Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

HYMNS, EARLY CHRISTIAN

Like the spokes of a wheel, canonical hymns display characteristics which are further developed in subsequent Christian circles to the 6th century. For example, the hymns in Revelation may reflect Roman court ceremonial, just as the symposium by Methodius of Olympus reflects dynamics of the ceremony of installation for the Roman consul Ausonius. Revelation’s hymns are often structured antiphonally (chs. 4-5), a dynamic later brought to the Western Church by Ambrose. The phenomenon of martyrdom in the Revelation hymns is celebrated later by Pope Damasus, whose treatment of Agnes’ martyrdom, however, lacks the explicit eroticism of the poetic treatment of Agnes by the Latin Father Prudentius. The Alleluia sung in Rev. 19 later punctuates hymns in the Odes of Solomon and is warmly welcomed by Hilary, Jerome, and Augustine as a liturgical exercise. Also, the interplay in Revelation between hymn-singing and silence in heaven (Rev. 7:10–8:1) has its analogue in hymns in the Acts of John and in the Paschal Homily of Melito of Sardis, which strike a balance between apophatic and kataphatic worship. The actual music involved in hymnic singing is scantily attested. The earliest sample is found in the musical notation of the 3rd-century Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 1786, a hymn praising the Christian God. Revelation’s portrayal of instrumental accompaniment to its hymns may not of itself be sufficient to demonstrate the use of certain instruments by that community, but is at the cusp of an ensuing debate among the church fathers about the propriety of using certain instruments or any instruments at all as hymnic accompaniment.

Paul assumes that Christians who come together will spontaneously sing hymns (Gk. psalmós, 1 Cor. 14:26), and this practice is continued in the group reported by the Roman governor Pliny to the Emperor Trajan. However, recent studies ask if some of the materials often identified as hymnic in the Pauline corpus and in the Gospels in fact were ever sung at all but perhaps are ad hoc literary creations having closer affinities with literary encomia. This may be especially true of the hymns in Luke 1–2 and that in John 1, , and in that regard they would anticipate productions such as Clement’s hymn to Christ the Educator. However one decides that issue, the Lucan hymns show a strong interest in rooting the Jesus-event in the history of Israel, a trend which the Council of Laodicea (ca. 360) tried to encourage when it prohibited the production of nonbiblical hymns. The Johannine hymn marks the beginning of a trend toward celebrating Jesus using philosophical categories. Many of the hymns in the Nag Hammadi library celebrate Jesus using terms such as “form” and “matter” (Tripartite Tractate) and above all “gnosis”/knowledge (Naasene hymn), whereas the hymnic presentation of knowledge in the Acts of Andrew has a meaning determined by the cross of Jesus. The hymns of Arius in honor of Jesus as creature — albeit exceptional creature — elicit strong counter-efforts in the hymns of Athanasius, who embodies the faith of Nicea.

The almost equal number of syllables in most of the lines in 1 Tim. 3:16 displays an attention to rhythmic regularity which comes to accomplished fruition in Clement’s hymn to Christ the Educator. The metric difference of the line “seen by angels/messengers” in the Pauline verse is for some commentators a sign of editorial tampering and anticipates widespread redaction of later hymnic pieces such as those in the Apostolic Constitutions, presumably in order to make the hymns reflect current practice. Attention to the divine Name and the name of Jesus, present in Phil. 2:6-11, is continued in the hymnic portions of the Gospel of the Egyptians and the Odes of Solomon as well as in hymns of the Acts of Thomas. The hymnic presentation of Christ as image of God in whom sin is vanquished (Col. 1:15-20) is present in Ambrose’s celebration of a humanity renewed morally by the Christ-event (Aeterno Rerum Conditor). That this Colossian Christ fulfills its role as image of God when it sings God’s glory is a leitmotif also present in Ephrem’s Nisibene hymn 50.

Although one cannot be certain about the pure novelty of some post-NT developments in Christian hymnody, some hymnic characteristics do seem to be developments which respond to issues different from those faced during the period of production of canonical literature. Ignatius Eph. 19 includes an explicit attack on the perduring attractiveness of magic in the empire. The issue of Christ’s death as “sacrifice” makes explicit a motif perhaps only implicit in the canonical hymns (Melito of Sardis Homily on the Pasch). Dance is mentioned in the hymnic portions of the Acts of John and in the Easter hymn of Hippolytus. Prayers celebrating the Virgin’s role in making Christ available are especially prominent in the Eastern Church, where numerous hymns designed for use at specific times of day were also being crafted (Gospel of Bartholomew, Cyril of Alexandria, Gregory Nazianzus). There may also be evidence that some Scriptures were being chanted in this period, which also witnesses hymnic intercessions for holders of specific church offices.

On the frontiers of research in this area one may ask about the way in which early Christian theologizing was affected by the intertwined phenomena of Hellenistic music theory and early Christian anthropology.

Bibliography. Editions of texts: F. F. Church and T. J. Mulry, The Macmillan Book of Earliest Christian Hymns (New York, 1988); M. Kiley, ed., Prayer from Alexander to Constantine: A Critical Anthology (London, 1997); E. Lodi, Enchiridion Euchologicum fontium liturgicum. Bibliotheca Ephemerides Liturgicae Subsidia 15 (Rome, 1979). Studies: E. Foley, Foundations of Christian Music: The Music of Pre-Constantinian Christianity (Collegeville, 1996); “Liturgical Music: A Bibliographic Essay,” in Liturgy and Music, ed. R. A. Leaver and J. A. Zimmerman (Collegeville, 1998), 411-53; R. J. Karris, A Symphony of New Testament Hymns (Collegeville, 1996); H. M. Schueller, The Idea of Music: An Introduction to Musical Aesthetics in Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Kalamazoo, 1988).

Mark Kiley

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

HYMNS, EARLY CHRISTIAN

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)