Is it true, that some of our hymns originated from pagan songs?

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Wakko9001

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On one of my previous threads (about “My Sweet Lord”), it was mentioned in one of the comments that some of our hymns are based off of pagan hymns. And I also think that I’ve seen this said in a few other places. Is this statement actually true? I tried researching it on Google, but nothing good seems to pop up.

Many thanks. God bless.
 
Wakko9001 said:
On one of my previous threads (about “My Sweet Lord”), it was mentioned in one of the comments that some of our hymns are based off of pagan hymns. And I also think that I’ve seen this said in a few other places. Is this statement actually true? I tried researching it on Google, but nothing good seems to pop up.

Many thanks. God bless.
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The melodies of some hymns are secular.

E.g., Joyful Joyful We Adore Thee is usually sung to the melody in Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, which was not written as a religious piece.

The melody to A Mighty Fortress Is Our God was a drinking song. Martin Luther apparently like writing Christian poems and setting them to music using popular songs. I don’t blame him! The public already knew the melody, and the Christian words helped them to stop thinking about the secular world, and start thinking about their souls instead.

A lot of the hymns use a melodic “setting” that was originally part of some secular piece. I always think it’s interesting when my organ teacher plays a piece and tells me that “this is where you first hear the melody that we now use for a certain hymn (and he’ll name the hymn.”
 
Not a hymn, but remember that the Star-Spangled Banner is set to a British drinking song. Which does explain its insane two octaves of range, because only a drunk man could think he could easily sing the whole thing.

But really, though, what does it matter? We also timed Christmas to be around the winter solstice, so the pagans could still celebrate around the same time of the year after converting.
 
I think that when the Wesleys were starting the Methodist movement, they used dance and secular song tunes as hymn tunes on purpose, because they were trying to be populist and use tunes that people already knew. There are a fair number of English folk hymns on the same principle.

Tunes from other Christian groups, yes. A couple modern Jewish dance tunes, yes. Secular folk tunes, yes.

Pagan tunes, no.

OTOH, a fair number of neopagans use Christian tunes for some of their hymns.
 
Razanir said:
Not a hymn, but remember that the Star-Spangled Banner is set to a British drinking song. Which does explain its insane two octaves of range, because only a drunk man could think he could easily sing the whole thing.

But really, though, what does it matter? We also timed Christmas to be around the winter solstice, so the pagans could still celebrate around the same time of the year after converting.
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Just a nit to pick, but it’s only an octave and a half – A-flat below middle C on the word “say” to a high E-flat on “glare.”

I don’t mind it at all that sacred words are sung to originally secular melodies. The new use sanctifies them 😃
 
In the Syriac Church, I’ve heard it said that St. Ephrem took the melodies of the country farmers’ songs and tales and wrote hymns to them so that they’d be melodies that everyone already knew. Now some of these tunes might’ve been pagan but in his area there were also a lot of Jews.

Anyway, how I see it is the origins of the melodies are not so much important as what is being professed in the song.
 
DaveBj said:
Just a nit to pick, but it’s only an octave and a half – A-flat below middle C on the word “say” to a high E-flat on “glare.”

I don’t mind it at all that sacred words are sung to originally secular melodies. The new use sanctifies them 😃
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My point was just that it’s a large enough range to give many people problems.

But yeah. No problem at all with adapting secular melodies for use in church.
 
The tune for Good King Wenceslas came from an Easter hymn. But God is mentioned in only 1 verse of the 4, so I suspect it started life as a happy spring song and the verse about God was added later.
 
There’s certainly a few Luteran hymns that are set to music that is of secular origin. But just as Christ redeems us sinners, so can music be redeemed for His glory.
 
Some were re-written to be about Christ rather than whatever particular diety they were about before. And some probably used existing melodies as well. Just a cultural thing, people don’t generally like radical cultural change.
 
A few old Christmas Carols seem to have Pagan origins or overtones. For example, ‘The Holly and the Ivy’.

Holly and ivy are Pagan fertility symbols (holly representing masculine and ivy feminine). The words of the Carol add a Christian message to this.
 
Nothing wrong with pagan origins. Our wedding rings are of pagan origin as well as Christmas trees and Easter eggs and the days of the week. We simply throw holy water on them and they take on a whole new meaning.
 
Razanir said:
Not a hymn, but remember that the Star-Spangled Banner is set to a British drinking song. Which does explain its insane two octaves of range, because only a drunk man could think he could easily sing the whole thing.
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Not to mention “My Country Tis of Thee” is set to the melody of the British national anthem “God Save the Queen”.
 
Wakko9001 said:
On one of my previous threads (about “My Sweet Lord”), it was mentioned in one of the comments that some of our hymns are based off of pagan hymns. And I also think that I’ve seen this said in a few other places. Is this statement actually true? I tried researching it on Google, but nothing good seems to pop up.

Many thanks. God bless.
Click to expand...
Quite possibly.

Christianity took both the pagans themselves and their festivals and converted them to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Why not their music, also?
 
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