f the third century, B.C.,
for he quoted his words on the Areopagus. The original passage to which
Paul refers has been translated as follows:

Thee it is meet that mortals should invoke,
For we Thine offspring are and sole of all
Created things that live and move on earth
Receive from Thee the image of the One.[39]

It is evident that the Christian hymns embedded in the books of the New
Testament were not constructed after a classical model of this type. The
influence of Old Testament poetry was too strong, the associations of
paganism repellant and, moreover, the Greek poetry, familiar to the
average man of that day, quite different. The older Greek hymns, such as
the _Homeric Hymns_, the _Odes_ of Pindar, the choruses of Greek tragedy,
were produced in the Hellenic or pre-Hellenic ages which had been
followed by more than two centuries of Hellenistic culture. Dr. Edward
Delavan Perry, writing of Hellenistic poetry, said, "Other forms of
poetry, particularly the lyric, both the choral and the 'individual,'
died out almost completely."[40]

There remain, then, only the extant hymns of the mystery cults. In spite
of many references to the use of singing in connection with these
religions, very few specimens of their hymns actually survive. The
mystery religion was a sacramental religion "which stressed the approach
to Deity through rite and liturgy after a severe probation and an oath
pledging to secrecy."[41] The leading cults were those associated with
Orpheus, the Magna Mater (Cybele) and Attis, Mithra, Serapis, Isis,
Adonis, and especially the Eleusinian Mysteries, which flourished for
twelve centuries, ending with their extinction by the Christians in
397.[42]

During the period under consideration in this study Isis was honored in
all parts of the Graeco-Roman world. An authentic hymn to Isis appears in
the writings of Apuleius (b. 125), who describes a procession in honor of
the goddess and gives the words of the chorus, closing,

Thy divine countenance and most holy deity I shall guard and keep
forever in the secret place of my heart.

Variants of the Isis cult hymn or hymns have been preserved in
inscriptions; for example, a hymn of some fifty lines from Cyme in
Aeolia,

I am Isis the sovereign of the whole land.[43]

Liturgical survivals of the cult of Mithra are almost unknown. Franz
Cumont, the great student of Mithraism, quotes one hymn fragment only,

Hail bridegroom