Week 4

The Oxyrhynchus hymn is the earliest known manuscript of a Christian hymn to contain both lyrics and musical notation. This papyrus fragment was unearthed in 1918 and the discovery was first published in 1922. The hymn was written down around the end of the 3rd century AD. The text, in Greek, poetically invokes silence so that the Holy Trinity may be praised.

Together all the eminent ones of God...
Night nor day 
Let them be silent. 
Let the luminous stars not shine
Let the rushings of winds, the sources of all surging rivers cease.
While we sing Father and Son and Holy Spirit, let all the powers answer, Amen, amen, 
Empire, praise always, and glory forever to God, the sole giver of all good things. Amen, amen.

It is often considered to be the only fragment of Christian music from ancient Greece, although Kenneth Levy has persuasively argued that the Sanctus melody best preserved in the Western medieval Requiem mass dates from the 4th century. 


Listen: The Oxyrhynchus Hymn (3rd Century)