Hellenic hymns, according to this conception of them, have come down to us, some from a very early and others from a late period of Greek classical literature. Those which passed by the name of Homer were already old in the time of Thucydides. They are mythological poems (several of them long), in hexameter verse,—some very interesting. That to Apollo contains a traditionary history of the origin and progress of the Delphic worship; those on Hermes and on Dionysus are marked by much liveliness and poetical fancy. Hymns of a like general character, but of less interest (though these also embody some fine poetical traditions of the Greek mythology, such as the story of Tiresias, and that of the wanderings of Leto), were written in the 3d century before Christ, by Callimachus of Cyrene. Cleanthes, the successor of Zeno, composed (also in hexameters) an “excellent and devout hymn” (as it is justly called by Cudworth, in his Intellectual System) to Zeus, which is preserved in the Eclogae of Stobaeus, and from which Aratus borrowed the words, “For we are also His offspring,” quoted by St Paul at Athens. The so-called Orphic hymns, in hexameter verse, styled τελεταi, or hymns of initiation into the “mysteries” of the Hellenic religion, are productions of the Alexandrian school,—as to which learned men are not agreed whether they are earlier or later than the Christian era.

The Romans did not adopt the word “hymn;” nor have we many Latin poems of the classical age to which it can properly be applied. There are, however, a few,—such as the simple and graceful “Dianae sumus in fide” (“Dian’s votaries are we”) of Catullus, and “Dianam tenerae dicite virgines” (“Sing to Dian, gentle maidens ”) of Horace,— which approach much more nearly than anything Hellenic to the form and character of modern hymnody.

2. Hebrew Hymnody.

For the origin and idea of Christian hymnody we must look, not to Gentile, but to Hebrew sources. St Augustine’s definition of a hymn, generally accepted by Christian antiquity, may be summed up in the words, “praise to God with song” (“cum cantico”). Bede understood the “canticum” as properly requiring metre; though he thought that what in its original language was a true hymn might retain that character in an unmetrical translation. Modern use has enlarged the definition: Roman Catholic writers extend it to the praises of saints; and the word now comprehends rhythmical prose as well as verse, and prayer and spiritual meditation as well as praise.

The modern distinction bet.ween psalms and hymns is arbitrary (see Psalms). The former word was used by the LXX. as a generic designation, probably because it implied an accompaniment by the psaltery (said by Eusebius to have been of very ancient use in the East) or other instruments. The cognate verb “psallere” has been constantly applied to hymns, both in the Eastern and in the Western Church; and the same compositions which they described generically as “psalms” were also called by the LXX. “odes” (ι.e., songs) and “hymns.” The latter word occurs, e.g., in Ps. lxxii. 20 (“the hymns of David the son of Jesse”), in Ps. lxv. 1, and also in the Greek titles of the 6th, 54th, 55th, 67th, and 76th (this numbering of the psalms being that of the English version, not of the LXX.). The 44th chapter of Ecclesiasticus, “Let us now praise famous men,” &c., is entitled in the Greek τrατ∈pωv vpvo<s, “The Fathers’ Hymn.” Bede speaks of the whole book of Psalms as called “liber hymnorum,” by the universal consent of Hebrews, Greeks, and Latins.

In the New Testament we find our Lord and His apostles singing a hymn (υp∙vψrαvτ∈s i%gXQov), after the institution of the Lord’s Supper; St Paul and Silas doing the same lfpvovv τor θeοv) in their prison at Philippi; St James recommending psalm-singing (ψαλλiτω), and St Paul “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs” (^αλp,o7s κai ΰρ,νοις και ωδaις 7rvευp,aτικaις). St Paul also, in the 14th chapter of the first epistle to the Corinthians, speaks of singing (ψaλω), and of every man’s psalm (fκaστος ipωv ψa,λpοv εχει), in a context which plainly has reference to the assemblies of the Corinthian Christians for common worship. All the words thus used were applied by the LXX. to the Davidical psalms; it is therefore possible that these only may be intended, in the different places to which we have referred. But there are in St Paul’s epistles several passages (Eph. v. 14; 1 Tim. iii. 16; 1 Tim. vi. 15, 16; 2 Tim. ii. 11, 12) which have so much of the form and character of later Oriental hymnody as to have been supposed by Michaelis and others to be extracts from original hymns of the Apostolic age. Two of them are apparently introduced as quotations, though not found elsewhere in the Scriptures. A third has not only rhythm, but rhyme. The thanksgiving prayer of the assembled disciples, recorded in Acts iv., is both in substance and in manner poetical; and in the canticles, “Magnificat,” “Benedictus,” &c., which manifestly followed the form and style of Hebrew poetry, hymns or songs, proper for liturgical use, have always been recognized by the church.

