Eusebius assures us that St. Mark taught the first Egyptian Christians how to chant their prayers: St. John Chrysostom affirms (in his sixth homily) that the Apostles wrote the first hymn. In Rome (according to Tertullian) the chants were given in a deep tone, and not in a sustained manner, at one part of the service, and with strong accents, and flexible voice at another. The Fathers of the church almost all bear testimony that the music of the service generally partook of the habitual style of singing of each nation. Kiesewetter, one of the most careful of the students of Ancient Greek music, maintains that, while the early Christians borrowed much from Greece, yet from the first, the tendency was rather away from, than in the path of the Greek style. Brendel in his essays coincides with this opinion.[229] The cause of this, so far as Rome and Greece are concerned, is very apparent. The apostles and their followers, started unencumbered in the musical field. The theory of Greek music was a most difficult one to master, and the converts were at first almost wholly among the humbler classes. It would have been impossible to have trained them in the elaborate Hellenic school, therefore, the more ear-catching melodies were at first used, combined probably with a simple chant. The same cause operated in the foundation of a newer and simpler theory of music; hence, although our modern music is the child of the ancient Greek school, yet it did not go in the same course, or arrive at the same goal which would have resulted, had the old Greek civilization been continued two thousand years longer. We hold that the Greeks were too much devoted to the plastic arts, ever to have brought music deeply into the inner life. Before the liturgy had been well established, improvisation was much employed; a result always to be anticipated when uncultivated persons become musical. At the evening meal, the twenty-third Psalm was usually chanted.[230] Other passages of scripture were also used, such as Exodus XV., and Daniel III.