“Infant Holy, Infant Lowly”
“Infant Holy, Infant Lowly.” What a simple and yet profound fact that is! Charles Spurgeon said that here at Christmas-time we try to grasp the enormity of the beauty and mystery and marvel of that statement. His words are so direct and almost stunning when he writes that “the infinite has become an infant.” We can read the scriptures and describe the history and articulate the doctrines surrounding the incarnation. But we have not adequately embraced all of this until we bow in amazed adoration of the God who became man.
The Apostle Paul has set this before us in Philippians 2 where he wrote of the humiliation and exaltation of Christ. The humiliation was not just in Jesus’ death and burial. It was also in His becoming a man, or more astonishing, a baby. Someone has said that thousands of babies have become kings, but only once has a king become a baby! In one of the Narnia stories, “The Last Battle,” C. S. Lewis wrote of this in these marvelous words as Lucy gazed at a stable.
“Yes,” said the Lord Digory, “Its inside is bigger than its outside.” “Yes,” said Queen Lucy. “In our world too, a stable once had something inside it that was bigger than our whole world.
Poetic words and literary narratives alone cannot adequately convey the glory and wonder of this event, planned from eternity and realized in history. It’s not until the Holy Spirit has awakened and energized our hearts to the enormous demonstration of divine love and power and the eternal spiritual significance of this event that we have truly understood it. And it becomes even more stunning when we remember why the royal Son of God set aside His majestic privileges. It was to purchase us, His bride, locked in the dungeon of sin, slaves to our fallen nature, children of the monster of hell, Satan. Christmas celebrates Jesus’ coming to earth to take on our human nature and to become sin for us (2 Corinthians 5:21). This “Infant Holy, Infant Lowly” is worthy of the reverent worship and loving obedience we will give to Him in heaven as our duty, and which we delight to give to Him now.
The angelic announcement was that this Savior who was born in nearby Bethlehem would be for all people. And so His birth is celebrated by Christians around the world, in every language and culture. When it comes to Christmas songs, we have a rich treasury from many nations. Probably most of these have come to us from England. That list is very lengthy, and includes familiar carols like “Joy to the World! The Lord Is Come,” “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” “God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen,” “What Child Is This?” and “While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks.” Others come from Bavaria (“Silent Night, Holy Night”), France (“Angels We Have Heard on High”), America (“O Little Town of Bethlehem”), Germany (“From Heaven High I Come to You”), and even the ancient church (“Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence”) and medieval Latin sources (“O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”).
One of the most beautiful, especially for Christmas Eve, is “Infant Holy, Infant Lowly,” which comes to us from 16th century Poland. It was written by Piotr Skarga (1536-1612), a Roman Catholic Jesuit, preacher, hagiographer, polemicist, and leading figure of the Counter Reformation in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Due to his oratorical gifts, he has been called “the Polish Bossuet.” This is an allusion to Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, a French Roman Catholic bishop and theologian, renowned as a preacher, and as one of the most brilliant orators of all time, a master French stylist. He was court preacher to Louis XIV of France, a strong advocate of political absolutism and the divine right of kings, as well an important courier and politician.
Like Bossuet, Skarga advocated strengthening the monarch’s power at the expense of parliament and of the nobility. He was a professor at the Krakow Academy and in 1759 became the first rector of the Wilno Academy. Later he served in the Jesuit college at Krakow. He was also a prolific writer and his “The Lives of the Saints,” written in 1579, was for several centuries one of the most popular books in the Polish language. He also wrote a political treatise in 1597, which became popular in the second half of the 19th century, when he was called the “patriotic seer” who predicted the partitions of Poland.
Skarga was born on February 2, 1536, in the small manor of Powęszczyzna. His family are often described as lesser landless gentry or nobility, but it seems likely most of his ancestors had been peasants, later townsfolk who had only recently become minor nobility. He was reared at the family estate, and lost his parents when he was young. His mother died when he was eight years old, and his father, Michał Skarga, four years later. Thereafter he was supported by his brothers, one of whom, Stanisław Skarga, was a priest. Piotr started his education at a parochial school in Grójec before moving to Krakow, where in 1552 he enrolled at the Krakow Academy. He finished his studies in 1555.
Immediately after he finished his education, he served for two years as rector of the collegiate school at St. John’s Church in Warsaw. From October 1557 he tutored Jan Tęczyński, and visited Vienna with his pupil, where he likely became closely acquainted with the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits), a key order of the Roman Catholic reaction to the growth of Protestantism, and known as the Counter-Reformation. He then returned to Poland, which emerged as one of the main terrains of struggle between Protestants and Catholics.
From 1562 he served as a parson in Rohatyn, and around 1564 was ordained. That year he became a canon, and the following year he also served as chancellor of the Lwow chapter, a town which today is the city of Lviv in Western Ukraine, near the current Polish border. From 1566 to 1567 he was chaplain at the court of the royal secretary to King Sigismund II Augustus. After the death of that official, he returned to Lviv, taking up the position of the cathedral preacher.
In 1568 he departed for Rome, arriving in 1569 and joining the Society of Jesus. In 1571 he returned to Poland, and preached in a number of towns, including Plock, where he visited the court of Queen Anna Jagiellon, who would become one of his patrons. As a leading proponent of the Counter-Reformation, Skarga commonly preached against non-Catholic denominations and helped secure funds and privileges for the Society of Jesus.