3. Eastern Church Hymnody.

The hymn of our Lord, the precepts of the apostles, the angelic song at the nativity, and “Benedicite omnia opera,” are referred to in a curious metrical prologue to the hymnary of the Mozarabic Breviary, as precedents for the practice of the Western Church. In this respect, however, the Western Church followed the Eastern, in which hymnody prevailed from the earliest times.

Philo describes the “Therapeutae” of the neighbourhood of Alexandria as composers of original hymns, which (as well as old) were sung at their great religious festivals,—the people listening in silence till they came to the closing strains, or refrains, at the end of a hymn or stanza (the “acroteleutia” and “ephymnia ”), in which all, women as well as men, heartily joined. These songs, he says, were in various metres (for which he uses a number of technical terms); some were choral, some not; and they were divided into variously constructed strophes or stanzas.

Eusebius, who thought that the Therapeutae were communities, of Christians, says that the Christian practice of his own day was in exact accordance with this description. Gibbon considered it to be proved, by modern criticism, that the Therapeutae were not Christians, but Essene Jews; but he recognized in their customs “a very lively image of primitive discipline;” and he states that the Christian religion was embraced by great numbers of them, and that they were probably, by degrees, absorbed into the church, and became the fathers of the Egyptian ascetics. Apollos, “born at Alexandria,” may possibly have been one of them.

The practice, not only of singing hymns, but of singing them antiphonally, appears, from the well-known letter of Pliny to Trajan, to have been established in the Bithynian churches at the beginning of the 2d century. They were accustomed “stato die ante lucem convenire, carmenque Christo, quasi Deo, dicere secum invicem.” This agrees well, in point of time, with the tradition recorded by the historian Socrates, that Ignatius (who suffered martyrdom about 107 A.D.) was led by a vision or dream of angels singing hymns in that manner to the Holy Trinity to introduce antiphonal singing into the church of Antioch, from which it quickly spread to other churches. There seems to be an allusion to choral singing in the epistle of Ignatius himself to the Romans, where he exhorts them, “χορός γενόμενοι” (“having formed themselves into a choir”), to “sing praise to the Father in Christ Jesus.” A statement of Theodoret has sometimes been supposed to refer the origin of antiphonal singing to a much later date; but this seems to relate only to the singing of Old Testament Psalms [τηv Δaυι8ικηv μελωδίαν), the alternate chanting of which, by a choir divided into two parts, was (according to that statement) t first introduced into the church of Antioch by two monks famous in the history of their time, Flavianus and Diodorus, under the emperor Constantius II.

Other evidence of the use of hymns in the 2d century is contained in a fragment of Caius, preserved by Eusebius, which refers to “all the psalms and odes written by faithful brethren from the beginning,” as “hymning Christ, the Word of God, as God.” Tertullian also, in his description of the “Agapae,” or love-feasts, of his day, says that, after washing hands and bringing in lights, each man was invited to come forward and sing to God’s praise something either taken from the Scriptures or of his own composition (“ut quisque de Sacris Scripturis vel proprio ingenio potest”). Bishop Bull believed one of those primitive compositions to be the hymn appended by Clement of Alexandria to his Paedagogus} and Archbishop Ussher considered the ancient morning and evening hymns, of which the use was enjoined by the Apostolical Constitutions, and which are also mentioned in the “Tract on Virginity” printed with the works of St Athanasius, and in St Basil’s treatise upon the Holy Spirit, to belong to the same family. Clement’s hymn, in a short anapaestic metre, beginning στόμιον πώλων αδαών (or, according to some editions, βασιλεύ αγίων, λόγε παv8αματωρ— translated by Mr Chatfield, “O Thou, the King of saints, all-conquering Word ”), is rapid, spirited, and well-adapted for singing. The Greek “Morning Hymn” (which, as divided into verses by Archbishop Ussher in his treatise De Symbolis, has a majestic rhythm, resembling a choric or dithyrambic strophe) is the original form of “Gloria in Excelsis,” still said or sung, with some variations, in all branches of the church which have not relinquished the use of liturgies. The Latin form of this hymn (of which that in the English communion office is an exact translation) is said, by Bede and other ancient writers, to have been brought into use at Rome by Pope Telesphorus, as early as the time of the emperor Hadrian. A third, the Vesper or “Lamp-lighting” hymn ( i '' φώς ιλαρόν άγιας δό£τ?ς,”—translated by Canon Bright “Light of Gladness, Beam Divine ”), holds its place to this day in the services of the Greek rite. In the 3d century Origen seems to have had in his mind the words of some other hymns or hymn of like character, when he says (in his treatise Against Celsus) ; “We glorify in hymns God and His only begotten Son; as do also the Sun, the Moon, the Stars, and all the host of heaven. All these, in one Divine chorus, with the just among men, glorify in hymns God who is over all, and His only begotten Son.” So highly were these compositions esteemed in the Syrian churches that the council which deposed Paul of Samosata from the see of Antioch in the time of Aurelian justified that act, in its synodical letter to the bishops of Rome and Alexandria, on this ground (among others) that he had prohibited the use of hymns of that kind, by uninspired writers, addressed to Christ.

