In the early second century, the Roman governor Pliny the Younger described a group of Christians singing “a hymn to Christ as to a god.” This impulse to sing to Christ as God only multiplied in the centuries that followed. Soon, Christians sang hymns to mark times of the day, to combat heresy, to distill the essence of Christian doctrine, and to drive Scripture deeper into the heart — always according to the spiritual needs of the day. In fact, the spiritual ideals of each generation in church history can be found in its hymns. The history of hymnody is the history of Christian spirituality in miniature.

The resurrection of Christ and the Pentecostal gift of the Spirit compelled Christians to sing. There was a burst of tremendous creativity for the infant church as they reinvigorated and pressed beyond the psalm tradition. Christian worship involved singing hymns to Christ from its earliest days.

‘A Hymn to Christ as to a God’

Some of the earliest evidence of Christians singing to Christ outside the New Testament comes from a pagan governor of Pontus and Bithynia, Pliny the Younger. In the early second century, he wrote a letter to the Roman emperor Trajan after encountering some Christians and wondering what to do with them. He writes, “They were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god.”¹ Similarly, Eusebius, the early fourth-century historian of the church, discusses how the church responded to the heresy that Christ was merely human. He offered the witness of the church’s song: “For who does not know . . . all the psalms and hymns written from the beginning by faithful brethren, which sing of Christ as the Word of God and address Him as God?”²

One of the first Christian hymns on record is the Phos Hilaron. This was an evening (or “lamp lighting”) hymn, and it is still part of the evening office of the Eastern Church. In John Keble’s tender translation, we sing of light itself as a symbol of the divine glory of Jesus Christ:

Hail, gladdening Light, of his pure glory poured,
who is immortal Father, heavenly blest;
Holiest of Holies, Jesus Christ our Lord!

As the light fades and the stars come out, one thinks of the Holy Trinity and praises God on high:

Now are we come to the sun’s hour of rest;
the lights of evening round us shine,
we hymn the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit divine.
Worthiest art thou at all times to be sung,
with undefilèd tongue,
Son of our God, Giver of life, alone!
Therefore in all the world thy glories, Lord, they own.³

This was, as Pliny had observed, Christians singing a hymn to Christ as to a god. Another very early Trinitarian hymn, with musical notation, has been found in the papyri in the desert at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt. It invites all nature to respond “while we hymn the Father and Son and Holy Spirit.”⁴

Choir Against Choir

In the Constantinian church of the fourth century, deep controversy arose over whether the Son was fully God. Lex orandi, lex credendi is a Latin phrase that is sometimes used to communicate the close connection between devotion and belief: “as we pray, so we believe.” The early church thus realized that their theology of Christ had to be equal to their devotion to Christ in worship. The hymns of the period show the extent to which theological debate was not academic. Doctrinal controversy was all about devotion to Christ, and hymns were a powerful means of promoting or refuting heresy.

For example, Ephrem the Syrian went “choir against choir” and “hymnbook against hymnbook” with the heretic Bardesanes (who denied the resurrection of the body). These hymns shaped the whole body of worship in the Syriac-speaking churches throughout their history.

Again, since heretical Arians (who denied the deity of Christ) sang hymns through the streets of Constantinople under Emperor Theodosius I, orthodox church leaders organized hymn-singing to counter this. Arius had written a catchy song: “We praise him as without beginning, because of him who has a beginning. / And adore him as everlasting, because of him who in time has come to be.” John Chrysostom and Athanasius answered with various forms of the Trinitarian doxology. Ambrose of Milan did likewise in the West:

All laud to God the Father be;
All praise, eternal Son, to thee;
All glory, as is ever meet,
To God the holy Paraclete.

In his Confessions, Augustine prayed and spoke to God of these Ambrosian hymns: “How I wept during your hymns and songs! I was deeply moved by the music of the sweet chants of your Church. The sounds flowed into my ears and the truth was distilled into my heart. This caused the feelings of devotion to overflow. Tears ran, and it was good for me.” Augustine also provided the context. There was a standoff between Ambrose and Justina, the Arian wife of the emperor, and tensions ran high in the capital city. “That was the time,” he said, “when the decision was taken to introduce hymns and psalms sung after the custom of the eastern Churches, to prevent the people from succumbing to depression and exhaustion.”⁵

It seemed to Augustine that these hymns were a real force to be reckoned with. Ambrose himself acknowledged the criticism that people were being carried away by the music: “They assert that the people have been beguiled by the strains of my hymns. I deny not this either. It is a lofty strain, than which nothing is more powerful.” He explained the phenomenon, saying, “What can be more powerful than the confession of the Trinity, which is daily celebrated by the mouth of the whole people? . . . They know how to confess in verse the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. They are all become teachers who were scarcely able to be disciples.”⁶

‘Jesus, the Very Thought of Thee’

From these beginnings there developed a tradition of church hymnody that in the West was focused primarily on the communion service and the daily worship of the monasteries. At the end of the fourth century, a Spanish aristocrat named Aurelius Clemens Prudentius retired from public life, gave up his wealth, and devoted himself to writing poetry to serve the church. Much of his work would find its way into the medieval service books. His hymn “Of the Father’s Love Begotten” was an excerpt from a longer poem, adapted for worship. It is a splendid example of patristic christology expressed in a devotional mode, and it sums up the way the early church would sing hymns to Christ as God.

The medieval musical tradition was antiphonal plainsong (Gregorian chant), and the music to which this hymn is sung today is an adaptation of this. It makes a connection for us with these Christians long ago. In John Mason Neale’s translation, we sing of him whom the creeds describe as “begotten, not made”:

Of the Father’s love begotten,
ere the worlds began to be,
he is Alpha and Omega,
he the source, the ending he,
of the things that are, that have been,
and that future years shall see,
evermore and evermore!

The work of nineteenth-century translators has given us access to much of this early hymnody. But by the early Middle Ages, hymnody was increasingly lost to the congregation and became the property of choir monks by and large. Still, Christians continued to sing to Christ as God in various modes. We have a poem from Theodulf of Orléans, which becomes the majestic Palm Sunday processional hymn, “All glory, laud, and honour / To thee, Redeemer, King, / To whom the lips of children / Made sweet hosannas ring. Thou art the King of Israel, / Thou David’s royal Son,” and so on, through all its strong cadences. As befits the Carolingian period, the hymn is appropriately royal — almost feudal — in its praise of Christ as King.

Outside the church, the laity enjoyed religious ballads and dances. This is indeed the origin of the carol — a narrative, convivial song in the common language, such as “The Holly and the Ivy.”

The holly bears a berry,
As red as any blood,
And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ
To do poor sinners good.

The holly bears a prickle,
As sharp as any thorn,
And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ
On Christmas Day in the morn.

Here too, then, outside the cloister walls, the instinct was to sing a hymn of praise to Christ as God.

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