Thee we praise, high priest and victim

Thee we praise, high priest and victim. William Robinson* (1888-1963). The author informed the Companion to CP (1953) that this hymn was written in dim light in the winter of 1942 on a Midland Red bus between Kidderminster and Birmingham during ‘the black-out’ (Companion, p. 160). The black out was the wartime regulation which forbade lighted windows and reduced other lighting to a minimum. The hymn was published in The Christian Advocate, the weekly journal of the Churches of Christ. It has since appeared, shortened in various ways, in CP, WOV, and RS. Stanza 3 suggests the influence of Thomas Aquinas*, and it is a hymn for Holy Communion (cf. ‘Pange lingua gloriosi Corporis...