In the last week before Christmas the Church does something unusual. At Vespers each evening, from the seventeenth of December to the twenty-third, she sings a single short antiphon before and after the Magnificat. Each one begins with the same syllable of longing — O — addresses Christ by a title drawn from the prophets, above all Isaiah, or from the Wisdom books, and ends with the same word: veni. Come.
They are old. They are certainly attested by the ninth century, when a commentator writes about them as an established custom, and some scholars date them earlier still. For well over a thousand years, the same seven sentences have been sung into the same seven darkening evenings.
The seven antiphons
December 17
O Sapientia
O Wisdom
O Sapientia, quæ ex ore Altissimi prodiisti, attingens a fine usque ad finem, fortiter suaviterque disponens omnia: veni ad docendum nos viam prudentiæ.
O Wisdom, who camest forth from the mouth of the Most High, reaching from end to end, mightily and sweetly ordering all things: come and teach us the way of prudence.
Drawn from Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) 24:5 and Wisdom 8:1, with echoes of Isaias (Isaiah) 11:2–3 and 28:29. The first title is not a warrior or a king but the ordering intelligence behind everything that exists.
December 18
O Adonai
O Lord
O Adonai, et Dux domus Israël, qui Moysi in igne flammæ rubi apparuisti, et ei in Sina legem dedisti: veni ad redimendum nos in brachio extento.
O Adonai, and Leader of the house of Israel, who didst appear to Moses in the flame of the burning bush and gavest him the law on Sinai: come and redeem us with an outstretched arm.
The name spoken in place of the unpronounceable Name. The one who spoke from the bush is asked to come again.
December 19
O Radix Jesse
O Root of Jesse
O Radix Jesse, qui stas in signum populorum, super quem continebunt reges os suum, quem Gentes deprecabuntur: veni ad liberandum nos, jam noli tardare.
O Root of Jesse, who standest as a sign to the peoples, before whom kings shall keep silence and to whom the nations shall pray: come to deliver us, and tarry not.
Isaiah’s image of a shoot springing from a stump long cut down — the family of David, apparently finished, and not finished.
December 20
O Clavis David
O Key of David
O Clavis David, et sceptrum domus Israel; qui aperis, et nemo claudit; claudis, et nemo aperit: veni, et educ vinctum de domo carceris, sedentem in tenebris, et umbra mortis.
O Key of David, and sceptre of the house of Israel; who openest and no man shutteth, who shuttest and no man openeth: come and lead forth from his prison the captive who sitteth in darkness and in the shadow of death.
From Isaias (Isaiah) 22:22. The prisoner in the dark is not a metaphor kept at a distance — the antiphon is sung by people who mean themselves.
December 21
O Oriens
O Dayspring
O Oriens, splendor lucis æternæ, et sol justitiæ: veni, et illumina sedentes in tenebris, et umbra mortis.
O Dayspring, brightness of the everlasting light and sun of justice: come and enlighten them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.
The title comes from Zacharias (Zechariah) 6:12, the sun of justice from Malachias (Malachi) 4:2. Sung, in the northern hemisphere, within a day of the winter solstice — the longest night of the year, asking for the dawn.
December 22
O Rex Gentium
O King of the Nations
O Rex Gentium, et desideratus earum, lapisque angularis, qui facis utraque unum: veni, et salva hominem, quem de limo formasti.
O King of the nations, and their desire, the cornerstone who makest both one: come and save man, whom thou didst form out of the dust.
The title comes from Jeremias (Jeremiah) 10:7. The cornerstone joining two walls — Jew and Gentile, and by extension every division. The last line reaches back to Genesis and the dust.
December 23
O Emmanuel
O God With Us
O Emmanuel, Rex et legifer noster, exspectatio Gentium, et Salvator earum: veni ad salvandum nos, Domine Deus noster.
O Emmanuel, our King and lawgiver, the expectation of the nations and their Saviour: come to save us, O Lord our God.
The last and simplest. Every title before it has been a way of describing someone still awaited; this one says he is already with us.
The hidden answer
Take the first letter of each title, in Latin, and read them from the last evening backwards to the first:
The letters spell ERO CRAS — tomorrow I will be [there]. Seven evenings of asking, and the reply has been sitting inside the sequence the whole time. The final antiphon is sung on the twenty-third; the answer falls on Christmas Eve.
Whether the medieval compilers intended the acrostic is debated, and it hardly matters. What is certain is that generations of monks noticed it, and that it says exactly what Advent is for.
The hymn you already know
If the titles sound familiar it is because you have sung them. Veni, veni, Emmanuel — “O come, O come, Emmanuel” — is a metrical paraphrase of these antiphons, which is why each verse addresses Christ differently: O come, Thou Wisdom; O come, Thou Rod of Jesse; O come, Thou Key of David; O come, Thou Dayspring. The hymn is many centuries younger than the texts behind it.
How to use them
You do not need to pray Vespers to keep them. Take the antiphon of the day, read it slowly in both languages, and sit with the single title it gives. Seven evenings, seven names, one week. It is among the simplest and oldest ways of keeping the end of Advent, and it gives the last week before Christmas a shape that shopping cannot.
The season they belong to is described under Advent, and the great Advent chant of the same weeks is Rorate Cæli.
Last reviewed for accuracy on , against the Douay-Rheims Bible and the Church's own documents.