(Ps 110(109):3)Īgain genui te, “I have given birth to you.” The female metaphor is much more obvious, as the birth happens ex utero, “from the uterus.” But the temporal marker is different: not “today,” but ante luciferum, “before the morning star.” As a metaphor that does not necessarily mean “very early in the morning,” but rather “before all Creation” (cf. Tecum principium in die virtutis tuae: in splendoribus sanctorum, et utero ante luciferum genui te. The next Gregorian chant in the Midnight Mass is the Gradual: “I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages.” We have to decide whether to focus a translation on the male or the female aspect, and on Christmas it is obvious that the maternal metaphor needs to be in the foreground.Īt first sight the idea that a male (dominus) gives birth might sound weird, but we use the same metaphor in the Creed: It is a pity that Germanic languages do not offer a word that describes the father’s part in the beginning of life as well as the mother’s. Fathering has its own solemnity on March 25. In the context of Christmas “I have given birth to you” makes more sense, because it is the birth of the Christ child that is celebrated. But the Latin gignere – as well as its Greek and Hebrew origins in the Bible – can mean either “beget someone” or “give birth to someone ” or both at the same time when it comes to metaphorical language. This verse is generally translated as “today I have begotten you:” a strictly male metaphor.

“The Lord said to me: My son are you, today I…” The Gregorian Chant propers of the Christmas Midnight Mass compose one of the most beautiful liturgical-exegetical-dogmatic artworks that one can find in the Latin chant tradition.ĭominus dixit ad me: Filius meus es tu, ego hodie genui te.

Dominus dixit ad me