§ 114. THE POETRY OF THE ORIENTAL CHURCH. 578
both, the first wholly, the second in part of Eastern origin, and going back perhaps to the third or second century.' But excepting these hymns in rhythmic prose, the Greek church of the first six centuries produced nothing in this field which has had permanent value or general use.* It long adherer almost exclusively to the Psahns of David, who, as Chrysostom says, was first, middle, and last in the assemblies of the Christians, and it had, in opposition to heretical predilections, even a decided aversion to the public use of uninspired songs. Like the Gnostics before them, the Arians and the Apollinarians employed religious poetry and music as a popular means oi commending and propagating their errors, and thereby, althougli the abuse never forbids the right use, brought diecredit upon these arts. The conncil of Laodicea, about a. d. 360, prohibited even the ecclesiastical use of all uninspired or "private hymns,'" and the council of Chalcedon, in 451, confirmed this decree.
Yet there were exceptions. Chrysostom thought that the perverting influence of the Arian hymnology in Constantinople could be most effectually counteracted by the positive antidote of solemn antiphonies and doxologies in processions. Gregory Nazianzen composed orthodox hymns in the ancient measure ; but fi-om their speculative theological character and their want of popular spirit, these hymns never passed into the use of the church. The same may be said of the produc-
' That the so-called Hymnus angelicus, based on Luke ii. 14, is of Greek origin, and was used as a morning hymn, is abundantly proven by Daniel, Thesaurus hymnol. tom. ii. p. 267 sqq. It is found in slightly varying forms in the Apostolic Constitutions, 1. vii. 47 (al. 48), in the famous Alexandrian Codex of the Bible, and other places. Of the so called Ambrosian hymn or Te Deum, parts at least are Greek, comp. Daniel, 1. c. p. 276 sqq.
'•' We cannot agree with the anonymous author of the article in the ' Chrisliau Remembrancer" for April, 1859, p. 282, who places Cosmas of Maiuma .xs high as Adam of S. Victor, John of Damascus as high as Notker, Andrew of Crete as high aa S. Bernard, and thinks Theophanes and Theodore of the Studium in no wise inferior to the best of Sequence writers of the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
' Can. 59 : Ov Se7 ISiwTtKov^ xpaX/j-ovs \iyia^ai 4v Tp iiiK\7\aia. By this mus( doubtless be understood not only heretica'^ but, as the connection show*, all extrabiblical hymns composed by men, in distiiction from the kmoviko. ^ifi\i% t^s Kaivrfi
580 THIRD PEKIOD. A.D. 311-590.
tious of Sopbroiiius of Jerusalem, who glorified the high festi vals in Anacreontic stanzas; of Synesius of Ptolemais (about A. D. 410), who composed philosophical hymns; of Nonnus oi Panopolis in Egypt, who wrote a paraphrase of the Gospel ot rfohn in hexameters; of Eudoxia, the wife of the emperor Theodosins II. ; and of Paul Silentiarius, a statesman under Justinian I., from whom we have several epigrams and an interesting poetical description of the church of St. Sophia, written for its consecration. Anatolius, bishop of Constantinople (t 458), is properly the only poet of this period who realized to any extent the idea of the church hymn, and whose songs were adapted to popular use.'
The Syrian church was the first of all the Oriental churches to produce and admit into public worship a popular orthodox poetry, in opposition to the heretical poetry of the Gnostic Bardesanes (about a. d. 170) and his son Harmonius. Epiiraim Syrus (t 378) led the way with a large number of successful hyirms in the Syrian language, and found in Isaac, presbyter of Antioch, in the middle of the fifth century, and especially in Jacob, bishop of Sarug in Mesopotamia (f 521), worthy successors.'
After the fifth century the Greek church lost its prejudices against poetry, and produced a great but slightly known abundance of sacred songs for public worship.
In the history of the Greek church poetry, as well as the Latin, we may distinguish three epochs : (1) that of formation, while it was slowly throwing ofi" classical metres, and inventing its peculiar style, down to about 650 ; (2) that of i>erfection, down to 820 ; (3) that of decline and decay, to 1400 or to the fall of Constantinople. The first period, beautiful aa
' Neale, in his Hymns of the Eastern Church, p. 8 sqq., gives several of the m in free metrical reproduction. See below.
'' On the Syrian hymnology there are several special treatises, by AconsTi : De hymnis Syrorum sacris, 1814; IIahn : Bardesanes Gnosticus, Syronim primus hjTimologus, 1819; Zingeule: Die heil. Muse der Syrer, 1833 (with German translations from Ephraira). Conip. also Jos. Sim. Assemani : Bibl. orient, i. 80 sqq. (with Latin versions), and Daniel's Thes. hyranol. tom. iii. 1855, pp. 130-268. The Syrian hymns for Daniel's Thesaurus were prepared by L. Sri.iETii, who gives them with the German version of Zingerle. An English version by II. Blrokss: Select metrical Hymn* and Ilomilles of Ephracm S., Lond. 1 85.3, 2 vols.