Questions about songs, but mainly from a historical perspective, so I’ll bung it into GQ, not Café Society.
What’s the oldest hymn in common use in the western Christian church?
I was thinking about this last week, since for Pentecost, we were singing Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire, with the words credited to the 9th century, and the tune to plainsong, so likely fairly old.
I appreciate that there’s likely no right answer to this question, and particularly when you’re digging back to St Patrick, things get a bit cloudy, but is there any way to determine what the earliest hymn still in use would be (either words or tune)?
Agnus Dei dates from the 7th century, and it’s still in common use, but the oldest is probably the Kyrie Eleison, of which we have records dating back to the 4th century in the east, and the 6th century in the west.
The psalms from the Old Testament. They were, I understand, written as songs, rather than meant to be spoken. Some of them are still regularly sung as hymns in church services.
True, but they’re probably not sung in their original languages, and the translations that are used are much more recent. And they’re certainly not sung to their original tunes.
The same thing can be said of the examples cited in the OP. Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire was written in 9th century Latin, and (I presume) mostly used in translation. Therefore the psalms are allowable under the OP’s rule.
The oldest hymn I know of that remains in common use is a Greek-language Eucharistic hymn from the Didache, very early (c. 110) in the Second Century. In English-speaking countries, the normal translation is the copyrighted one by F. Bland Tucker given here, sung to a rather lovely Bourgeois tune called “Commandments” or “Rendez à Dieu.”
Even older, of course, would be the canticles Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis, from Luke’s Gospel of about a generation previous. Indeed, in Greek Catholic services they would be sung in the original.
Topping this all would be the use of sung or chanted Psalms in worship. Orthodox Jewish congregations would sing them in the original Hebrew, with dating subject to debate but certainly before 400 BCE; Within Christianity, Greek Orthodox and Greek Catholic churches would use the Septuagint Greek versions, datable to between 280 and 130 BCE, and almost all Christian churches using them at all would use a reasonably literal translation of the Hebrew original.
So it kind of matters what definition you put on ‘hymn’ what the answer is.
Hmm… Can’t find the book. I’ll ask around, but I recall a specific chant being called “the oldest”, in terms of being written down. The first chants were all relayed verbally.
I believe that is a setting of Louis Bourgeois’ tune from the Genevan Psalter, more famously known in English as the “Old Hundredth.” The tune, therefore, is another 100 years or more old.
After checking Wikipedia, it seems to agree with me, which is always a good start!
The Bourgeois tune dates from 1551, and was originally used for metrical versions of Psalm 100, hence the name. Here’s William Keithe’s English metrical rendering of the Psalm, from 1561: All People That on Earth Do Dwell.
Originally used in English, to be clear. It was a different psalm in Bourgeois’ French, whose number presently eludes me. I only know that because I wrote a term paper on Calvinist church music in my undergraduate Renaissance music course.
I was thinking of Rerum Deus tenax vigor and Corde natus ex parentis, both of which may date from the 300s; they’re both sung in English reasonably often. After checking, it seems that Te lucis ante terminum may be a bit of a Johnny-come-lately from the 500s or so. Older than both, but not as old as the Psalms, would be Benedicite, omnia opera, which comprises a small book of the Apocrypha and is supposedly the song of the three young men thrown into the fiery furnace (in Daniel).
Actually, the oldest song still regularly sung from the Bible isn’t from Psalms- it’s the Song of the Sea from Exodus 15, which many researchers believe to be one of the most ancient passages in the Bible.
Still looking for my reference book (or a friend that has it), but this timeline seems much more realistic in terms of historically documented hymns.
As for the points about Psalms and older passages (the one from Exodus), we need to make a distinction between lyrics, melody and song.
Lyrics refer to the text of the hymn. Melody refers to the notes. The song is the combination of the two.
If I take the most ancient biblical text I can find and write a melody to it, have I created the new oldest hymn? I think we would all say “no”. And to be precise, translating text (in general) wouldn’t fall into this category.
I would argue the same is true for rewriting the melody to a set of lyrics. Because you’re putting those lyrics in a different musical setting, you’re creating a new musical work.
That being said, to accurately answer the OP question, the oldest hymn still in common use needs to have historical documentation to show that the melody has remained more or less unchanged. I have a feeling that the only such documents are musical manuscript. This leads me again to the inevitable conclusion that it is a chant.
