We Three Kings

with KINGS OF ORIENT

I. Origins

“We three kings of Orient are” is a five-stanza carol for Epiphany, with both words and music by the Episcopal clergyman John Henry Hopkins, Jr. (1820–1891). It is often said the song was written in 1857 but not published until it appeared in Hopkins’ Carols, Hymns, and Songs in 1863. Some sources suggest the song was intended for use at a pageant in New York City, and the location for this pageant is occasionally given as Central Theological Seminary, where Hopkins served as instructor of music from 1855 to 1857.[1] It has also been claimed the song was written as a Christmas present for his nieces and nephews in Vermont.[2] However, no contemporaneous documentary evidence for any of these assertions about the origin of the song has been found. A search through The Church Journal—a newspaper edited by Hopkins during the 1850s—and the history of Central Theological Seminary has not produced any mention of a Christmas pageant there in 1857. Nor do the biographies of Hopkins mention the carol being written either for a pageant or for his nieces and nephews.[3]

On the other hand, there is considerable evidence indicating the carol was probably not written nor first sung until 1858, and it was published several times before Hopkins’ 1863 volume. On 1 December 1858, The Church Journal printed a notice saying, “Another Christmas Carol, The Three Kings of Orient, by the editors of The Church Journal [of which Hopkins was one] will be issued in a few days by Mr. Dana. Style and price the same as The Shepherds of Bethlehem, by the same” (p. 5).[4] Later that month, the paper reported on the closing of the fall term at Trinity School in New York City. According to this article, the celebration began with a period of worship, followed by orations from the students, after which,

Carols were then sung, in a very spirited style, beginning with Dr. Muhlenberg’s Carol, brothers, Carol; then passing on to a couple of the most popular of Helmore’s Twelve, Here is joy for every age, and Christ was born on Christmas Day; and concluding with the (new) Three Kings of Orient, arranged in solos and chorus.[5] 

Taken together, these two newspaper items suggest several things about the origin of Hopkins’s carol. First, the fact of it being listed as “new” in December of 1858 implies it was a recent composition, not one having been written and sung the year before.[6] Second, it may very well be that somewhere along the line the Trinity School end-of-term program got misinterpreted as a “pageant” and was then mistakenly linked with Central Theological Seminary, since Hopkins taught there in 1857 (when the carol was supposedly written).

Finally, evidence points toward the song being in print as a separate issue well before its 1863 appearance in Carols, Hymns, and Songs. This separate publication was titled Three Kings of Orient: A Carol for Christmas Tide (New York: D. Dana Jr.) with the attribution “words and music by jr” (i.e., “Junior”; Fig. 1).[7] Though the publication itself is undated, the notice in The Church Journal suggests it appeared in late 1858, probably in time for the Trinity School program at the end of December.[8] This separate printing was advertised often in the pages of The Church Journal during 1859, and the words of the carol were printed in the 5 January 1859 issue (p. 7). The text and music also appeared in part one of The Children’s Chant Book: A Collection of Chants and Carols for Sunday Schools and Choirs (New York: General Protestant Episcopal Sunday School Union & Church Book Society, [1860 or 1861]),[9] and the words were published with a new tune in A.J. Abbey and E.W. Kellogg’s The Morning Star: A New Sabbath School Song Book (New York: Abbey & Abbot, 1862), pp. 42–43; in the latter book, the last two lines of stanza five were altered to the slightly less awkward “Heav’n [Heaven] singing / Hallelujah; / Joyous the earth replies.”

In 1863, Hopkins issued his Carols, Hymns, and Songs, which gathered up a number of the pieces he had written in the previous few years, including “Three Kings of Orient” (Fig. 2). As noted, by this time the carol had already been published several times, and—thanks to its “usefulness for teaching and its simplicity and attractiveness”—was well on its way to being widely known and sung.[10] A new, illustrated, separate edition was issued in 1865 (Fig. 3). In the same year, a further revision of the last two lines in stanza five appeared in William B. Bradbury’s Plymouth Sabbath School Collection of Hymns and Tunes (New York: Ivison, Phinney, Blakeman & Co., 1865), p. 41, as “Hallelujah, hallelujah, / Heaven and earth replies”; these verses now often appear as “Alleluia, alleluia, / Sounds through the earth and skies.” Bradbury also added the words “Hallelujah” and “Amen” below the music of the stanzas to be sung by the “full chorus” after each refrain (or perhaps only after the last refrain).

