First and second centuries · Bithynia, Antioch, Rome, Alexandria, Carthage, Smyrna
Pliny the Younger, Ignatius, Justin Martyr, the Odes of Solomon, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, 1 Clement, and the Martyrdom of Polycarp
A Roman governor overhears Christians singing before dawn. A bishop imagines the church as one choir. An apologist describes a Sunday gathering saturated with Scripture. Early Christian songs and prayers survive — gathered here so the first witnesses can be heard in their own words.
Read the source →Fourth century · Jerusalem / Palestine
The Pilgrimage of Egeria
A woman on pilgrimage writes home to her sisters and describes what she actually saw: vigils before dawn, Psalms sung back and forth by priests and people, crowds singing down the Mount of Olives — a church saturated with the Psalter.
Read the source →Fourth century · Caesarea, Cappadocia
Homily on Psalm 1 and Letter 207
Why God wrapped his Word in music, and how one fourth-century church actually sang the Psalms through the night — including the controversy that erupted when Basil changed how they sang them.
Read the source →Fourth century · Alexandria, Egypt
Letter to Marcellinus on the Interpretation of the Psalms
A letter written to a sick friend: the Psalter as a portrait of Christ and a mirror of the soul, with a Psalm for every condition of the human heart.
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