Please Open Your Hymnals

I miss hearing, “Please open your Hymnals.”

Doxology
Praise God, from whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Amen.
 — Thomas Ken (1674)

Hymns (from the Greek hymnos, “song of praise”) are songs of worship, typically with non-biblical but religious texts, often metrical and strophic (stanzaic). While similar songs of praise appear across ancient cultures (e.g., Sumerian and Greek examples), the term most commonly refers to the Christian tradition, which developed from Jewish psalm-singing.

Ancient and Early Christian Roots

Christian hymnody grew out of the psalms sung in the Hebrew Temple and synagogue. The New Testament encourages “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs” (Colossians 3:16; Ephesians 5:19). Early Christians sang to Christ as God, as noted by the Roman governor Pliny the Younger in the early 2nd century.

One of the earliest fully preserved Christian hymn texts is the Greek Phos Hilaron (“O Gladsome Light”), dating to around 200 CE or earlier. Systematic development accelerated after Constantine legalized Christianity in 313 CE. It flourished first in Syria (possibly influenced by Gnostic and Manichaean practices), with St. Ephraem the Syrian (4th century) often called the “father of Christian hymnody.” Byzantine hymnody developed complex forms such as the kontakion and kanōn.

In the Latin West, St. Hilary of Poitiers wrote hymn texts around 360 CE. Shortly afterward, St. Ambrose of Milan (c. 339–397) promoted congregational singing of psalms and hymns, partly to counter Arian heresy. Ambrose’s metrical Latin hymns helped establish the strophic form that became standard in the West.

Medieval Period

In the East, Byzantine and Orthodox traditions kept hymns central to the liturgy. In the West, Latin hymns were mainly sung by clergy and monastics in the Divine Office and Mass, often as Gregorian chant (plainsong). Key figures included Prudentius (5th century) and later writers such as Hildegard of Bingen. Sequences and other forms expanded the repertoire, though congregational participation was limited.

Reformation and Protestant Expansion

The Reformation transformed hymnody. Martin Luther (1483–1546) championed vernacular congregational singing. He wrote and adapted many German chorales (including “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God”) and encouraged the people to sing doctrine and praise in their own language. Lutherans developed a rich tradition of chorales.

John Calvin and the Reformed tradition favored metrical psalms (psalmody) over free hymns, producing influential psalters. In England, the shift from exclusive psalm-singing to original hymns was slower; Isaac Watts (1674–1748), often called the “father of English hymnody,” broke new ground with works such as “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross” and “Joy to the World.”

18th–19th Centuries and Modern Developments

The Wesleyan revival produced an outpouring of hymnody. Charles Wesley wrote thousands of hymns (e.g., “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing,” “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing”), emphasizing personal experience, doctrine, and evangelism. The 19th century saw further growth through the Oxford Movement (reviving medieval and plainsong influences), the publication of Hymns Ancient and Modern (1861), gospel songs in America, and translations of older hymns. Figures such as Fanny Crosby, and later gospel and contemporary worship songwriters, continued the tradition.

Today, hymns range from traditional metrical forms still used in many denominations to modern worship songs. Across centuries, they have served to teach doctrine, foster unity, express devotion, and make theology accessible through song.

A Doxology (from Greek doxa “glory” + logia “saying”) is a short hymn or formula of praise to God. In Christian worship it is typically Trinitarian and often concludes psalms, canticles, hymns, or sections of the liturgy. The practice has roots in Jewish synagogue tradition (a form of the Kaddish ending service sections) and appears throughout Scripture.

Biblical and Early Christian Roots

Doxologies appear in the Old Testament, especially as conclusions to the five books of the Psalms (e.g., Psalms 41:13, 72:19, 89:52, 106:48, and the whole of Psalm 150). New Testament examples include the angels’ song at Jesus’ birth (“Glory to God in the highest,” Luke 2:14), praise during the triumphal entry, and various apostolic formulas (e.g., Romans 11:36, Jude 24–25).

In the early church:

• Trinitarian praise formulas appear by the late 2nd century (e.g., Clement of Alexandria).
• By the 4th century, orthodox Christians emphasized equal praise of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to counter Arianism (which denied the Son’s full divinity).
• The Gloria Patri (“Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen”)—also called the Lesser Doxology—was in use by the early centuries and became standard. The fuller Gloria in excelsis Deo (Greater Doxology), expanding the angels’ song from Luke 2, developed early and remains central in Catholic and Orthodox liturgies.

The Common Protestant “Doxology”

In English-speaking Protestant churches, “the Doxology” almost always refers to these four lines by the Anglican bishop Thomas Ken.

Ken wrote them in the late 17th century as the closing stanza of three private-devotion hymns for students at Winchester College: a morning hymn (“Awake, my soul, and with the sun”), an evening hymn (“All praise to thee, my God, this night” / “Glory to thee, my God, this night”), and a midnight hymn. He encouraged the boys to sing the morning and evening hymns devoutly in their chambers. The hymns first appear referenced in his 1674 A Manual of Prayers for the Use of the Scholars of Winchester College; fuller texts were published later (notably 1695), and Ken refined the wording to its familiar form by a 1709 edition (changing an earlier “Angelick Host” phrasing).

Ken, orphaned young and raised by his sister Ann and her husband Izaak Walton (author of The Compleat Angler), became an Anglican priest, chaplain to royalty (including Charles II), and later Bishop of Bath and Wells. He was known for personal integrity—he once refused to house the king’s mistress and later was imprisoned (and acquitted) for resisting James II’s Declaration of Indulgence. He spent his final years in relative retirement after refusing the oath to William III.

Although originally intended for private use and written when many still preferred exclusive psalm-singing in public worship, the stanza quickly spread. It is usually sung to the tune Old 100th (also called Old Hundredth), composed by Louis Bourgeois for the 1551 Genevan Psalter (associated with John Calvin) and originally linked to Psalm 100 or 134. Other tunes are sometimes used.

It is frequently sung at the offertory (dedication of gifts) and has been called one of the most frequently sung short texts in Christian hymnody. Some modern versions adapt the language for inclusivity (e.g., avoiding masculine pronouns or adjusting “heavenly host”).

Broader Context

• Greater vs. Lesser: Gloria in excelsis is the Greater Doxology; Gloria Patri (and by extension Ken’s stanza in Protestant usage) the Lesser.
• Doxologies also appear in Eucharistic prayers, at the end of the Lord’s Prayer in many traditions (“For thine is the kingdom…”), and in various denominational or cultural forms.
• The custom of ending hymns with a Trinitarian stanza became common from the medieval period onward.

In short, while short praises to God are ancient, the familiar four-line Protestant Doxology is a late-17th-century creation by Thomas Ken that became a near-universal expression of Trinitarian praise in English-speaking churches.