II. Textual Analysis

The story of the magi in Matthew 2:1–12 gives no indication of them being kings, nor does it specify their number, their names, or the meaning of their gifts. However, the natural human desire to fill in the gaps led early Christians to develop traditions in each of these areas. In the second century, the Latin church father Tertullian, in his essay “Against Marcion,” observed how, in the east, magi were regarded as kings and linked their coming to Bethlehem with prophecies from Psalm 72:10–11,15: “The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents: the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts. Yea, all kings shall fall down before him: all nations shall serve him. . . . And he shall live, and to him shall be given of the gold of Sheba: prayer also shall be made for him continually; and daily shall he be praised” (KJV).

For besides the generally known fact that the riches of the East, that is to say, its strength and resources, usually consist of gold and spices, it is certainly true of the Creator, that He makes gold the riches of the other nations also. Thus He says by Zechariah, “And Judah shall also fight at Jerusalem and shall gather together all the wealth of the nations round about, gold and silver.” Moreover, respecting that gift of gold, David also says, “And there shall be given to him of the gold of Arabia;” and again: “The kings of Arabia and Saba shall offer to him gifts.” For the East generally regarded the magi as kings, and Damascus was anciently deemed to belong to Arabia, before it was transferred to Syrophœnicia on the division of the Syrias [by Rome]. Its riches Christ then received, when He received the tokens thereof in the gold and spices, while the spoils of Samaria were the magi themselves. These having discovered Him and honoured Him with their gifts, and on bended knee adored Him as their God and King, through the witness of the star which led their way and guided them, became the spoils of Samaria, that is to say, of idolatry; because, as it is easy enough to see, they believed in Christ.[11]

The third-century writer Origen interpreted the gifts brought by the magi symbolically as “gold . . . as to a king; myrrh, as to one who was mortal; and incense, as to a God.”[12] By the late third or early fourth century, the fact of the magi having brought three gifts had given rise in the West to the idea of the Wise Men being three in number, as can be seen by a fresco and a sarcophagus slab from that period in the Roman Catacomb of Priscilla—two of the earliest depictions of events surrounding Christ’s birth.[13] By the sixth century, the magi had been given names—Balthasar, Melchior, and Gaspar (or Caspar).[14]

Hopkins drew upon all these post-biblical traditions in writing his hymn, giving the magi as three in number, calling them “kings,” furnishing their apocryphal names, and providing the symbolic interpretations of the gifts. These features have led to criticism of the text as “unbiblical” and its exclusion from some hymnals.[15] The words have also been characterized as “inferior,” “grammatically questionable,” and “clumsy in poetic flow,” though some of these assessments are based on a faulty reading of the text.[16]

Despite these evaluations, the dramatic structure of the text, its vivid portrayal of the magi and their gifts, and the way it makes the singer(s) a part of the scene have led to its widespread use. The first stanza sets the framework for what follows by depicting the magi’s journey following the star, making effective use of alliteration (field/fountain, moor/mountain). The next three stanzas in turn give a theological interpretation of the presents brought to the Christ child, each employing a minimalist approach, using a few suggestive words that are not always connected into regular sentence structures (for example, “Sorrowing, sighing, / Bleeding, dying”). The final stanza provides a suitably triumphant summary of the meaning of the three gifts. The use of personal pronouns (“we,” “I,” etc.) and verbs in present tense gives the singers an opportunity to place themselves in the role of the gift-giver(s). Unlike many carols, the hymn also allows the singers a means of reflection on the ultimate meaning of Christ’s birth—the fact he was born to die for humankind. Carl P. Daw fetchingly called “We Three Kings” a “mini-opera” that “provides a glimpse of three people on a still-unfulfilled spiritual quest. They are not searching for a child so much as for what that child will become, a Savior whom they acknowledge as royal, divine, and dying.”[17]

III. Tune

As noted earlier, Hopkins wrote the words and music of “We three kings” as a unit. In his printings of the piece, Hopkins indicated the song is to be sung as a male trio, with all three voices singing in parts on the outer stanzas and the three interior stanzas sung as solos; the refrain is given a standard four-part harmonization, presumably to be sung by the congregation. Each solo stanza is labeled to be sung by a different Wise Man in the order Gaspard (gold), Melchior (frankincense), and Balthasar (myrrh). A keyboard accompaniment is provided, together with a short instrumental tag for each stanza, which modulates from the relative major key of the refrain back to the minor in preparation for the next stanza; in some later publications the tag was turned into an introduction. While Hopkins expressed his preference for men’s voices to be used for the Wise Men, he noted how “the music is set in the G-clef for the accommodation of children.” Indeed, the carol quickly took on the legacy of a children’s song, and the bulk of its early publications were in songbooks for Sunday schools and other children’s emphases. As the hymn gained currency in twentieth-century hymnals for general congregational use, it was rearranged into four-part “hymnbook” (cantional) style throughout, the instrumental accompaniment and tag were dropped, and the names of the “kings” were omitted. The tune is now generally known as KINGS OF ORIENT.

