From ancient times in the West, the liturgical usage of the word Alleluia ceased at Septuagesima (the first Sunday of the pre-Lenten season) all the way until the Paschal vigil. This cessation of the Alleluia in the Western liturgies stands in contrast with the Eastern practice of increasing the usage of Alleluia liturgically during Lent. Why this move in opposite directions between the two traditions? Is this an instance or example of the Eastern and Western rites having different spirits?
Firstly, what is the Alleluia? “Alleluia” is the the Latinized transliteration of the Hebrew composite word הַלְלוּ יָהּ (Hallelujah) meaning “praise ye [הַלְלוּ] Yah [יָהּ, short for Yahweh].” The direct translation of the word would be “Praise Yahweh” or “Praise the LORD.” But interestingly, in the Septuagint Old Testament and the Greek New Testament, the Hebrew word Hallelujah isn’t translated at all, but rather left as a special word and transliterated as Ἁλληλουϊά. The later Latin translations adopt the same practice, leaving the word as Alleluia. Even in the vast majority of our vernacular translations of the Bible today into various languages, Alleluia or Hallelujah is left untranslated.
So Alleluia is a special expression of praise to God, and thus its increase in the Eastern rite during Lent is meet because of the spiritual insight that, during times of trial, trouble, struggle, or repentance, praising God even more is the most appropriate action for our souls. Why does the Western tradition forgo such a special expression of praise, then, in a season in which that fundamental, Orthodox insight ought to be driving us to increased praise? The answer has to do with how the West perceives the unique and specific character of that special word.
There are many ways to express praise to God, and to alleviate any anxiety from and expunge any scandal to those Orthodox of Eastern tradition, be assured that the West does not intend to praise God less during its seasons of penitence and preparation. Instead of concluding the Mass with Ite missa est (“Go, this is the sending out”) during this time, for example, the priest declares: Benedicamus Domino (“Let us bless the Lord”)! But the Alleluia for the West has special associations of praising God in a heavenly, triumphal context. Apart from its usage in the Psalter and twice in the Deuterocanonical books, “Alleluia” only appears in the Book of revelation, sung four times by the heavenly host after God’s throwing down of the great Whore of Babylon. Thus, to the Western mind, this distinctive form of praise is almost a special borrowing of the heavenly vernacular:
“Saint Jerome (420) praised the pious farmers and tradesmen who used to sing it at their toil, and the mothers who taught their babies to pronounce “alleluia” before any other word.16
In the Roman Empire the Alleluia became the favorite prayerful song of oarsmen and navigators. Saint Augustine (430) alluded to this custom, saying, “Let the Alleluia be our sweet rowing-song!”17 And some years later, the Roman poet and bishop Sidonius Apollinaris (480) described how the river banks and shores of Gaul resounded with the Alleluia song of the rowing boatmen.18 Even the Roman soldiers fighting against pagan barbarians used it as battle cry and war song. Saint Bede the Venerable (735), in his history of England, reported such an “Alleluia victory” won by the Christian Bretons over the Picts and Scots in 429.19
Finally, the expression “Alleluia, the Lord is risen” became the general greeting of Christians in early medieval times on the Feast of the Resurrection. Apart from these popular usages the Alleluia has at all times found its primary and most meaningful application in the official liturgy. In the early centuries, the Roman Church used it only during Easter time, but it soon spread over the rest of the ecclesiastical year, except of course, during Lent.”
So why not during Lent? Because in Lent, instead of overtly celebrating God’s eschatological triumph over Babylon, we’re acknowledging ourselves to still be, for a time, “by the waters of Babylon,” where to “sing the Lord’s [Alleluia]” seems discordant to the Western mind. Of course we go on praising God during Lent, but that praise can take on different characters at different times from our perspective. Though in the same communion, we are currently the Church militant, not yet the Church triumphant. Our sojourn by the waters of Babylon, through this vale of sorrow, may meetly preclude the usage of this one, special, untranslated and heavenly interjection of praise, for a time, for us creatures bound for now by time.
Because the sweetness of this word of praise has become so beloved by us, as evidenced by the accounts of Jerome, Augustine, and Bede above, the putting away, or depositio, of the Alleluia can be an emotional moment. Bishop William Duranti (1296) expressed this parting like this: “We part from the Alleluia as from a beloved friend, whom we embrace many times and kiss on the mouth, head and hand, before we leave him.” And so solemn traditions of saying goodbye to the sweet Alleluia developed in various places, the most enduring of which is the procession of the word Alleluia itself, written, carved, or otherwise displayed on a parchment, banner, plaque, or some other surface, carried out of the church to be interred somewhere, in a tomb-like place or even buried in the ground. The point of burying the Alleluia was not, of course, to say goodbye to it forever, but with the expectation of “resurrecting” it at Easter.
In summary, the putting away of the liturgical Alleluia in the Lenten prayers, anthems, and declarations of the West is not meant to lessen our praise of God, but only to temporarily fast from using this one particularly heavenly and triumphal expression of praise. It’s a voluntary and incarnated way of giving expression to the Psalmist’s lament: “BY THE waters of Babylon we sat down and wept: when we remembered thee, O Sion.” The custom of burying the word itself as one buries a friend or loved one is a poignant symbol. In poetic form, the 10th or 11th century hymn Alleluia, ducle carmen (often sung during the procession to the burial of the Alleluia) perhaps best expresses this emotional farewell:
Alleluia, song of gladness,
Voice of joy that cannot die;
Alleluia is the anthem
Ever raised by choirs on high;
In the house of God abiding
Thus they sing eternally.Alleluia, thou resoundest,
True Jerusalem and free;
Alleluia, joyful mother,
All thy children sing with thee,
But by Babylon’s sad waters
Mourning exiles now are we.Alleluia cannot always
Be our song while here below;
Alleluia, our transgressions
Make us for a while for-go;
For the solemn time is coming
When our tears for sin must flow.Therefore in our hymns we pray Thee,
Grant us, blessed Trinity,
At the last to keep Thine Easter
With Thy faithful saints on high;
There to Thee for ever singing
Alleluia joyfully.