hen parthenoi}, appears in the _Banquet of the
Ten Virgins_, a work of Methodius, Bishop of Olympus and Patara in Lydia,
who was martyred at Chalcis in 312. It is a hymn of twenty-four stanzas
sung by Thekla, each followed by a refrain sung by the chorus,

I keep myself pure for Thee, O Bridegroom, and holding a lighted
torch I go to meet Thee.[80]

Once more, a traditional theme in Christian hymnody is set forth,
familiar from biblical as well as classical connotations and perpetuated
either in the praise of virginity or in the form of the mystic union of
Christ and the Church.

It is customary in presenting the subject of Greek hymn writers to pass
from Clement of Alexandria to Gregory of Nanzianzus and Synesius of
Cyrene, poets of the fourth century who mark the beginning of a new era
beyond the limits of this study. They are mentioned here only as a
reminder of the long succession of great poets who created and maintained
Greek hymnody throughout the ancient and medieval centuries.

Contemporary with the development of Greek hymns, the literature of the
Church was moving toward its destination in Latin culture. As Latin
became a liturgical language the service hymns, already cited, appeared
in their Latin form. Perhaps this is one reason why the production of
original Latin hymns was so long postponed. It was not until the middle
of the fourth century that the hymns of Hilary of Poitiers, the first
Latin hymn writer, appeared. His authentic hymns are three in number:

O Thou who dost exist before time

is a hymn of seventy verses in honor of the Trinity,

The Incarnate Word hath deceived thee, (Death)

an Easter hymn, and

In the person of the Heavenly Adam,

a hymn on the theme of the temptation of Jesus.[81] Hilary, like his
Greek contemporaries, stands at the beginning of a new era, but it was
Ambrose, and not he, who inaugurated the tradition of the medieval Latin
hymn.

So far no mention has been made of the fact that the early period of
Christian history was characterized by persecution. As a rule sporadic
and intermittent, it was periodically severe. At all times Christians, if
not actually persecuted, were objects of suspicion to the Roman
government. We owe to the official zeal of Pliny the Younger, who was a
proconsul in Bithynia in 112, our first glimpse of Christian worship from
the point of view of the outsider. In a letter to the Emperor Trajan on
the subject of the C