opposed the Muslim treatment of women, but also respected local culture. But his health suffered, and after preaching in Tamil at a Confirmation service at Trichinopoly he suffered a stroke or brain haemorrhage and was found dead in his bath by a servant. His widow Amelia survived him.Julian assesses his writing as embodying purity, grace and reverence rather than scriptural strength or dogmatic force; one of the first was the archetypal From Greenland’s icy mountains (1819, with its famous lines about ‘Ceylon’s isle’), while Tennyson counted Holy, holy, holy as the greatest of all hymns. Some of his stirring missionary hymns are among those currently sung in Nigeria by ‘sending’ churches who have no doubt where the ‘heathen’ and the ‘benighted’ are now largely to be found. Nos.159, 387, 643, 865*.