Hellenic hymns, according to this conception of them, have come down to us, some from a very early and others from a late period of Greek classical literature. Those which passed by the name of Homer[2] were already old in the time of Thucydides. They are mythological poems (several of them long), in hexameter verse--some very interesting. That to Apollo contains a traditionary history of the origin and progress of the Delphic worship; those on Hermes and on Dionysus are marked by much liveliness and poetical fancy. Hymns of a like general character, but of less interest (though these also embody some fine poetical traditions of the Greek mythology, such as the story of Teiresias, and that of the wanderings of Leto), were written in the 3rd century before Christ, by Callimachus of Cyrene. Cleanthes, the successor of Zeno, composed (also in hexameters) an "excellent and devout hymn" (as it is justly called by Cudworth, in his _Intellectual System_) to Zeus, which is preserved in the _Eclogae_ of Stobaeus, and from which Aratus borrowed the words, "For we are also His offspring," quoted by St Paul at Athens. The so-called Orphic hymns, in hexameter verse, styled [Greek: teletai], or hymns of initiation into the "mysteries" of the Hellenic religion, are productions of the Alexandrian school,--as to which learned men are not agreed whether they are earlier or later than the Christian era. The Romans did not adopt the word "hymn"; nor have we many Latin poems of the classical age to which it can properly be applied. There are, however, a few--such as the simple and graceful "Dianae sumus in fide" ("Dian's votaries are we") of Catullus, and "Dianam tenerae dicite virgines" ("Sing to Dian, gentle maidens") of Horace--which approach much more nearly than anything Hellenic to the form and character of modern hymnody. 2. _Hebrew Hymnody._--For the origin and idea of Christian hymnody we must look, not to Gentile, but to Hebrew sources. St Augustine's definition of a hymn, generally accepted by Christian antiquity, may be summed up in the words, "praise to God with song" ("cum cantico"); Bede understood the "canticum" as properly requiring metre; though he thought that what in its original language was a true hymn might retain that character in an unmetrical translation. Modern use has enlarged the definition; Roman Catholic writers extend it to the praises of saints; and the word now comprehends rhythmical prose as well as verse, and prayer and spiritual meditation as well as praise.