We are justified, however, in going one step beyond this bald statement, that the early Christians _sang_ together. They sang _secum invicem_, alternately. The quotations already given show the adaptation of their hymns to this use. In this, at least, they were following the Jewish habit of responses and part-singing, whatever other changes their poverty or prejudices or principles or persecutions might have produced.
It remains for us to speak of the ancient hymns which have come down to our day. We have some information as to Harmonius and Bardesanes, who wrote Syriac hymns in the first century, but the hymns themselves are either lost or unidentified. Ephrem Syrus (died 378) furnishes the earliest authentic hymns in that language. One of these (Daniel, _Thesaurus Hymnologicus_, III. 145) is on the Nativity of our Lord, and may be thus rendered, following Zingerle’s German version:
“Into his arms with tender love Did Joseph take his holy son, And worshipped him as God, and saw The babe like any little one. His heart rejoiced above him there, For now the only Good had birth; And pious fear upon him came Before this Judge of all the earth. Oh, what a lofty wonder!
“Who gave me then this precious Son Of highest God, to be my child? For I against thy mother here Had almost been by zeal beguiled; And I had thought to cast her off— Alas, I saw not truly then How in her bosom she should bear The costliest treasure known to men, To make my poverty, so soon, The richest lot in mortal ken!
“David, that king of ancient days, My ancestor, had placed the crown On his own head, and there it lay; But I sank deep and further down: I was no king, but in its stead A carpenter, and that alone. But now may crown my brow again That which befits a kingly throne, For here upon my bosom lies The Lord of lords, my very own!”
There is a trifle of doubt as to which is the very oldest Greek hymn. One cited by Basil (died 379),
has been by some considered the most ancient, and is known to us as, “Hail, gladdening Light.” It is wrongly credited to Athenagenes (died 169), for Basil explicitly denies that authorship. That which it is safest for us to receive is one found in the works of Clement of Alexandria, and by him ascribed to an earlier author. It was probably composed about 200 A.D.; and while it is too long to quote, it may be characterized as dithyrambic, and almost Anacreontic, in rhythm. It begins: