\V. F. Cobb.
HYMNS.— The hymns of the Apostolic Church included the OT Psalms and the Evangelical Can- ticles of Lk 1 and 2. We possess also some frag- ments embedded in NT writings, which show how they were used to express religious emotion both in public and in private. St. Paul suggests further that they should be used for instruction and warning (Col 3'"). He distinguishes (as in Eph 5^*) between three kinds — psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs (odes) (see PsALMS, Spiritual Songs). The word 'psalm' (1 Co H^", Ja 5'^) properly includes the idea of a musical accompani- ment (Basil, Horn, in Ps. 44 ; Greg. Nyss., Horn, iri Ps., ch. iii.). The word 'hymn' might be used of a song of praise to God wliether accompanied or not. The word ' song' (' ode ') applies to all forms of song, and was in fact a general term for lyrical poetry. In Eph 5'* the terms ' singing ' and ' play-
ing' correspond with the words 'hymns' and ' psalms.' They are to be addressed ' to the Lord,' just as Pliny in his famous letter to Trajan (Ep. X. 97) describes the Christians as meeting before dawn and singing a hymn to Christ as God anti- phonally (secum invicem). The fragment in Eph 5^^
' Awake, thou that sleepest, And arise from the dead. And Christ shall shine upon thee '
is possibly a fragment of a hymn addressed to a convert at baptism. Another fragment is 1 Ti 3^* :
' He who was manifested in the flesh. Justified in the spirit, Seen of angels, Preached among the nations, Believed on in the world, Received up in glory.'
Such examples throw light on the difficult question of the source of the quotation in 1 Co 2^ which is apparently a free translation or paraphrase from the Hebrew of Is 64^. Clem. Rom. (ad Cor. xxxiv.) mixes it up with the LXX. According to Jerome, tlie passage occurs in the Ascension of Isaiah and the Apocalypse of EUn.s. Origan (on Mt 27^ [Migne, Patr. GrcBca, xiii. 1769]) says St. Paul quotes from the latter. As Ligiitfoot puts it (Notes on Epistles of St. Paul, 1895, p. 177), ' If it could be shown that these apocryphal books were prior to St. Paul, this solution would be the most probable.' But they are not. So we fall back on the suggestion that St. Paul (and they also ?) quoted an early Christian hymn based on Isaiah like the Sanctus of the liturgies.
The doxologies in 1 Ti P^ 6i«, 2 Ti 4'8 may like- wise have been fragments of hymns. Only one of the hymns in the Apocalypse alludes to the situa- tion described in the vision, i.e. 5**, referring to the opening of the Book with the Seven Seals. The rest express generally the praise which the Church offers to God and to Christ. It is quite natural that reminiscences of Christian hymns should timl their way into the seer's book. On the other hand, if they are the first effort of an inspired imagina- tion, we may regai'd them as types of future hym- nody. The Song of JNIoses in 15^ like the older Song of Moses in Dt 32, which was used as a Sabbath hymn in the Jewish liturgy, found its way into the liturgical Psalter of Codex Alex- anarinus.
The Song of the living creatures in 4^ varies from the Sanctus of Isaiah's vision which is followed in the Liturgies and the Te Deum. It is addressed to God as Almighty, and evokes the response of tlie elders, who in the words ' our God ' claim ' a relation to Him which the Creation as such cannot claim' (H. B. Swete, The Apocalypse of St. John^, 1907, p. 74).
In 5^2 the angels offer a fuller doxology to the Lamb, and the response of all creation with a four- fold doxology, and of the living creatures with the familiar ' Amen ' which ended the eucharistic thanksgiving of the Church on earth, is ' highly suggestive of the devotional attitude of the Asiatic Church in the time of Domitian towards the Person of Christ ' (Swete, op. cit. p. 84). Of a similar character is the Song inserted in the pro- phecy (ll'5-'8) when 'great voices' announce the coming of the kingdom, and the elders respond :
' We give thee thanks, O Lord God, the Almighty, Which art, and which wast ;
Because thou hast taken thy great power, and didst reign. And the nations were wroth, And thy wrath came. And the time of the dead to be judged, And to give their reward to thy servants, the prophets, And to the saints. And to them that fear thy name, The small and the great ; And to destroy them that destroy the earth.'
HYMNS
HYPOCRISY
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The ^v^itings of the Apostolic Fathers add nothing to our knowledge, though Ignatius de- lights in the thought of the liynin of praise for his martyrdom which the Church in Rome will sing {ad Rom. 2) : ' that forming yourselves into a chorus in love ye may sing to the Father in Jesus Christ, for that God has vouchsafed that the bishop from Syria should be found in the West, having summoned him from the East' (cf. Eph. 4).