ANTHEM is derived from the Greek αντίφωνα, through the Saxon Antefn, and originally had the same meaning as antiphony. (See Antiphony.) It is now, however, generally restricted to a form of musical composition peculiar to the service of the Church of England, and appointed by the rubrics to follow the third collect at both morning and evening prayer, “in choirs and places where they sing.” Several anthems are included in the English coronation service. The words are selected from Holy Scripture, or in some cases from the Liturgy, and the music is generally more elaborate and varied than that of psalm or hymn tunes. Anthems may be written for soli voices only, for the full choir, or for both, and according to this distinction are called respectively Verse, Full, and Full with Verse. Though the anthem of the Church of England is analogous to the motett of the Roman Catholic and Lutheran Churches, both being writtenfor atrained choir, and not for the congregation, it is as a musical form essentially English in its origin and development. The English school of musicians has from the first devoted its chief attention to this form, and scarcely a composer of any note can be named who has not written several good anthems. Tallis, Tye, Bird, and Farrant, in the 16th century; Orlando Gibbons, Blow, and Purcell, in the 17th; and Croft, Boyce, Kent, Nares, Cooke, and Samuel Arnold, in the 18th, have composed anthems which are still to be regularly heard in cathedral services.

ANTHEMIUS, a Greek mathematician and architect of great genius, who produced, under the patronage of Justinian (532 a.d.), the original and daring plans for the church of St Sophia, in Constantinople, which strikingly displayed at once his knowledge and his ignorance. He was one of five brothers—the sons of Stephanus, a physician of Tralles—who were all more or less eminent in their respective departments. Dioscorus followed his father’s profession in his native place; Alexander became at Rome one of the most celebrated medical men of his time; Olympius was deeply versed in Roman jurisprudence; and Metrodorus was one of the distinguished grammarians of the great Eastern capital. There appears to be good grounds for believing that Anthemius anticipated Buffon in the invention of burning glasses; he has also been credited, though on very dubious authority, with a knowledge of gunpowder, or some similar compound, and with a certain acquaintance with the force of steam. Some portions of his πeρι παραδόξων μηχανημάτων were published by Dupuy in 1777, and also appeared, in 1786, in the forty-second volume of the Hist, de Γ Acad. des Inscr. (See Gibbon’s Dec. and Fall, vol. vii. cap. xL; Procopius, cZe Aedific.}