The Banner of the King

Venantius Honorius Clementianus Fortunatus wrote “Vexilla regis prodeunt” / “The Royal Banners Forward Go”. He was born in Italy circa AD 530, and died in France in circa AD 609. He served as the bishop of the Abbey of St. Croix in Poitiers, France beginning in Ad 599. Fortunatus wrote many hymns, some of which have survived to the present.

John Mason Neale (1818-1866), an Anglican priest, translated the hymn from the Latin into English.

The hymn addresses the ransom in blood paid by Jesus Christ on the cross – its eternal ordination, its fulfillment of prophecy, its primary efficacy – and the debt of praise and honour we owe. The hymn in Long Meter. It has been paired with many different hymns, including Hamburg by Lowell Mason and Plainsong Tune.

1. The royal banners forward go;
The cross shines forth in mystic glow,
Where he in flesh, our flesh who made,
Our sentence bore, our ransom paid.

2. Where deep for us the spear was dyed,
Life’s torrent rushing from his side,
To wash us in that precious flood
Where flowed the water and the blood.

3. Fulfilled is all that David told
In true prophetic song of old;
How God the nations’ king should be,
Who reigns and triumphed from the tree.

4. On whose strong arms, so widely flung,
The weight of this world’s ransom hung;
The price of all mankind to pay,
And spoil the spoiler of his prey.

5. O tree of beauty, tree most fair,
Ordained those holy limbs to bear:
How bright adorned with Jesus’ blood,
A cleansing fount, a crimson flood.

6. To thee, eternal Three-in-One,
Let homage meet by all be done;
As by the cross thou dost restore,
So guide and keep us evermore.

The third stanza contains an interesting phrase – “reigns and triumphed from the tree” – based on a gloss that entered into some early Bible translations of Psalm 96:10. Of this, the Matthew Henry Commentary states: “Some of the ancients added a gloss to this, which by degrees crept into the text, The Lord reigneth from the tree. So Justin Martyr, Austin, and others, quote it, meaning the cross, when he had this title written over him, The King of the Jews.”