1873); ASSEMANI, Bibliotheca Orientalis (4 vols., Rome, 1719-28); LE QUIES, Oriens Christianus (Paris, 1740); SIDAROUSS, Des Patriarchats, etc. (1906); DE JEHAY, De la Situation des sujets Ottomans non-Musulmans (Brussels, 1906); O'LEARY, The Syrian Church and Fathers (London, 1909); RABBATH, Documents pour servir à l'histoire du Christianisme en Orient, I (Paris, 1905); CHARON, Hist. des Patriarcats Melkites, etc. (Rome, 1909); AVRIL, Les Eglises autonomes et autocéphales (1895); IDEM, Les Grecs Melkites (1899); IDEM, Une Mission religieuse en Orient au XVIe siècle (1866); BETH, Die orientalisch Christenheit der Mittelmeerländer (Berlin, 1902); BRÉHIER, Le schisme Orientale du XIe siècle (1899): BRIGHTMAN, Liturgies, Eastern and Western, I (Oxford, 1896); Duchesne, The Churches Separated from Rome (New York, 1907); HEFELE-LE CLERCQ, Hist. des Conciles (Paris, 1907 sqq.); NILLES, Kalendarium Manuale utriusque Ecclesice Orientalis et Occidentalis, (Inns- bruck, 1896-97), PISANI, Etudes d'histoire religieuse, à travers l'Orient (Paris, 1897); PITZIPIOS, L'Eglise Orientale (1855); SCHOPOFF, Les Réformes et la Protection des Chrétiens en Turquie (1673-1904) (Paris, 1904); VERNAY AND DAMBMANN, Les Puis sances étrangères dans le Levant, en Syrie et en Palestine (1900); See also the general histories of the Church by SCHAFF, HERGEN- ROTHER, ALZOG, DUCHESNE, etc., and in particular the two French periodicals, devoted mainly to the study of the Oriental Churches, viz.: Revue de l'Orient Chrétien, and L'Echos d'Orient, Paris; also the full bibliography in Chevalier's Répertoire des sources historiques du Moyen Age, under the articles Syrie and Antioche. Catholic Missions.-WADDING, Annales Minorum (10 vols., 1731-45); MARCELLINO DA CIVEZZO, Storia Universale delle Missioni francescane (4 vols., 1859); LE QUIEN, Oriens Christ. (Paris, 1740); Missiones Catholicæ descripta (Rome, 1901); PIOLET, Les Missions Cath. Françaises au XIXe siècle. 1 (Paris, 1901), 295-360; LOUVET. Les Missions Cath. au XIXe siecle (Lille, 1895); LAUNAY, Hist. des Missions Etrangères (3 vols., Paris, 1894); HENRION, Hist. des Missions Cath.. (Paris, 1847); PIBANI, op. cit.; WERNER, Atlas des Missions Cath. (Freiburg, 1886); Annales de la Propagation de la foi (Lyons), passim; Bulle- tin des Œuvres d'Orient, passim; SILBERNAGL, Verfassung der Kirchen des Orients (Ratisbon, 1805); KOEHLER, Die katho- lischen Kirchen des Morgenlandes (Darmstadt, 1906); WERNER, Orbis terrarum catholicus (Freiburg, 1890); FRANCO, L'Eglise Grecque Melchite, etc. (1898); JULLIEN, La nourelle mission de la compagnie de Jésus en Syrie (Tours, 1899); W. M. MARSHALL, Christian Missions (London, 1888); HAHN, Gesch. der katho. Missionen (5 vols., Cologne, 1857-65); DJUNKOVSKY, Dict. des Missions Cath. (Paris, 1864); BERNARDIN DE ROUEN, Hist. universelle des missions franciscaines (Paris, 1898); and the two reviews mentioned above. viz.: Revue de l'Orient Chretien, passim, and Echos d'Orient.
GABRIEL OUSSANI.