One thing that makes any carol (or hymn) work is the atmosphere created by the music. For example, the melodies associated with “Silent night” and “Away in a manger” enhance the tenderness of these texts, while those of “Joy to the world” and “Hark, the herald angels sing” reflect the celebratory nature of the words.

“We three kings” is no exception. The stanzas are written in E minor, with a gently swaying melody proceeding almost wholly in stepwise motion, suggesting something ancient, exotic, and mysterious, even faintly Middle Eastern. A similar character is found in the refrain, despite its modulation to the relative major (G)—a feature that helps sustain interest in a rather long hymn—because of its AABA melodic structure, in which, as noted by Carl P. Daw, Jr., “only two notes prevent the A phrases from being monotone.” Daw goes on to say, “In effect, the congregation is being asked to participate in the trudging of the Magi, which apparently is mostly on level ground, with a slight upward incline in the B phrases.”[18] The impression of antiquity created by the words and music of the carol sometimes led to its being labeled “Old English” in origin, an attribution printed as early as 1875.[19] Perhaps it was this ancient-sounding feature of the hymn that caused the Englishmen Henry Ramsden Bramley and John Stainer to include it in the third series of their classic Christmas Carols: New and Old (London: Novello, Ewer & Co., [1878])—the only American piece to be so honored—though in the combined edition (1879) they claimed it was one of the songs that are “unfit for use within the Church” and best reserved for “less sacred places and occasions” because of their “legendary, festive, or otherwise less serious character” (p. 1). The words and music achieved such popularity in Britain that Erik Routley called the piece one of the two American carols “that have become irreplaceable” and “are among the very first Christmas carols learnt by English children.”[20]

Other Tunes

Though KINGS OF ORIENT has been the generally preferred tune for “We three kings,” it is not the only one to be published for use with the text. In 1862 (a year before Hopkins issued his Carols, Hymns, and Songs), A.J. Abbey and E.W. Kellogg’s The Morning Star—the contents of which, according to the preface, were “almost entirely new”—set Hopkins’s words (without attribution) to a new major-key tune (though with some minor-key leanings) under the title “Christmas Carol” (pp. 42–43; Fig. 4).[21]

In later song books, such as John C. Hollister’s Chants, Carols and Tunes: A Supplement to the Sunday School Service and Tune Book (New York: Mason Brothers, 1865, pp. 28–29) and the American Tract Society’s Happy Voices: New Hymns and Tunes . . . for the Home Circle and Sabbath-Schools (New York: American Tract Society, 1865, p. 161; the preface is signed merely “W.W.R.”), this tune was often credited to Kellogg; subsequent collections sometimes titled it MORNING STAR after the book in which it first appeared. Kellogg’s tune was found fairly often in nineteenth-century Sunday school song books and seems to have been a worthy rival of Hopkins’s own melody until the twentieth century, when KINGS OF ORIENT became the standard setting for the text. Other composers tried their hand at Hopkins’s words as well, including Edward Roberts, Maltbie D. Babcock, and Eleanor Smith, but none of these works found acceptance.[22]

by DAVID W. MUSIC
for Hymnology Archive
16 February 2024

Footnotes:

1. See, for example, “We Three Kings,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Three_Kings. The 1857 date for the carol has not been found prior to Benjamin Shepard’s Hymns of the Centuries (New York: A. S. Barnes Company, 1911), though, of course, it could have been used earlier in an as-yet unlocated source.

2. William Studwell, The Christmas Carol Reader (New York: Routledge, 2011; original ed., Binghampton, NY: Harrington Park Press, 1995), p. 76.

3. Powel M. Dawley, The Story of the General Theological Seminary: A Sesquicentennial History, 1817–1967 (Oxford: University Press, 1969). [John Henry Hopkins III], The Life of the Late Right Reverend John Henry Hopkins, First Bishop of Vermont and Seventh Presiding Bishop (New York: F.J. Huntington & Co., 1873). Charles F. Sweet, Champion of the Cross: Being the Life of John Henry Hopkins, S.T.D. (New York: James Pott & Co., 1894).

4. Most early references to and publications of the carol used the title “Three Kings of Orient” rather than the first line of the text, as is common today.

5. The Church Journal (29 December 1858), p. 2.

6. It is worth pointing out how, as editor of the newspaper in which the notice appeared, Hopkins was in a position to correct any errors regarding his own hymn, if, indeed, he did not write the account himself. The fact of the report not mentioning his name as author/composer of Three Kings of Orient (as it does for the other carols sung) suggests he was probably responsible for the article.

