Word supreme, before creation. J. Keble. [St. John Evangelist.] This hymn is dated "Hursley, April 19, 1856," and was first published in the Salisbury Hymn Book, 1857, No. 43, in 7 stanzas of 6 lines. It was repeated in Keble's posthumous Miscellaneous Poems, 1869, p. Ill, and in several hymn-books. Mr. L. C. Biggs, in his annotated edition of Hymns Ancient & Modern, 1867, has drawn attention to the similarity between this hymn and a Sequence of the 11th cent.,"Verbum Dei, Deo natum," which, according to Mr. Keble, "probably suggested some of his ideas." It has also a trace of Adam of St. Victor's "Verbi vere substantivi." In his annotated edition of Hymns Ancient & Modern, 1867, Mr. Biggs has rendered Keble's hymn into Latin as, "Verbum Dei, Increatum."
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)