The First Hymn (1)

On Tuesday and Wednesday mornings I had the privilege of watching The First Hymn movie. To refresh your memories (and quoting from the 5^th October edition of Dove Tales), The First Hymn is named after a second century hymn called the Oxyrynchus Hymn. It was found in Oxyrynchus (Oxy.) in Egypt and is written on papyrus (P.). Its technical name is P. Oxy. 1786. It is written in Greek and has musical notation, arguably written in a different hand. That suggests that someone wrote the lyrics and someone else added the music.

An English translation is:

.. Let it be silent, Let the Luminous stars not shine,

Let the winds (?) and all the noisy rivers die down;

And as we hymn the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit,

Let all the powers add "Amen, Amen"

Empire, praise always, and glory to God,

The sole giver of good things,

Amen, Amen.

In other words, may all of Creation be silent before singing a hymn to our God in Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The hymn clearly demonstrates that the concept of the Trinity was alive and active in the early Church well before it was enshrined in what we call the Nicene Creed (written in the 300s). 

The hymn begins with a call to silence. The idea of “it” - all of Creation - being silent is thoroughly Greek. There was a “well-established pattern in Classical Greek liturgy, drama and hymnody that has roots as far back as the Iliad” (Don Barker, Macquarie Uni). The pattern was that everything would be silent before the god (or gods) arrived or spoke. The silence also reminds us that before Creation (and Time) ever came into being, God was. There was perfect silence. No sound competed with God. God was – and still is – the great “I am” (cf. Yahweh: “I am who I am” / Jesus’ proclamations: “I am …”). 

A child once asked me a question: “Who made God?” I tried to explain, “God has always been”. They were puzzled. In the end I said, “God made God”. The child was happy. My answer may be theologically incorrect, but it reminds us that finite minds cannot comprehend the infinite: that God is Creator, God is Redeemer, and God is the Life-giver. 

A second discovery came from some additional reading about the Oxyrynchus Hymn. The line ‘Let all the powers add “Amen, Amen”’ begs a question: Who are the “powers”? Charles Cosgrove, in his book about P. Oxy. 1786, argues that “angelic beings are meant … the hymn describes a shared liturgy of the church and angels”. We are very familiar with angels singing to the Shepherds in the fields outside Bethlehem, and singing in Heaven in the book of Revelation. The ancient writer of this Hymn was reminding everyone that True Worship involves both Heaven and Earth. As I sing this modern version of “The First Hymn”, I imagine not just the angels, but the “great cloud of witnesses (Hebrews 12), singing along with me. 

Let me end with the words of St. John says in Revelation 5:  ¹³ Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing: ‘To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb, be praise and honour and glory and power, for ever and ever!’. ¹⁴ The four living creatures said, ‘Amen’, and the elders fell down and worshipped.

May we join our voices with those of the angels as we praise “The sole giver of all good things”.

With hope and joy,

Rev. Frank (Van Der Korput), Supply Minister