7. Hopkins often signed items in The Church Journal as “Jr.”

8. It was certainly issued before 1862, because the publisher (Dana) died in 1861.

9. The book itself is dated 1861, but the 21 November 1860 issue of The Church Journal lists it as “Just Published” (p. 5). “We Three Kings” appears on pp. 27–29. Hopkins himself quite possibly at least partly responsible for this collection.

10. Carol A. Doran, “We three kings of Orient are,” in Raymond F. Glover, ed., The Hymnal 1982 Companion, vol. 3B (New York: Church Hymnal Corporation, 1994), p. 267.

11. Tertullian, “Against Marcion,” book 3, section 13. The Five Books of Quintus Sept. Flor. Tertullianus Against Marcion, trans. Peter Holmes; vol. 7 of Ante-Nicene Christian Library, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1868), pp. 145–146. Tertullian is discussing what he considers to be Marcion’s misinterpretation of Isaiah 8:4, “For before the child shall have knowledge to cry, My father, and my mother, the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria shall be taken away before the king of Assyria.” Though not mentioned by Tertullian, Isaiah 60:1–6 has also been used to link the kings of Old Testament prophecy with the magi. Eric Vanden Eykel, The Magi: Who They Were, How They’ve Been Remembered, and Why They Still Fascinate (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2022), pp. 53–60, points out how, while magi in the ancient world might not have been “kings” in the usual sense, they were often “in proximity to kings” (p. 56).

12. Origen, Contra Celsus, book 1, chap. 60. The Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, American ed., rev. and arr. A. Cleveland Coxe, vol. 4 (Buffalo: Christian Literature Publishing Company, 1885), p. 423.

13. Eykel, pp. 37–40. For images of the fresco and slab, see https://i.pinimg.com/originals/32/6c/8d/326c8d14b73edcacf346714f0bea5244.jpg and https://i.stack.imgur.com/Utpmu.jpg, respectively.

14. Eykel, p. 68. These, at least, are the names given to the magi in the Western tradition. Eykel points out how “Variations in spelling for these names are common” (p. 68); Hopkins renders “Gaspar” as “Gaspard.” For a detail of the sixth-century mosaic to which by Eykel refers (in the Basilica of San’Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna, Italy), see http://www.crumbs-on-travel.com/wp-content/gallery/ravenna-basilica-of-sant-apollinare-nuovo/IMG_4330.JPG.

15. Such extensions of the biblical accounts of the birth of Jesus are not exclusive to “We three kings.” For example, there is no mention in Luke of the angelic host having appeared at midnight (“It came upon the midnight clear”), or that Jesus was born in a “stable,” laid on a bed of hay, and surrounded by animals; these ideas—like the purported number and kingship of the Wise Men—are all inferences attempting to give flesh to the story.

16. Studwell, p. 77. Studwell points to the lines, “We three kings of Orient are, / Bearing gifts we traverse afar,” critiquing the “pause after the word are, reinforced by a rest notation in the music.” However, this criticism misinterprets Hopkins’s intention: “are” is part of a word inversion, and its import should be understood as “We are three kings of Orient,” not that “We . . . are bearing gifts”; the presence of the comma (and the rest) confirms Hopkins’s meaning.

17. Carl P. Daw, Jr., Glory to God: A Companion (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2016), p. 159.

18. Daw, p. 160.

19. Chas. W. Wendte and H.S. Perkins, The Sunny Side: A Book of Religious Songs for the Sunday School and the Home (New York: William A. Pond & Co., 1875), p. 115.

20. Erik Routley, The English Carol (Oxford: University Press, 1959), p. 220. The other “irreplaceable” carol is “Away in a manger.”

21. The lack of a text attribution in The Morning Star led some later collections to credit the words themselves to Kellogg. On occasion, Hopkins’s tune was also mistakenly attributed to Kellogg.

22. See Edward Roberts, Apples of Gold in Pictures of Silver: A Collection of Hymns and Tunes and Occasional Pieces, New and Old, for Sunday Schools, Prayer and Social Meetings (Boston: Oliver Ditson & Company, 1867), p. 52; Maltbie D. Babcock, Hymns and Carols (New York: Novello, Ewer & Co., 1903), pp. 16–17; Eleanor Smith, Charles H. Farnsworth, and C.A. Fullerton, The Children’s Hymnal (New York: American Book Company, 1918), p. 90.

Related Resources:

[Leonard Ellinwood,] “We Three Kings of Orient Are,” The Hymnal 1940 Companion, 3rd rev. ed. (New York: Church Pension Fund, [1956]), p. 40.

Carlton R. Young, “‘We Three Kings’/KINGS OF ORIENT,” Companion to the United Methodist Hymnal (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1993), p. 681.