398. Shepherd of eager youth
Clement of Alexandria, c. 170-c. 220
Tr. Henry M. Dexter, 1821-90
A hymn to Christ, based on a Greek poem attributed to Clement of Alexandria, beginning with the line
Στόμιον πώλων ἀδαῶν.
The poem is one of two which Clement attached to his book, The Tutor. Some say it is the earliest Christian hymn extant. (But see comments on [Hymn 34]).
Titus Flavius Clemens, known as St. Clement of Alexandria, c. 170-c. 220, remains something of an enigmatic figure in church history. It is not known where or exactly when he was born. He was a pagan philosopher in his younger days. After his conversion to Christianity, he became head of the Cathedral School at Alexandria, then the center of Christian scholarship. Here he remained until A.D. 203 when he was driven out by persecution under Septimus Severus. Clement then became a wanderer and nothing is known of his later life.
Henry Martyn Dexter was a graduate of Yale and Andover Theological Seminary, a Congregational minister and editor. He translated the text of Clement’s hymn into prose and then made a free rendering of it into verse, in 1846. The hymn was written for use in a service in Dexter’s church in which he preached on the text, Deut. 32:7: “Remember the days of old,” his sermon topic being, “Some Prominent Characteristics of the Early Christians.”
Hymnbook editors have made a few changes in the text: “eager youth” for “tender youth” in the first stanza; and “let all the holy throng” for “infants and the glad throng” in Stanza 4. The third stanza, omitted here, reads as follows:
Thou art the great High Priest;