It is customary in presenting the subject of Greek hymn writers to pass from Clement of Alexandria to Gregory of Nanzianzus and Synesius of Cyrene, poets of the fourth century who mark the beginning of a new era beyond the limits of this study. They are mentioned here only as a reminder of the long succession of great poets who created and maintained Greek hymnody throughout the ancient and medieval centuries. Contemporary with the development of Greek hymns, the literature of the Church was moving toward its destination in Latin culture. As Latin became a liturgical language the service hymns, already cited, appeared in their Latin form. Perhaps this is one reason why the production of original Latin hymns was so long postponed. It was not until the middle of the fourth century that the hymns of Hilary of Poitiers, the first Latin hymn writer, appeared. His authentic hymns are three in number: O Thou who dost exist before time is a hymn of seventy verses in honor of the Trinity, The Incarnate Word hath deceived thee, (Death) an Easter hymn, and In the person of the Heavenly Adam, a hymn on the theme of the temptation of Jesus.[81] Hilary, like his Greek contemporaries, stands at the beginning of a new era, but it was Ambrose, and not he, who inaugurated the tradition of the medieval Latin hymn. So far no mention has been made of the fact that the early period of Christian history was characterized by persecution. As a rule sporadic and intermittent, it was periodically severe. At all times Christians, if not actually persecuted, were objects of suspicion to the Roman government. We owe to the official zeal of Pliny the Younger, who was a proconsul in Bithynia in 112, our first glimpse of Christian worship from the point of view of the outsider. In a letter to the Emperor Trajan on the subject of the Christians, he says that, as a part of their service at sunrise, they chanted a hymn, antiphonally, to Christ as a God.[82] Speculation as to the identity of this hymn has never ceased among students. Leclercq summarizes the theories as follows: It is a morning hymn later attributed to Hilary. It is the morning hymn of the Greek liturgy. It is the morning hymn of the _Apostolic Constitutions_. It is the Great Doxology.[83] Since they are all unsatisfactory as identifications, we remain in ignorance on this point. A recent study of Pliny's letter by Casper J. Kraemer, a classicist, proposes the translation of the words _carmen dicere_, "to chant a psalm."[84] This most interesting suggestion is in thorough harmony with our knowledge of the continuity of the use of the psalms in public worship at this time. VII. Conclusion