s also reappeared.
The model of our Christian psalms is without doubt given in the
canticles which Luke loved to disseminate in his gospel, and which were
copied from the canticles of the Old Testament. These psalms and
prophecies are, as regards form, destitute of originality, but an
admirable spirit of gentleness and of piety animates and pervades them.
It is like a faint echo of the last productions of the sacred lyre of
Israel. The Book of Psalms was in a measure the calyx from which the
Christian bee sucked its first juice. The Pentateuch, on the contrary,
was, as it would seem, little read and little studied; there was
substituted for it allegories after the manner of the Jewish
_midraschim_ in which all the historic sense of the books was
suppressed.

The music which was sung to the new hymns was probably that species of
sobbing, without distinct notes, which is still the music of the Greek
Church, of the Maronites, and in general of the Christians of the East.
It is less a musical modulation than a manner of forcing the voice and
of emitting by the nose a sort of moaning in which all the inflections
follow each other with rapidity. That odd melopoeia was executed
standing, with the eyes fixed, the eyebrows crumpled, the brow knit, and
with an appearance of effort. The word _amen_, in particular, was given
out in a quivering, trembling voice. That word played a great part in
the liturgy. In imitation of the Jews, the new adherents employed it to
mark the assent of the multitude to the words of the prophet or the
precentor. People, perhaps, already attributed to it some secret virtues
and pronounced it with a certain emphasis. We do not know whether that
primitive ecclesiastical song was accompanied by instruments. As to the
inward chant, by which the faithful "made melody in their hearts," and
which was but the overflowing of those tender, ardent, pensive souls, it
was doubtless executed like the _catilenes_ of the Lollards of the
Middle Ages, in medium voice. In general, it was joyousness which was
poured out in these hymns.

Till now the Church of Jerusalem presents itself to the outside world as
a little Galilean colony. The friends whom Jesus had made at Jerusalem
and in its environs, such as Lazarus, Martha, Mary of Bethany, Joseph of
Arimathea, and Nicodemus, had disappeared from the scene. The Galilean
group, who pressed around the Twelve, alone remained compact and
active. The proselytism of the faithfu