Christian Hymns of the First Three Centuries

This study examines Christian hymnody in the first three centuries, surveying extant texts, tracing Old Testament and apocryphal influences, and situating early lyric practice within a Hellenistic and pre-Augustan literary milieu. It stresses the scarcity and fragmentary nature of sources, questions definitions that separate psalms, hymns, and canticles, and emphasizes that pre-Ambrosian hymns were primarily psalmic chants rather than metrical stanzas. Groups of surviving pieces are presented as representative types, with attention to historical, liturgical, and linguistic contexts and to the methodological difficulties of interpreting early Christian poetic material.