5. When, now, we complete our New Testament mention of this praise—which clings like incense to the temple-curtains and sweetly perfumes the place—we have only to add the earliest received anthems. These are the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55); the Benedictus (Luke 1:68-79); the Gloria in Excelsis Deo (Luke 2:18); and the Nunc Dimittis (Luke 2:29-32). It will be observed that all these are derived from a single gospel, wherein, more than in any other, the “sweet, sad music of humanity” can most readily be found. It is natural, too, that the painter and physician, Luke, should have a poetic ear which could catch—as in the Acts of the Apostles—this faintest and earliest praise. There were, indeed, in the primitive church, eight of these classic expressions of worship. These are:
(1) The Lesser Doxology (Gloria Patri), “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.” (2) The Greater Doxology (Gloria in Excelsis), “Glory be to God on high, and on earth peace,” etc. [This was also called the Angelical Hymn.] (3) The Ter Sanctus (the cherubical hymn), “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty.” (4) The Hallelujah. [This “Alleluia, Amen!” was the response of the church.] (5) The Evening Hymn (containing the Nunc Dimittis). (6) The Benedicite. [The “Song of the Three Children,” which is taken from the Apocrypha, and which appears in the service of the Episcopal Church (Order for Morning Prayer) as, “O all ye works of the Lord,” etc.] (7) The Magnificat. [Named—as these are all named—from the first word of the Latin Vulgate version.] (8) The Te Deum, “We praise Thee, O God, we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord,” etc.
We can feel quite sure that the Latin Church merely borrowed these hymns from the earliest forms of the Greek. The Te Deum was probably translated from that language, either by Hilary of Poitiers or by an unknown author of that date. It is, undoubtedly, a close rendering of many phrases and expressions which are common to the Greek hymns, and, if the learned hymnologist H. A. Daniel is to be credited (Thesaurus Hymnologicus II. 289), it is a real and literal translation of an actual chant of praise of great antiquity. His words are these: “To give you my opinion briefly, the Te Deum, equally with the Angelic Hymn (to which it is very similar in form and expression), was born in the Eastern Church, whence it has been translated into the Latin tongue.” He then proceeds to cite an ancient Greek hymn, five lines of which are exact with the Latin.
In 2 Timothy 2:11-13 the “faithful saying” has been interpreted to be a similar quotation from one of these ancient hymns:
“For if we are dead together,
We shall live together;
If we serve together,
We shall reign together;
If we should deny Him,
He will deny us too;