After the conversion of Constantine, the progress of hymnody became closely connected with church controversies. There had been in Edessa, at the end of the 2d or early in the 3d century, a Gnostic writer of conspicuous ability, named Bardesanes, who was succeeded, as the head of his sect or school, by his son Harmonius. Both father and son wrote hymns, and set them to agreeable melodies, which acquired, and in the 4th century still retained, much local popularity. Ephraem Syrus, the first voluminous hymn writer whose works remain to us, thinking that the same melodies might be made useful te the faith, if adapted to more orthodox words, composed to them a large number of hymns in the Syriac language, principally in tetrasyllable, pentasyllable, and heptasyllabic metres, divided into strophes of from 4 to 12, 16, and even 20 lines each. When a strophe contained five lines, the fifth was generally an “ephymnium,” detached in sense, and consisting of a prayer, invocation, doxology, or the like, to be sung antiphonally, either in full chorus or by a separate part of the choir. The Syriac Chrestomathy of Hahn (published at Leipsic in 1825), and the third volume of Daniel’s Thesaurus Hymηologicus, contain specimens of these hymns. Some of them have been translated into (unmetrical) English by the Rev. Henry Burgess [Select Metrical Hymns of Ephrem Syrus, &c., 1853). A considerable number of those so translated are on subjects connected with death, resurrection, judgment, ∣fcc., and display not only Christian faith and hope, but much simplicity and tenderness of natural feeling. Theodoret speaks of the spiritual songs of Ephraem as very sweet and profitable, and as adding much, in his (Theodoret’s) time, to the brightness of the commemorations of martyrs in the Syrian Church.

The Greek hymnody contemporary with Ephraem followed, with some licence, classical models. One of its favourite metres was the Anacreontic; but it also made use of the short anapaestic, Ionic, iambic, and other lyrical measures, as well as the hexameter and pentameter. Its principal authors were Methodius, bishop of Tyre (who died about 311 A.D.), Synesius, who became bishop of Ptolemais in Cyrenaica in 410, and Gregory Nazianzen, for a short time (380-381) patriarch of Constantinople. The merits of these writers have been perhaps too much depreciated by the admirers of the later Greek “Melodists.” They have found an able English translator in the Rev. Allen Chatfield [Songs and Hymns of Earliest Greek Christian Poets, &c., London, 1876). Among the most striking of their works are μvωεο Χρίστε (“Lord Jesus, think of me”), by Synesius; σ∈ τbv άφθιτον μονάρχην (“O Thou, the One Supreme”) and τι σoι 0ελεις γεvεσθaι (“0 soul of mine, repining ”), by Gregory; also άνωθεν παρθένοι (“The Bridegroom cometh”), by Methodius. There continued to be Greek metrical hymn writers, in a similar style, till a much later date. Sophronius, patriarch of Jerusalem in the 7th century, wrote seven Anacreontic hymns; and St John Damascene, one of the most copious of the second school of “Melodists,” was also the author of some long compositions in trimeter iambics.

