Poetry and Hymnography (2): The Greek World Page 1 of 16 PRINTED FROM OXFORD HANDBOOKS ONLINE (www.oxfordhandbooks.com). © Oxford University Press, 2018. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a title in Oxford Handbooks Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 16 September 2019 Print Publication Date: Sep 2008 Subject: Religion, Christianity, Literary and Textual Studies, Ancient Religions Online Publication Date: Sep 2009 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199271566.003.0032 Poetry and Hymnography (2): The Greek World John A. McGuckin The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies Edited by Susan Ashbrook Harvey and David G. Hunter Abstract and Keywords Greek Christian hymns are a massive part of the surviving literary record of the early church, but have rarely attracted the level of scholarly attention that they deserve. This article discusses Greek hymnody; the classical origins of the Greek Christian hymns; the Bible and the ancient liturgy; stages of Syrian influence on Byzantine hymnography; hymns of the heterodox–orthodox Struggles; littérateur poets in Greek late antiquity; and the flowering of Byzantine hymnography in the sixth to eleventh Centuries. In Greek hymnody, one can see creed, antiphon, poem, prayer, song, and sacrament welded to form a seamless unity: here Byzantine theology, mysticism, and liturgical chant merge into a profound symbiosis in a programme that already consciously understood itself to be a the ology of beauty and of culture. The ancient hymn is thus a potent symbol, still awaiting its full articulation. Keywords: Greek hymnody, Greek Christian hymns, Bible, ancient liturgy, Byzantine hymnography, liturgical chant 31.1 Greek Hymnody—A Neglected Domain GREEK Christian hymns are a massive part of the surviving literary record of the early church, but have rarely attracted the level of scholarly attention that they deserve. One of the reasons for this is surely the manner in which the genre of hymn had, by the post‐Ref ormation era, been firmly established in the life of the various churches, as one of the most popular levels of common devotion and liturgical ‘involvement’, and familiarity in this case bred contempt. In Europe, after the eighteenth century, there was a veritable explosion of interest in hymnody, one which was given further impetus by the Oxford High Church movement under such scholars as Keble, Newman, and J. M. Neale (1862), who did much to bring the lyrics of ancient Greek Christian hymns back to a higher level of popular awareness.