A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

The learned and pious Parkhurst was a Hutchinsonian; and his peculiar opinions not a little influenced his etymological conjectures, though in no way interfering with his orthodoxy and sound scholarship.

HYMN. A song of adoration. It is certain from Holy Scripture, that the Christians were wont to sing hymns in the apostles’ time; and it is probable that St. Ignatius appointed them to be sung by each side of the choir. It is probable also that the place of these hymns was, as now, after the lessons: for St. Ambrose notes, that as, after one angel had published the gospel, a multitude joined with him in praising God, so, when one minister hath read the gospel, all the people glorify God. The same appears to have been the custom from St. Augustine, and from a constitution of the Council of Laodicea, in the year 365. As for the particular hymns of our Church, they are, as of old in the primitive Church, generally taken out of Scripture; yet as they also made use of some hymns not found in Scripture, so do we.

Hymns may be said to consist of three kinds: (1.) Metrical, such as were in use in the daily service of the unreformed Church. Of this kind there is but one formally authorized by the Church of England, viz. the Veni Creator. (2.) Canticles, appointed to be said or sung in the daily service, and divided into verses, and pointed, like the Psalms. The Te Deum, and the Benedictus, are so expressly called in the Prayer Book; and such by implication are the Benedicite, (called a canticle,) the Magnificat, and Nunc Dimittis. (3.) Those portions of the Communion Service which are appointed to be said or sung, but not arranged like the Canticles: as the Tersanctus, and the Gloria in Excelsis. St. Paul (Eph. v. 19, and Col. iii. 16) speaks of psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs. The first of these words would seem to refer to the mizmor, or psalm, properly so called; the second to the tehikah, or jubilant song of praise; the last to the shir, or song; all of which words occur both in the titles, and the text, of the Book of Psalms. (See Song.)

HYPERDULIA. (See Dulia and Idolatry.)

HYPOSTASIS. A theological Christian term, for the true knowledge of the meaning of which take this short account. The Greeks took it in the first three centuries for particular substance, and therefore said there were three hypostases, that is, three “Persons,” according to the Latins. Where some of the Eastern people understanding the word hypostases in another sense, would not call the Persons three hypostases. Athanasius showed them in a council held at Alexandria in 362, that they all said the same thing, and that all the difference was, that they gave to the same word two different significations: and thus he reconciled them together. It is evident that the word hypostasis signifies two things: first, an individual particular substance; secondly, a common nature or essence. Now when the Fathers say there are “three hypostases,” their meaning is to be judged from the time they lived in; if it be one of the three first centuries, they meant all along three distinct agents, of which the Father was supreme. If one of much later date uses the expression, he means, most probably, little more than a mode of existence in a common nature.

HYPOSTATICAL UNION. The union of the human nature of our LORD with the Divine; constituting two natures in one person, and not two persons in one nature, as the Nestorians assert. (See Union.)

HYPOTHETICAL, This term is sometimes used in relation to a baptism administered to a child, of whom it is uncertain whether he has been already baptized or not. The rubric states, that “if they who bring the infant to the church do make such uncertain answers to the priest’s questions, as that it cannot appear that the child was baptized with water, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,” then the priest, on performing the baptism, is to use this form of words, viz. “If thou art not already baptized, N——, I baptize thee in the name,” &c.

This, therefore, is called an hypothetical or conditional form, being used only on the supposition that the child may not have already received baptism.

HYPSISTARIANS. Heretics in the fourth century of Christianity. According to Gregory Nazianzen, (whose own father had once been a member of the sect, but afterwards became a Christian bishop,) they made a mixture of the Jewish religion and paganism, for they worshipped fire with the pagans, and observed the sabbath, and legal abstinence from meats, with the Jews.

ICONOCLASTS, or IMAGE BREAKERS. (See Images, Image Worship, and Idolatry.) From εἰκὼν, an image, and κλάω, to break. A name given to the image-breakers in the eighth century. Sarantapechs, or Serantampicus, a Jew, persuaded Ezidus, or Gizidus, king of the Arabs, to take the images of saints out of churches that belonged to the Christians: and some time after, Bazere, [but Baronius writes Beser,] becoming a Mahometan in Syria, where he was a slave, insinuated himself so much into the favour of Leo Isauricus, that this prince, at his and the persuasion of other Jews, who had foretold him his coming to the empire, declared against images, about 726, ordered the statue of Christ, placed over one of the gates of the city, to be thrown down, and being enraged at a tumult occasioned thereby, issued a proclamation wherein he abolished the use of statues, and menaced the worshippers with severe punishments; and all the solicitations of Germanus the patriarch, and of the bishop of Rome, could prevail nothing in their favour. His son and successor Constantine forbade praying to saints or the Virgin; he set at nought the pope, and assembled a council, in which his proceedings were approved; but this council, being condemned at Rome, the emperor strove more than ever to gain his point. Leo IV. succeeded in 775, and reigned but four years, leaving his son Constantine under the tutelage of the empress Irene. In her time, A. D. 787, was held the second Council of Nice, in which, according to Baronius, a request was made that the image of Christ and of the saints might be restored. But Spanheim says that Philip the emperor, and John, patriarch of Constantinople, having rejected the sixth general council against the Monotheletes in 712, took away the pictures of the Fathers of that and the former councils, hung up by the emperor Justinian, in the portico of St. Sophia; and that the pope thereupon, in a synod at Rome, ordered the like images to be placed in St. Peter’s church, and thenceforth worshipped; their use until that time being purely historical. The Saracens, offended at that superstition, persecuted the Christians; and Leo calling a synod issued a proclamation, condemning the worship of images, but granting that they might be hung up in churches, the better to prevent idolatry; and upon a further dispute with Pope Gregory II., who excommunicated him, and absolved his subjects from their obedience in 730, he commanded that they should be quite taken down and destroyed. Constantine Copronymus followed his father’s example, and in the thirteenth year of his reign, anno 744, assembled the seventh general council of the Greeks, wherein images and their worshippers were condemned. His son Leo IV. followed his steps, who, at his death, leaving the empress Irene to administer the state during the minority of Constantine VII., she, to gain the monks over to her interest, made use of them to restore images, advanced Tarasius from a laic to be patriarch of Constantinople, and so managed the council which she called at Nice, that they decreed several sorts of worship to images; as salutation, incense, kissing, wax lights, &c., but neither approved images of the Trinity, statues, nor any carved work. Constantine being of age, and opposing this procedure, was barbarously deprived of his sight and life by his unnatural mother Irene; an act which is commended by Cardinal Baronius, who declared the emperor Leo incapable of the crown, which he calls a rare example to posterity not to suffer heretical princes to reign. On the other side, the popes imitated their predecessors in their hatred to the Greek emperors, whom they despoiled of their exarchate of Ravenna, and their other possessions in Italy, which, by the help of the French, was turned into St. Peter’s patrimony; but that the French, Germans, and other northern countries, abhorred image worship, is plain by the capitulary of Charlemagne against images, and the acts of the synod of Frankfort under that prince, who also wrote four books to Pope Adrian against image worship, and the illegal Council of Nice above mentioned. Image worship was also opposed by other emperors who succeeded; as also by the Churches of Italy, Germany, France, and Britain, particularly by the learned Alcuin.