O chaste people
Guide harmless children,
Let us praise together
O holy King.
The God of peace."
This poem was for sixteen centuries merely a hymnological curiosity, until an American Congregational minister, Dr. Henry Martyn Dexter, by a happy reproduction, in 1846, secured it a place in modern hymn-books. While preparing a sermon (as He. informs me) on "some prominent characteristics of the early Christians" (text, Deut. 32:7, "Remember the days of old"), he first wrote down an exact translation of the Greek hymn of Clement, and then reproduced and modernized it for the use of his congregation in connection with the sermon. It is well known that many Psalms of Israel have inspired some of the noblest Christian hymns. The 46^th Psalm gave the key-note of Luther's triumphant war-hymn of the Reformation: "Ein' feste Burg." John Mason Neale dug from the dust of ages many a Greek and Latin hymn, to the edification of English churches, notably some portions of Bernard of Cluny's De Contemptu Mundi, which runs through nearly three thousand dactylic hexameters, and furnished the material for "Brief life is here our portion." "For thee, O dear, dear Country," and "Jerusalem the golden." We add Dexter's hymn as a fair specimen of a useful transfusion and rejuvenation of an old poem.
1. Shepherd of tender youth,
None calls on Thee in vain;
Guiding in love and truth
Help Thou dost not disdain--
Through devious ways;
Help from above.
Christ, our triumphant King,
We come Thy name to sing;
4. Ever be Thou our Guide,
Hither our children bring
Our Shepherd and our Pride,
To shout Thy praise!
Our Staff and Song!
Jesus, Thou Christ of God
2. Thou art our Holy Lord,
By Thy perennial Word
The all-subduing Word,
Lead us where Thou hast trod,
Healer of strife!
Make our faith strong.
Thou didst Thyself abase,
That from sin's deep disgrace
5. So now, and till we die,
Thou mightest save our race,
Sound we Thy praises high,
And give us life.
And joyful sing:
Infants, and the glad throng
3. Thou art the great High Priest;
Who to Thy church belong,
Thou hast prepared the feast
Unite to swell the song
Of heavenly lov
[379] BK. VII. 5.
[380] The Ep. of Clemens in the Codex Alexandrinus (A); Barnabas and Hermas in the Cod. Sinaiticus.
[381] omilia, logos, sermo, tractatus.
[382] § 19, anaginosko humin. But the homily may have first been delivered extempore, and taken down by short-hand writers (tachugraphoi, notarii). See Lightfoot, p. 306.
[383] Ed. by Bryennios (1875), and in the Patr. Apost. ed. by de Gebhardt and Harnack, I. 111-143. A good translation by Lightfoot, S. Clement of Rome, Appendix, 380-390. Lightfoot says: "If the first Epistle of Clement is the earliest foreshadowing of a Christian liturgy, the so called Second Epistle is the first example of a Christian homily." He thinks that the author was a bishop; Harnack, that be was a layman, as be seems to distinguish himself from the presbyters. Lightfoot assigns him to Corinth, and explains in this way the fact that the homily was bound tip with the letter of Clement to the Corinthians; while Harnack ably maintain, the Roman origin from the time and circle of Hermas. Bryennios ascribe, ; it to Clement of Rome (which is quite impossible), Hilgenfeld to Clement of Alexandria (which is equally impossible).
[384] Ad Cor. ch. 59-61, discovered and first published by Bryennios, 1875. We give Clement's prayer below, p. 228 sq. The prayers if the Didache(chs.9 and 10), brought to light by Bryennios, 1883, are still older, and breathe the spirit of primitive simplicity. See § 68.
[385] See vol. III. 517 sqq., and add to the literature there, quoted, Probst (R.C.), Die Liturgie der 3 ersten Jahrh., Tüb., 1870; C. A. Hammond, Ancient Liturgies (with introduction, notes, and liturgical glossary), Oxford and Lond., 1878.
[386] Ap. Const., Bk. VIII., also in the liturgical collections of Daniel, Neale, Hammond, etc.
[387] Const. Apost. lib. VII. 47. Also in Daniel's Thesaurus Hymnol., tom. III, p. 4, where it is called humnos heothinos(as in Cod. Alex.), and commences: Doxa en hupsistois theo. Comp. Tom. II. 268 sqq. It is also called hymnus angelicus while the Ter Sanctus (from Isa. 6:3) came afterwards to be distinguished as hymnus seraphicus. Daniel ascribes the former to the third century, Routh to the second. It is found with slight variations at the end of the Alexandrian Codex of the Bible (in the British Museum), and in the Zurich Psalter reprinted by Tischendorf in his Monumenta Sacra. The Latin form is usually traced to Hilary of Poictiers in the fourth century.
[388] Daniel, l.c. vol. III. p. 5. Comp. in part Const. Ap. VIII. 37. The humnos heaperinosor humnos tou luchnikou, commences: Phos hilaron hagias doches Athanatou patros ouraniou.
[389] In Euseb. H. E. V. 28.
[390] In the Paedag. III. 12 (p. 311 ed. Pott.); also in Daniel's Thesaurus hymnologicus III. p. 3 and 4. Daniel calls it "vetustissimus hymnus ecclesiae", but the Gloria in Excelsis may dispute this claim. The poem has been often translated into Cierinan, by Münter (in Rambach's Anthologie christl. Gesänge, I. p, 35); Dorner (Christologie, I. 293); Fortlage (Gesänge christl. Vorzeit, 1844, p. 38); and in rhyme by Hagenbach (Die K. G. der 3 ersten Jahrh. p. 222 sq.). An English translation may be found in Mrs. Charles: The Voice of Christian Life, in Song, N. York, 1858, p. 44 sq., and a closer one in the "Ante-Nicene Christian Library, " vol. V. p. 343 sq.