Te Deum Laudamus

This Latin hymn to the Father and the Son, traditionally (but probably wrongly) attributed to St. Ambrose in the late fourth century, is thought by some scholars to have been composed by Bishop Niceta of Remesiana. The versicles and responses following line 27 are not part of the original but were appended at an early date. The Te Deum is particularly associated with the Office of Readings in the Roman Catholic Church and Morning Prayer in other traditions. It has often been given special musical settings for independent use on occasions of great rejoicing.

The Te Deum contains a series of acclamations which are highly stylized in their original Latin form. An attempt to produce a literal translation, maintaining the Latin word order, would result in something which would sound unidiomatic and odd. Where the Latin structure could be followed profitably, this has been attempted.

Lines 1-4. Here at the outset is the problem of translating the Latin triplets:

Te Deum laudamus:
te Dominum confitemur.
Te aeternum Patrem, omnis terra veneratur.

The ICET text attempted to retain these three acclamations in a parallel structure with the original emphasis:

You are God: we praise you;
You are the Lord: we acclaim you;
You are the eternal Father:
All creation worships you.

Prayers We Have in Common also notes that the vocative “O God” of the traditional English translation has no place in the Latin, which means literally “We praise you as God.” Despite its fidelity to the original, and its daring solution to the problem of securing the original emphasis, the ICET version was widely criticized as abrupt and unrhythmic, and regarded by some as inappropriate (“Why should we tell God who he is?”). In response to the criticism the Consultation has returned to something more traditional. It has, however, maintained ICET’s understanding of terra as “all creation.”

Lines 7-8. The Latin text is almost the same as that of the Sanctus except that the Sanctus does not have maiestatis (“of the majesty”). In the interest of simplicity it was decided to have the same text here as for the Sanctus. The idea of majesty has not been lost from the Te Deum for it occurs in line 13.

Lines 13-15. The first section of the Te Deum has a lyrical Trinitarian ending:

Patrem immensae maiestatis;
venerandum tuum verum et unicum Filium;
Sanctum quoque Paraclitum Spiritum.

In line 13 “unbounded” was considered a better translation of immensae than the “infinite” of the traditional English version. In line 14 venerandum is very difficult to render. The ICET phrase “worthy of all worship” was closer to the meaning of venerandum than the “honorable” of the traditional English text but proved difficult to say because of the repeated w sounds. “Worship” has therefore been replaced by “praise.” In line 15 no single English word is fully adequate to translate Paraclitum , but “advocate and guide” has proved an acceptable paraphrase.

Line 16. This line begins the second section, which refers to the Son. Here there is a reminder of the question in Psalm 24, “Who is the King of glory?” It is Christ who shares the Father’s glory.

Line 18. “took our flesh.” This has been substituted for the traditional “became man” used by ICET. This maintains the theological point of the original and thus avoids a misunderstanding of homo as a reference to Jesus’ maleness as such, which would have been expressed by vir.

Line 19. The revision “you humbly chose” is proposed as an accurate rendering of the divine condescension celebrated in this line. The poetic strength of a negative statement in ancient languages is often better conveyed in modern English by a positive statement (compare line 9 of the Lord’s Prayer). The Latin horruisti is difficult to translate. The positive statement avoids the unpleasant assonance of the ICET “spurn the Virgin’s womb” and the misleading implications of this and other suggested expressions like “abhor,” “disdain,” “shrink from.”

Line 20. Devicto mortis aculeo. Some understand the meaning as “drew (that is, extracted) the sting of death” rather than “neutralized the effects of the sting.” The traditional word “overcame” covers both interpretations.

Line 23. Iudex crederis esse venturus (literally, “as judge you are believed to be going to come”). This was translated in the ICET text as “we believe that you will come, and be our judge.” In practice, the comma, intended to reveal the original emphasis, proved awkward. It has been deleted and “to” substituted for “and” to provide a smoother and more idiomatic expression.

Line 24. The word rendered literally as “come… and help” (subveni) is from the same root as venturus in the previous line and involves a play on words: “It is as judge that you are believed to be coming, but come to our aid.”

Lines 26 and 27. “and bring us with your saints to glory everlasting.” This covers both the variant readings munerari (“rewarded”) and numerari (“numbered”).

Versicles and Responses. The original text of the Te Deum ended at line 27, but traditionally it was followed by certain verses from the psalms sung in the form of versicles and responses, known as capitella. The sources of these are as follows: lines 1-2, Psalm 28:10; lines 3-4, Psalm 145:2; lines 5-6, Psalm 123:3; lines 7-8, Psalm 56:1, 3; lines 9-10, Psalm 31:1. They are here printed as five separate couplets.

Lines 9-10. Some have regretted the use of the plural in these verses when the Latin has the singular. The Consultation believed that it was legitimate to change to the plural for corporate worship (compare The Book of Common Prayer , “O Lord, open thou our lips,” with the original singular in Psalm 51). There has also been discussion whether confundar should be treated as a subjunctive or a future indicative. Here the translation has been influenced by standard translations of Psalm 31:1.