Syriac Hymnody.-To the general consideration set forth in the article HYMNODY AND HYMNOLOGY must be added some bearing particularly on the structure and liturgical use of hymns (madrashê), exclusive of poetical homilies or discourses (mimre), which belong to the narrative and epic class, while the hymns are lyrical. The chief basis of Syriac metre is the fixed number of syllables of the verses, without distinction of long and short syllables, as in several modern languages. Verses of all lengths from two to twelve syllables are known, but the metres most. used in hymnody are verses of twelve syllables formed of three equal measures (4+4+4), verses of seven syllables formed of two measures (4+3 or 3+4), and verses of five syllables also formed of two measures (2+3 or 3+2). These verses may be employed alone or grouped in strophes, the latter form being most frequent in hymns composed of verses of five and seven syllables. A strophe is generally composed of equal verses, but it sometimes happens that the first or the last verse is in a different measure from the other verses of the strophe. All the strophes of a hymn are usually of the same construction.
Besides variety of metre and division into strophes the Syrians prior to the ninth century knew no other artifice than the arrangement of acrostic poems. The acrostic played an important part in Syriac hymnody and its use, especially the alphabetic acrostic, seems to have been introduced in imitation of the Psalms and the Lamentations of Jeremias. Sometimes the acrostic is linear, simple when each verse begins suc- cessively with one of the twenty-two letters of the Syriac alphabet, multiple, when two, three, or more verses begin with the same letter without forming strophes; sometimes it is strophic, when each strophe is marked by a letter of the alphabet. This letter may be only at the beginning of the first verse or it may be repeated at the beginning of each verse of the strophe. There may be two or more successive strophes beginning with the same letter, each letter regularly marking the same number of strophes throughout the poem which thus consists of forty- four strophes, of sixty-six, or of any other multiple of twenty-two. The verbal acrostic is more rare. The name of Jesus Christ, of Mary, or of the saint in whose honour the hymn is composed serves to form linear or strophic acrostics. St. Ephraem signed some of his poems with his acrostic.
From the ninth century the influence of Arabic poetry made itself felt in Syriae hymnody, especially by the introduction of rhyme; this manner of mark- ing the final stroke of a verse had been hitherto un- known, the rare examples held to have been discovered among older authors being merely voluntary or fortui- tous assonances. But the Syrians made varied use of rhyme. There are poems in which all the verses have the same rhymne as in the "Kasida" of the Arabs; in others, and these are the more numerous, the verses of each strophe have a single rhyme which is not the same for all the strophes. In others the verses of a strophe rhyme among themselves, with the excep- tion of the last, which repeats the rhyme of the first strophe like a refrain. In acrostic poems the rhyme is sometimes supplied by the corresponding letter of the alphabet; thus the first strophe rhymes with a, the second with b, etc. In verses of twelve syllables formed of three tetrasyllabic measures the rhyme is at the end of each verse or at each measure, so that it is repeated three times in each verse. There may also be a different rhyme for the first two measures and for the last. These are the most frequent com- binations, but there are others.
Most ancient hymns, e. g. those of St. Ephraem, Narses, and Balai, although composed for one or two choirs, were not originally intended for liturgical_use properly so called. They were addressed as much to the laity as to clerics, and date from a period when the codification of harmony, if we may so speak, was not yet regularly established. The result of adapt- ing these hymns to liturgical offices was that they un- derwent various modifications: (1) in the assignment of authorship-the Syrian Jacobites and the Maro- nites in adopting those of Nestorian origin either sup- pressed the name of the author or substituted the name of one whom they considered orthodox, most frequently St. Ephraem; (2) in revision, those which were too long were shortened and heterodox expres- sions were modified-thus the term "Mother of Christ" was replaced by "Mother of God", etc.; (3) in general arrangement, especially by the addi- tion of a refrain when there was none in the original. Thus a hymn by St. Ephraem the acrostic of which forms the name "Jesus Christ", begins with the strophe:―
Has appeared to us from the bosom of His Father;
He has come to deliver us from darkness,
And to illumine us with his resplendent light.
It was preceded by the following cistich which forms the refrain:
And joy for those who are broken-hearted.
Likewise a hymn of Narses on the Epiphany begins:―
Was stretched over creatures;
The light of Christ is risen
And the world possesses knowledge.
Its refrain is the following distich:-
Has rejoiced the earth and the heavens.
Hymns do not occur only in the Office which corresponds to the Roman Breviary; the Syrians also made
