When John of Damascus forsook the world and left behind him a brilliant career to enter a monastery founded in 520 A.D., by St. Sabas, he took with him his ten-year-old nephew, Stephen. The boy grew up within the walls of this cloister, which is situated in one of the deep gorges of the brook Kedron, near Bethlehem, overlooking the Dead Sea. Stephen, who came to be known as the Sabaite, was likewise a gifted hymnist, and it is he who has given us the hymn made famous by Neale’s translation: “Art thou weary, art thou languid?” Stephen died in 794 A.D.
The last name of importance among the great hymn-writers of the Greek Church is that of Joseph the Hymnographer, who lived at Constantinople in the ninth century. It is he who wrote the hymn on angels for St. Michael’s Day:
Stars of the morning, so gloriously bright,
Filled with celestial resplendence and light,
These that, where night never followeth day,
Raise the “Thrice Holy, Lord!” ever and aye.
As early as the fourth century the Council of Laodicea had decreed that “besides the appointed singers, who mount the ambo, and sing from the book, others shall not sing in the church.” How far this rule may have discouraged or suppressed congregational singing is a subject of dispute among historians. However, it is a matter of record that hymnody suffered a gradual decline in the Eastern division of the Christian Church and eventually assumed more of a liturgical character.
An Ambrosian Advent Hymn
Come, Thou Saviour of our race,
Choicest Gift of heavenly grace!