John Mason Neale

John Mason Neale was an English Anglican priest, scholar, church historian, and translator who brought ancient Greek and Latin hymnody into English-speaking worship. Born in London in 1818, he studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, was ordained deacon in 1841 and priest in 1842, and became Warden of Sackville College at East Grinstead in 1846. Persistent ill health restricted ordinary parish ministry, but his post at Sackville gave him a base for scholarship, pastoral service, and prolific writing. He also founded the nursing Sisterhood of Saint Margaret and encouraged cottage-hospital work.

Neale translated the complete Latin dedication hymn Urbs beata Ierusalem in Mediaeval Hymns and Sequences in 1851. The melody edition of The Hymnal Noted, Part I, also issued in 1851, separated the office portions; the latter became the hymn indexed by the first line “Christ is made the sure foundation.” The accompanying harmonies appeared in 1852. Hymns Ancient and Modern revised the English text in 1861, so many familiar versions are properly described as Neale’s translation as altered.

His other enduring translations include “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,” “Of the Father’s Love Begotten,” “All Glory, Laud, and Honor,” and “The Day of Resurrection.” Through such work, Neale helped restore a broad inheritance of ancient and medieval Christian song to nineteenth-century English hymnody.