When reading through the first two chapters of Luke, you’ll notice four separate times when people (or angels) break into song.
Each of these songs is typically known by its name in Latin. This is because the Catholic Church pretty much only used Latin translations of the Bible for a long time. And they’re the ones who included these songs as commonly sung hymns.
Mary’s Magnificat
Now, the first one, which you’re likely most familiar with, is Mary’s song: the Magnificat.
Why is it called the Magnificat? Well, in the Vulgate (the Latin translation of the Bible prepared by Jerome in the late 300s AD) the first word of Mary’s song is Magnificat.
In Latin, Magnificat means “it magnifies”. It comes from the words magnus, meaning “great” and facere, meaning “to make”.
So, “to magnify” is literally “to make great”.
Luke 1:46 reads:
46 Et ait Maria: Magnificat anima mea Dominum
46 And Mary said: “My soul magnifies the Lord
Zechariah’s Benedictus
Next, we see the song of Zechariah.
The first word of his song in Latin is Benedictus.
Benedictus means “blessed” and itself comes from two other Latin words, bene, meaning “well”, and dictus, meaning “said”. So, it literally means something like “spoken well of”. But we normally just translate it as “blessed”.
His song begins in Luke 1:68:
68 Benedictus Dominus Deus Israel, quia visitavit, et fecit redemptionem plebis suae
68 “Blessed is the Lord God of Israel,
For He has visited and redeemed His people
The Angels’ Gloria In Excelsis Deo
When the angels are announcing the birth of the Savior to the shepherds, they make a quick statement/song that takes up all of one verse.
In the Vulgate, this song starts with the phrase Gloria in altissimis Deo. As you can tell, that’s slightly different than the popular title of the song: Gloria In Excelsis Deo.
So, why the difference?
Well, it seems that there was a certain other Roman Christian who lived a few decades before Jerome compiled the Vulgate. This Christian (some speculate it was Hilary of Poitiers) decided to translate the Greek word hypsístois (meaning “highest”) as excelsis.
And that’s a plenty good translation. Excelsis does mean “highest” in Latin. But, when Jerome translated the Greek texts a few decades later, he decided to translate it as the Latin word altissimis, which is another word for “highest”.
In the end, the slightly older translation ended up sticking, so that’s why we still call this song Gloria In Excelsis Deo and not Gloria In Altissimis Deo.
Luke 2:14 reads:
14 Gloria in altissimis Deo, et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis.
14 “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!”
Simeon’s Nunc Dimittis
Finally, when the baby Jesus is presented at the temple, a man named Simeon breaks into a song praising God.
The Latin translation of his song starts with the words Nunc dimittis servum tuum, which literally means “now you dismiss your servant” or “now you send away your slave”.
This song starts in Luke 2:29:
29 Nunc dimittis servum tuum Domine, secundum verbum tuum in pace
29 “Lord, now You are letting Your servant depart in peace,
According to Your word
Conclusion
So, we’ve got four famous songs in the first couple chapters of Luke’s Gospel. All four of them are commonly known by their Latin names: the Magnificat, the Benedictus, Gloria In Excelsis Deo, and Nunc Dimittis.