We are singing something close to sixteen hundred years old. This text is the Cherubic Hymn from the Liturgy of St. James, attributed to James the Less, the first bishop of Jerusalem, and the liturgy in its present form dates to roughly AD 400. In Eastern worship it is sung at the Great Entrance, the moment when the bread and wine are carried into the sanctuary. Though the full Liturgy of St. James is now rare outside the Syriac Orthodox Church, this hymn still replaces the usual Cherubic Hymn on Holy Saturday in the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. Its images come from the throne room visions of Isaiah 6 and Revelation, and its command to “ponder nothing earthly-minded” puts us where Moses stood at the burning bush, on holy ground, before a presence hidden in ordinary things. Gerard Moultrie made the English version in 1864, drawing on John Mason Neale’s 1859 translation of the whole liturgy. One liturgical note: because the fourth stanza climaxes in a threefold Alleluia, the hymn is kept away from Lent and commended instead for Advent and the end of the Church Year, which is precisely where we now stand.
Sung at Our Saviour
2026