From its beginnings in the Bible, Christian hymnology has fulfilled three functions -- praise, recital and teaching of the Myth, and collective and personal adoration as well as the foundation and worship of the church. In Hymns and the Christian Myth, Lionel Adey demonstrates that over the centuries shifts emphasizing particular elements of the Christian faith accord with the interests and concerns of the times in which the hymns were composed.

A study of the hymnic and liturgical material in the New Testament which describes Christ's nature and person. Professor Sanders analyzes the hymns in detail and finds in them a common mythological pattern. He traces its origin to a particular and unorthodox branch of Judaism which is itself a branch of the 'wisdom' tradition where the thanksgiving hymn had its home. His conclusions therefore have considerable importance and implications for questions about the origins of Gnosticism and its influence on Christianity. This is the full-scale historical religious study of the New Testament Christological hymns, and English readers will find particularly useful Professor Sanders' critical survey of recent continental scholarship on this and related subjects.

This book completes Lionel Adey's study of English hymnody whichbegan with Hymns and the Christian 'Myth' (1986). Looking at awide range of adult and school hymnals used between 1700 and 1939, Adeyinvestigates the social context in which the hymns were sung and theirinfluence on the singers. Class and Idol in the English Hymnis pertinent not only to academics in fields of literature, religion,history, and psychology, but also to hymn lovers, hymn writers, andclergy.