logy existed in the Jewish ritual at the time of Christ would pass over into the service of the new Church; and such we find to be the fact, as far as history and tradition refer to the subject. Our Saviour sung a hymn before His passion at the paschal feast. The believers at Colossè were exhorted by Paul to teach and admonish one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs; and those at Ephesus received a similar command in reference to their own private edification: speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. As, in the time of this Apostle, there could have been no new literary development, these instructions must refer to the lyrical compositions of the old dispensation. From the earliest periods there are references to the use of the Old Testament psalter in Christian worship, and a curious event connected with it in the Church at Antioch is related by Eusebius. It appears that Paul of Samosata, the bishop of that Church, about the middle of the third century, forbad the use of new songs in divine service, and insisted on the Psalms of David alone being sung. He was devoted to the heresy which afterwards took the name of Arius, and in his own time gave rise to the sect of the Paulians; and he thus made a pretended love of antiquity an excuse for banishing the more free compositions which had been introduced. But it does not require proof that Christians, in the earliest

Kirche. (See Hahn, Bardesanes, p. 51; and Ueber den Gesang in der Syrischen Kirche, p. 53.)

times, adopted whatever related to song which had been consecrated to the temple and synagogue service.

As a Jewish element was thus inevitably introduced into the ritual of the Christian Church, so it could not but happen that the culture of the Gentile world should exert an influence; and hence the well-known and popular rhythms of the Greeks and Latins would gradually mingle themselves with the more stately Hebrew hymnology, and thus give variety, freedom, and life to divine service, and diffuse a pious merriment in Christian households. That nothing of this kind took place among the Jews is accounted for by their isolation from the rest of mankind, and the contempt in which they held the manners and customs of the surrounding and distant nations. But the barriers of national exclusiveness were thrown down by Christ, and it thus became accordant with the spirit of His religion, and not contrary to it, to use whatever was in itself innocent and good among the heathen nations. The entire freedom of St. Paul from every mere prejudice is a most remarkable feature of his character, and by it he was fitted for his noble mission. We can easily see from what he says respecting the use of meats sacrificed to idols, how tolerant he must have been to any new practice which involved no sacrifice of conscience and tended to edification.

This freedom of the new dispensation from the rigid forms which Christ found in existence, is beautifully expressed in the following comment on Matt. xiii. 52: "Every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is a householder," &c. As a householder shews his visitors his jewels;

The lyrical poetry of the Greek and Latin literature, must have been familiar even to the Hellenist Jews, while it was vernacular to many of the heathen converts; it was thus natural that when these men were formed into Christian societies, what was known to give life to heathen literature and an idolatrous cultus, should be transferred to the House of the Lord. This is at least our own theory, and we think it has as much probability about it as any conjecture can have, and will well account for the fact, that in the early Church metrical compositions were so soon introduced. Jewish poetry consisted in parellelisms, and a certain measured but irregular verse; while that of the Greeks and Latins was regular in its construction and numbered by feet. The difference between the two was certainly very great, but, in the absence of any command to the contrary, the latter was sure to win its way and become common.

Intimately connected with this subject, is that of antiphonal or responsive singing in religious worship. It is well known that the ecclesiastical historian, Socrates (lib. vi., cap. 8), attributes this custom to the patriarch Igna

exhibits in pleasing alternation the modern and the antique, and leads them from the common to the rare, so must the teacher of divine truth in the new manifestation of the kingdom of God bring out of his treasures of knowledge truths old and new, and gradually lead his hearers from the old and usual to the new and unaccustomed. Utterly unlike the Rabbins, with their obstinate and slavish adherence to the letter, the teachers of the new epoch were to adapt themselves freely to the circumstances of their hearers, and, in consequence, to present the truth under manifold varieties of form. In a word, Christ himself, as a Teacher, was the model for his disciples."-(Neander, The Life of Jesus Christ, book iv., part ii., chap. ii.)

tius, who is said to have learned it from the angels, whom, in a vision, he saw chanting in two companies. But Theodoret, on the other hand (lib. ii., cap. 24), makes two monks, Flavianus and Diodorus, the authors of it, in the time of Constantine. The tradition respecting Ignatius is pretty good evidence that the anthem was in use in the Church at Antioch at a much earlier period than Theodoret mentions, and the monuments of the Syriac Churches confirm it. There can be no doubt that Ambrose conveyed the custom from Syria to the West; nor that Flavianus and Diodorus accomplished for it a similar migration. The uncertainty of the accounts of it proves its high antiquity; nor perhaps is it easy to decide whether responsive singing, to some extent, did not exist in the Jewish service. It is clear that a similar practice is alluded to in 1 Sam. xviii., 7, where it is said, "the women answered one another as they played, and said," &c. The Hebrew and Syriac texts both favour this idea, nor is the version of the LXX., kaì ¿§îpxov ai yvvâikes, the women took the lead, at all opposed to it. The structure also of the 136th Psalm, compared with 2 same conclusion.

Chron. v. 13, may lead to the

Hahn, on the presumption that responsive chanting was an invention of the early Church, thus accounts for its origin. He says that a translation of the Hebrew Psalter was first used, and that, in Syria, "the want of rhythm and metre produced a monotony, and an absence of grace and sweetness, by which the attention, vivacity, and joy of the mind were dissipated; and that, in consequence of

this, the method of reponsive chanting (Antiphonie) was contrived to throw life into the song.' " This is an account sufficiently probable, of the preference generally given to variety and life, over monotony and dullness; and may be the process which led the Syrian Christians to leave the plain Psalms, for compositions more congenial with their tastes and habits. But we are inclined to think, that on the whole subject more light may yet be thrown by future researches, and that it will probably be found, that in Syria, as elsewhere, Christians introduced into their practice whatever of national customs, in relation to music, they found ready to their hands.

But, in whatever obscurity the origin of Syrian hymnology may be involved, we come very early to historical data, and find that harmonious composition, of whose birth we are doubtful, an actual living instrument of thought, powerful both for good and for evil. The name of BARDESANES, a Gnostic Christian, stands first in relation to this metrical literature. He flourished in the second century, but the chronology of his life is uncertain, and, although he exerted great influence in his day, and is mentioned by the earlier ecclesiastical historians, it is surprising how almost mythic his history is, from the want of definite and fixed starting-points. He was a native of Edessa, from whose river, Daison, he took his name. Το this circumstance Ephraem alludes in his second homily against heresies (tom. v., p. 439):

c Ueber den Gesang in der syrischen Kirche, p. 54.