In 1573 he was rector of the Wilno Jesuit College, precursor to the Vilnius University. In 1577 he became a professor at the Krakow Academy. That year he also finished one of his most important works, “The Lives of the Saints,” which was published two years later. In 1579 he became the first rector of the Wilno Academy. In 1576 and in 1582, he published two worksas part of his dialogue with the Calvinist author, Andrzej Wolan, which took the form of a series of rival polemics over a number of years. Wolanwas a notable figure in the Commonwealth politics.
In 1584 Skarga was transferred to the new Jesuit College at Krakow. On March 26,1587 he founded the Polish version of the Mount of Piety, a pawnbroker run as a charity and called in Polish the Pious Bank. In 1588 the newly elected King Sigismund III Vasa established the new post of court preacher, and Skarga became the first priest to hold it. Skarga became a valued adviser to the King, and Sigismund became so fond of him that when the priest considered retirement, Sigismund rejected this, requesting that he remain at court for as long as possible. He remained Sigismund’s court preacher until April 1612, four months before his death. Skarga died on September 27, 1612 and was buried in the Saints Peter and Paul Church in Krakow.
Manuscripts of Polish sacred song date back to at least the thirteenth century in the Catholic Church. Even though these songs may have been initially influenced by the plainsong used in the offices and Mass settings of the Church, local musical variations soon influenced the performance of these. These seem to have developed because regional synods in the Church encouraged the use of Polish, rather than the standard Latin characteristic of the Church in Rome. The use of the vernacular language produces changes in the music to accommodate the natural rhythm of that language. Throughout the seventeenth century and those that followed, regional hymn collections were published, each with distinct, local musical styles, making it difficult to develop a uniformly known body of congregational song throughout Poland.
We have no details about the specific date or circumstances of the composition of this carol. Polish hymn scholar Daniel Neises describes some of the general characteristics of Polish sacred song: “Polish religious songs are a distinct repertory of congregational songs composed in the vernacular and in a musical idiom derived from Polish folk music. They are typically strophic, monophonic, and often characterized by asymmetrical time signatures and ambiguous modality which commonly oscillates between major, minor, and modal qualities.” The little jewel, “Infant Holy, Infant Lowly,” has many of these characteristics. The text was composed in Polish.
One writer has said that “Infant Holy, Infant Lowly is “perhaps the most well-known and beloved part of the Polish religious song repertory in its superb ‘kolędy’, or Christmas carols.” These, if any, are the most likely of all Polish hymns to be found in English translations, and are certainly among the finest Christmas songs from any tradition.” Originally, the term “kolędy” was probably derived from the Latin “calendae,” which literally referred to the first day of the month. Slavic uses of the term broadened to include the first day of the year, the winter solstice, Christmas, as well as New Year’s Day. Not all kolędy would be Christian, though the Christian carols are certainly a part of the broader tradition. A kolędy would be sung in conjunction with the visit of the priest to a home and, eventually in Slavic traditions, walking from house to house, in other words, Christmas caroling. The carolers, called “colednicy,” perform in neighborhoods between Christmas and the Feast of the Epiphany, carrying a star on a pole and a Nativity scene. Dressed in folk costumes as angels, shepherds, and kings, the carolers enact Nativity plays with a comedic touch, and they sing. The term is more generic now and can refer to singing any Christmas carols in Polish.
The English text with which we sing “Infant Holy, Infant Lowly,” is the translation written by Edith Margaret Gellibrand Reed (1885-1933), a British musician and playwright. Her education included study at the Guildhall of Music in London, and she was also an associate in the Royal College of Organists, where she assisted Percy Scholes (1877-1958), the compiler of the first edition of the influential reference work, “The Oxford Companion to Music” (1938), in editing educational materials. She wrote a reference work in 1925, “Story Lives of the Great Composers.” From 1923 to 1926, she also served as editor of “Panpipes,” a music magazine for children.
She is best known for her translation of this Polish carol, “Infant Holy, Infant Lowly,” used with the Polish tune, “W Żłobie Leży,” which she found in the 1908 hymn collection “Spiewniczek Piesni Koscielne,” though its initial origins may be as early as the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Her translation was first published in 1921, and from there it spread to hymnals and increased in popularity.
Because the music is stately and in ¾ meter, some have called W Żłobie Leży the first polonaise, one of many Polish dances with folk roots. It resembles the Polish mazurka, a common folk dance. Polish pianist Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849) popularized the polonaise. While this comparison may not be accurate, it is accurate that the general character of “W Żłobie Leży” would be similar to one of the most important national dances in Poland.
In stanza 1, we focus on the animals in the stable below (oxen) and on the angels in the sky above. The oxen sing without knowing, but the angels sing with full knowledge. Three times we sing the simple but profound central truth of the carol, “Christ the Babe is Lord of all.”
Infant holy, Infant lowly, for a His bed a cattle stall;
Oxen lowing, little knowing, Christ the Babe is Lord of all.
Swift are winging, angels singing, noels ringing, tidings bringing:
Christ the Babe is Lord of all; Christ the Babe is Lord of all.
In stanza 2, we focus on the animals sleeping in the field (flocks) and their shepherds keeping vigil with them, all of whom beheld the explosion of light and praise from the angels that appeared that holy night. The reference to Christ the Babe now becomes more personal: “born for you.”
Flocks were sleeping, shepherds keeping vigil till the morning new
Saw the glory, heard the story, tidings of a Gospel true.
Thus rejoicing, free from sorrow, praises voicing, greet the morrow:
Christ the Babe was born for you; Christ the Babe was born for you.
Here is a recording of the carol as sung by the choir at King’s College, Cambridge.