Page:The Methodist Hymn-Book Illustrated.djvu/32

20 Greek hymns are also a legacy from the Jewish to the Christian Church.

The great hymns of the Nativity, which we owe to St. Luke's research, were probably used as canticles at a very early period. They may fairly be described as the first and grandest songs of the Christian Church. The rhymic fragments in the Epistles throw some light on the hymns which St. Paul bids the churches at Ephesus and Colossae use. 'Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light', perhaps bears the evidence of such use. Two of the 'faithful sayings' of the Pastoral Epistles and the grand fragment (i Tim. iii. 16), on our Lord's Incarnation and triumph', betray a similar origin. Clement of Alexandria's 'Bridle of Steeds untamed', is the oldest of all Christian hymns. Its phraseology is adapted to the perfect Gnostic of the second century, but 'there is nothing in its bright versicles—full of childlike trust in Christ, as the Shepherd, the Fisher of Souls, the Everlasting Word, the Eternal Light—that is not to be found in the pages of Holy Writ'. The greatest early hymnist, Gregory Nazianzen, who wrote in classic metres, has been compared to our own Ken. Certain passages in his troubled history furnish a striking parallel to the life of our devout and high-souled bishop. Gregory's morning and evening hymns are far inferior to Ken's, but in all his other productions the Greek hymn-writer distinctly bears the palm.

The compositions of Synesius lie on the borderland between Christianity and Neo-Platonism, but they contain many fine specimens of speculative adoration of the Triune Godhead, such as the Platonic philosophy inspired. Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem in 629, was the author of long poems on the chief events of New Testament history. That on the 'Holy Places' has special interest from the insight it gives into the appearance of Jerusalem and its sacred sites in the seventh century. Basil speaks of the 'Thanksgiving at Lamp-lighting', which was already old in the latter half of the fourth century. The Greek form of the 'Gloria in Excelsis' is of early date, and the 'Te Deum' seems to have had a Gallican origin. These facts form landmarks in the history of early hymnody in the East.

The younger Pliny tells us in his famous letter to Trajan that the Christians were accustomed to meet before day, and to sing a hymn Christ as God, 'by turns, one after another'.