hymns. In the sense in which most people understand the word, hymns are overwhelmingly a product of the 18th cent. They have been described as sacred poetry set to music, and have always been part of the Christian tradition, and the Jewish from which it derived. The psalms and specially composed sacred songs were certainly widespread in Christian worship by the 4th cent., and there is evidence to suggest that some passages in the New Testament, e.g. Ephesians 5, are actually quotations from hymns already in use within a generation or two of the lifetime of Christ.

Hymns in the early and medieval church were less expressions of personal or corporate devotion, than associated with the daily offices sung by members of monastic communities. In England the Reformation saw their virtual disappearance from public worship. There was a deep-seated prejudice against the use of non-scriptural language among many protestants, but the 16th and 17th cents. saw the composition of metrical versions of the psalms, notably by Sterhold and Hopkins (1557) and Tate and Brady (1696). These attained widespread popularity and were bound in with many editions of the Book of Common Prayer.

The work of Isaac Watts and John and Charles Wesley revived the popularity of congregational hymn-singing, and Wesley's Collection of 1737 is widely regarded as the first hymnal as we understand it. Suspicion of hymnody remained among many Anglicans, who associated it with evangelical ‘enthusiasm’, and not until Hymns Ancient and Modern, a fruit of the tractarian movement and Anglo-catholic revival, appeared in 1861 was this finally overcome.

Since then the writing of hymns and the publishing of collections has gone on apace among Christians of all traditions, though the appearance of many repetitive ‘choruses’ alongside hymns expressive of doctrine or personal devotion in recent years, whilst embraced enthusiastically by some, has been viewed with distaste by others.

Revd Dr John R. Guy