It may be said, and with truth, that the _Magnificat_ of Mary, the _Nunc Dimittis_ of old Simeon, and, above all, that the _Gloria in Excelsis Deo_ of the angels at Bethlehem, antedate this hymn of our Lord and His apostles. It may also be said, and with the same truth, that these furnished to the early Christians their earliest expressions of praise. But it appears that the Last Supper, with its pathetic union of Jewish and Christian ideas, was also the place at which the Psalms of David and the spiritual songs of primitive Christianity were united. The thought that this reveals is larger than these limits will permit us to discuss. It is in brief that as Jesus Christ came, “not to destroy, but to fulfil,” He designed to show to His Church that gratitude, love, trust, and adoration were to be combined in all future psalmody. The _t’hillim_ of the Jew were to become the _hymni_ of the Christian. The noticeable fact remains that the early Church only caught the simplest and most fervent forms of this worship. Their pure veneration of the Lord led Pliny to write (Ep. 10:97) that they “sung alternately among themselves a hymn to Christ as God”—_carmen Christo quasi Deo, dicere secum invicem_. It is this loving devotion which charms us as we read those verses which have been preserved. For the most part the subjects are limited. We could naturally expect that, being largely drawn from Jewish sources, they would express gratitude and adoration—and this is correct. Chrysostom declared that the early Christians sung at prayers in the morning, at their work, and very usually at their meals. Jerome, writing to Marcellus, says—and we quote Cave’s translation for its quaintness—“You could not go into the field but you might hear the _Ploughman_ at his _Hallelujahs_, the _Mower_ at his _Hymns_, and the _Vine-dresser_ singing _David’s Psalms_.” In fact, Christian song was a notable feature of primitive Christianity. The language of these hymns was either Syriac or Greek. By degrees the Greek obtained the precedence; and as the Latin hymns did not arise until Hilary of Poitiers (fourth century), the period between the Ascension and that era belongs to the Greek language rather more than to any other. We also know from the New Testament writers some very important facts, which may properly be classified at this point. 1. There were three terms for the sacred song. It might be a _psalm_, or a _hymn_, or a _spiritual song_, as we discover from Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16.