Stories Behind the Christmas Songs: O Come All Ye Faithful

O Come All Ye Faithful is a famous Christmas carol that has been sung by countless people and recorded by many artists in many genres. Let’s see where this song came from.

The hymn’s original text has said to come from different groups including St. Bonaventure in the thirteenth century or King John IV of Portugal in the seventeenth century.  However, the majority of scholars believe it was written by Cistercian monks.  Various provinces have been credited at times.  These provinces include German, Portuguese, and Spanish.  

John Francis Wade has been credited with the text in English hymnals.  He was an English Catholic  who lived in exile in France  and earned his living by copying musical manuscripts he found in libraries.  He usually signed his copies at the request of his clients.  This was probably because his calligraphy was so beautiful.  He published a printed compilation of his manuscripts in 1751 called Cantus Diversi pro Dominicis et Festis per annum, which was the first printed source for Adeste Fideles.

Wade’s version had four Latin verses.  A French Catholic priest wrote three additional verses in Latin in the eighteenth century.  As a side note, another verse was written, but nobody knows who wrote it.  This verse is in Latin and rarely printed.

There are countless translations of the text into English.  The version that we’re familiar with is actually a combination of one of Frederick Okeley’s translations of the original four verses and William Thomas Brooke’s translation of the additional three verses.  The first publication was in 1862 in Murray’s Hymnal.  The original title, Ye Faithful, approach ye, was by Frederick and was sung at his Margaret Chapel in London before it was changed to the version we know today.  

Sometimes referred to as the Portuguese Hymn, a version of it was sung at the Portuguese embassy London.  There’s a dispute over who wrote the most popular English version between McKim and Randell.

The music has been attributed to several musicians besides Jean Francis Wade including John Reading and his son, and the German composer Gluck as well as others.  The bottom line is nobody really knows, but it really doesn’t matter because God ordained the song and is sung by countless people.