“The Hallelujah was principally used during the interval between Easter and Whitsuntide. Augustine informs us that, “Alleluja etiam in aliis diebus cantatur alibi atque alibi, ipsis autem Quinquaginta diebus ubique” –– “the Hallelujah was also sung here and there on other days, but during the fifty days every where.” The word is thus illustrated by the same distinguished father: “Our praises are a Hallelujah. But what is a Hallelujah? It is a Hebrew word: Hallelujah, praise the Lord: Hallelujah, praise God. Let us sing it, and mutually excite each other to praise God; and thus while we speak with the heart better than with the harp, let us sing Hallelujah, praise to God; and when we have sung, we retire on account of infirmity to refresh our bodies.” Some of the celebrated theologians of the middle ages, as Anselm, Durandus, Alcuin, and others, finding the word but once in the New-Testament, and nowhere in the Latin or Greek authors, and unacquainted with its Hebrew origin, supposed it to be immediately revealed from heaven as a peculiar gift to the New Testament Church. “From Rev. 19. we know,” says Bona, “that this canticum Hallelujah has descended from heaven into the new Church of Christ.” Isidore of Spain deemed it too sacred to be translated into any other language. It was not always however deemed too sacred for secular purposes. It was taught and sung as a lullaby to infants in the cradle, used as a watchword in the camp and a war cry on the field of battle, and employed by the Romans in their formula of their judicial oath: “Truly as I hope to hear and to sing the Hallelujah.” More appropriate was the use of it made by the inhabitants of Bethlehem, according to Jerome's charming description. “In the village of Christ all is rural, (rusticitas.) Silence reigns throughout, except the singing of psalms. Wherever you turn, the ploughman at his work chants a Hallelujah. The sweating reaper alleviates his toil with psalms; and the keeper of the vineyard, pruning his vines, sings some of David's notes –– aliquid Davidicum. These are the hymns — these are what are called the amatory songs used in this region.” Even the sailor introduced the sacred word into his boat song, and chanted Hallelujah while tugging at the oar.

Curvorum binc chorus helciariorum,
Responsantibus Hallelujah ripis,
Ad Christum levat amnicum celeusma,
Sic, sic psallite nauta et viator.*

The chorus hence of bending oarsmen,
The shores re-echoing Hallelujah,
To Christ address the mariner's song.
Thus sing, O sailor, thus, O traveller!
* Sidonius Appollinaris, Ep. Lib. II. ep.10

Among the authorities consulted, we find no notice of any thing like a Psalm-book, or collection of Church poetry, earlier than the council of Laodicea, (An. 370,) at which the following Canon was enacted: “The Canonical Cantors, or choristers alone, who stand on an elevated place in the Church, shall sing the psalms, from the parchments lying before them." The precise meaning and object of this Canon are not obvious; and it has accordingly been variously interpreted. Whether the Choristers, in their elevated desks, were required to perform the entire musical service of the Church to the exclusion of the congregation, to avoid the discord often heard in a promiscuous assembly, as is sometimes done by the choirs in modern days; or whether they were merely to select the tunes and lead the music, the congregation accompanying as well as they could, according to the general practice of our own times, seems undecided by the ambiguous expression of the Canon. The latter however is most probable, as the universal practice of the primitive Church made it the duty and the privilege of the whole Church, and not merely of a few select artists, to sing the praises of God their Saviour in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. The choristers were required to occupy a conspicuous station, and sing, … — from the parchments — then the common material of books. Hence the order was equivalent to requiring them to sing the words from the book lying before them, and not from memory, as they would be liable to errors and inaccuracies. But no description of the book or parchment however is furnished, and we are left to form our opinions from conjecture, or content ourselves without an opinion on the subject. An obscure expression of Socrates, an early historian of the Church, has been thought to refer to this subject….”
[The New Princeton Review, Vol.1, 1829]