An important development of hymnody at Constantinople arose out of the Arian controversy. Early in the 4th century Athanasius had rebuked, not only the doctrine of Arius, but the light character of certain hymns by which he endeavoured to make that doctrine popular. When, towards the close of that century (398), St John Chrysostom was raised to the metropolitan see, the Arians, who were still numerous at Constantinople, had no places of worship within the walls; but they were in the habit of coming into the city at sunset on Saturdays, Sundays, and the greater festivals, and congregating in the porticoes and other places of public resort, where they sung, all night through, antiphonal songs, with “acroteleutia” (closing strains, or refrains), expressive of Arian doctrine, often accompanied by taunts and insults to the orthodox. Chrysostom was apprehensive that this music might draw-some of the simpler church people to the Arian side; he therefore organized, in opposition to it, under the patronage and at the cost of Eudoxia, the empress of Arcadius (then his friend), a system of nightly processional hymn-singing, with silver crosses, wax-lights, and other circumstances of ceremonial pomp. Riots followed, with bloodshed on both sides, and with some personal injury to the empress’s chief eunuch, who seems to have officiated as conductor or director of the church musicians. This led to the suppression, by an imperial edict, of all public Arian singing; while in the church the practice of nocturnal hymn-singing on certain solemn occasions, thus first introduced, remained an established institution.

It is not improbable that some rudiments of the peculiar system of hymnody which now prevails throughout the Greek communion, and whose affinities are rather to the Hebrew and Syriac than to the classical forms, may have existed in the church of Constantinople, even at that time. Anatolius, patriarch of Constantinople in the middle of the 5th century, was the precursor of that system; but the reputation of being its proper founder belongs to Romanus, of whom little more is known than that he wrote hymns still extant, and lived towards the end of that century. The importance of that system in the services of the Greek church may be understood from the fact that the late Dr Neale computed four-fifths of the whole space (about 5000 pages) contained in the different service-books of that church to be occupied by hymnody, all in a language or dialect which has ceased to be anywhere spoken.

The system has a peculiar technical terminology, in which the words “troparion,” “ode,” “canon,” and “hirmus” (fιpμos) chiefly require explanation.

The troparion is the unit of the system, being a strophe or stanza, seen, when analysed, to be divisible into verses or clauses, with regulated caesuras, but printed in the books as a single prose sentence, without marking any divisions. The following (turned into English, from a “canon” by John Mauropus) may be taken as an example:—“The never-sleeping Guardian, ∣ the patron of my soul, I the guide of my life, ∣ allotted me by God, ∣ I hymn thee, Divine Angel ∣ of Almighty God.” Dr Neale and most other writers regard all these “troparia” as rhythmical or modulated prose. Cardinal J. B. Pitra, on the other hand, who in 1867 and 1876 published two learned works on this subject, maintains that they are really metrical, and governed by definite rules of prosody, of which he lays down sixteen. According to him, each “troparion” contains from three to thirty-three verses; each verse varies from two to thirteen syllables, often in a continuous series, uniform, alternate, or reciprocal, the metre being always syllabic, and depending, not on the quantity of vowels or the position of consonants, but on an harmonic series of accents.

In various parts of the services solitary troparia are sung, under various names, “contacion,” “oecos,” “cathisma,” &c,, which mark distinctions either in their character or in their use.

An ode is a song or hymn compounded of several similar “troparia,”—usually three, four, or five. To these is always prefixed a typical or standard “troparion,” called the hirmus, by which the syllabic measure, the periodic series of accents, and in fact the whole structure and rhythm of the stanzas which follow it are regulated. Each succeeding “troparion” in the same “ode” contains the same number of verses, and of syllables in each verse, and similar accents on the same or equivalent syllables. The “hirmus” may either form the first stanza of the “ode” itself, or (as is more frequently the case) may be taken from some other piece; and, when so taken, it is often indicated by initial words only, without being printed at length. It is generally printed within commas, after the proper rubric of the “ode.” A hymn in irregular “stichera” or stanzas, without a “hirmus,” is called “idiomelom” A system of three or four odes is “triodion” or “tetraodion.”

A canon is a system of eight (theoretically nine) connected odes, the second being always suppressed. Various pauses, relieved by the interposition of other short chants or readings, occur during the singing of a whole “canon.” The final “troparion” in each ode of the series is not unfrequently detached in sense (like the “ephymnia”of Ephraem Syrus), particularly when it is in the (very common) form of a “theotokion,” or ascription of praise to the mother of our Lord, and when it is a recurring refrain or burden.

There were two principal periods of Greek hyrnnography constructed on these principles,—the first that of Romanus and his followers, extending over the 6th and 7th centuries, the second that of the schools which arose during the Iconoclastic controversy in the 8th century, and which continued for some centuries afterwards, until the art itself died out.

The works of the writers of the...