And when the Norman French conquered England in 1066, they brought a lot of French words with Latin roots into the English language, so that is why it is still important for us to study Latin today.' Latin became the basis for many other modern languages, such as French, Spanish, and Italian. The work of the Roman Empire also helped in the rapid spread of the gospel by providing a fairly uniform system of law that brought about a 200-year time of peace and also establishing a system of transportation to move its armies from place to place that made travel much easier. Caesar and his contemporaries, Pompey, Marc Antony, and others extended the rule of Rome from Italy to include most of the former empire of Alexander the Great. The government of the Roman Empire replaced the Roman Republic and actually had its beginnings in the time of Julius Caesar, who lived from around 102 to 44 B.C. While the first-century world was characterized by Greek culture, it was ruled by Rome. 500, Latin, which had been the official language of the old Roman Empire, replaced Greek as the universal language, especially for use in the church. Why then do we study Latin, and were there any hymns written in Latin?'ĭad replied, 'Around A.D. 'Last week, you said that the earliest hymns that we have any historical record of were written in Greek because that was the universal language of the civilized world in the first century and for about three more centuries after that. He asked his father a couple of questions. Seth was working on translating some Latin words. Studies in Hymns The Young Person's Guide to the Hymnbook Latin Hymns of the Medieval ChurchĪbout a week later, Andrew and Seth's mom had to go out and run some errands, so Dad was home with them while they did their studies.

Finita iam sunt proelia palestrina