This anonymous Latin hymn is based on Ephesians 2:20 and 1 Peter 2:6. The hymns has been found in manuscript dating from the ninth century, but hymn scholars think it is at least two centuries older. The complete poem of nine stanzas begins with a description of the New Jerusalem as given in Revelation 21 and is entitled “Urbs Beata Hierusalem” (The Blessed City of Jerusalem). John Mason Neale (1818-1866; see Biographies) translated this hymn and published it in Medieval Hymns and Sequences, 1851, and revised it in 1861. It is found in most of the medieval rites as the proper hymn for the dedication of a church. It was divided into two hymns, using the last four stanzas and the final doxology for the service of Lauds (sunrise), and the first four stanzas with the doxology at Vespers (sunset).

The hymn is often sung to REGENT SQUARE, SDAH 119, and WETMINSTER ABBEY, SDAH 607, but the SDAH committee chose the strong minor tune, EDEN CHURCH, composed by Dale Wood (1934- ; see SDAH 42). He wrote it first as an anthem with this same text for the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Eden Lutheran Church, Riverside, California, where he was the organist in 1959. As a hymn, it is written to be sung in unison, with organ playing the full accompaniment where needed.

Wood also composed LAUREL, which is used for SDAH 42, “Now That Day Light Fills the Sky,” and SDAH 550, “Every Flower That Grows.”

📖 Reference: Companion to the Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal by Wayne Hooper and Edward E. White. Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1988.