Hostis Herodes - Gregorian Chant - Vespers hymn - Sedulius

Here's the old Vespers Hymn for the feast of the Epiphany. It's taken from the longer hymn *A solis ortus cardine* which has a verse beginning with each letter of the alphabet. I'm singing this as written in the Antiphonale Monasticum (Benedictine). The words were "updated" in 1632 and that's where the slightly different version in the Liber Usualis comes from and I'll upload that version next.Show more

1. Hostis Herodes impie,
Christum venire quid times?
Non eripit mortalia,
Qui regna dat caelestia.

2. Ibant magi, quam viderant,
Stellam sequentes praeviam:
Lumen requirunt lumine,
Deum fatentur munere.

3. Lavacra puri gurgitis
Caelestis Agnus attigit;
Peccata, quae non detulit,
Nos abluendo sustulit.

4. Novum genus potentiae,
Aquae rubescunt hydriae,
Vinumque iussa fundere
Mutavit unda originem.

5. Gloria tibi, Domine,
Qui apparuisti hodie,
Cum Patre et Sancto Spiritu
In sempiterna saecula. Amen.

English:

WHY, impious Herod, vainly fear
that Christ the Saviour cometh here?
He takes no earthly realms away
Who gives the crown that lasts for aye.

To greet His birth the Wise Men went,
led by the star before them sent;
called on by light, towards Light they pressed,
and by their gifts their God confessed.

In holy Jordan's purest wave
the heavenly Lamb vouchsafed to lave;
That He, to whom was sin unknown,
might cleanse His people from their own.

New miracle of power divine!
The water reddens into wine:
He spake the word: and poured the wave
in other streams than nature gave.

All glory, Lord, to Thee we pay
for Thine Epiphany today;
all glory as is ever meet,
to Father and to Paraclete. Amen.

Translation by John Mason Neale