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From the first days of the church, Christians confessed their faith in Jesus Christ in both theological discussion and in popular hymns of devotion. After the major church councils brought clarification and definition to Christological doctrines, the hymns began to express clearly this belief in Jesus as truly God and truly human. Now Father Liderbach shows that pre-Nicean hymns inductively held in tension both the full humanity of Jesus and his more-than-human staus. Then during the councils from Nicea to Chalcedon, deductive doctrine held sway in the new hymn compositions. But the final definition by the Chalcedon encouraged new hymns in which humanity and divinity are once again held in experiential tension according to the 'rule of faith' of the earliest period.
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