Hymns of the Early Saints

The chronology of the 4 gospels in the New Testament has been a source of discussion and research for a long time. Although a common belief is that John was written in the 90s AD and was the last of the four records written, some scholars disagree. Some reasons that would seem to support John being a later record are his enormous amount of unique material and correlation with the commonly accepted date of his writing of the Book of Revelation. Another important idea among some scholars is that of “High Christology.”
“High Christology” is the idea that Jesus is more elevated in John’s record than the others. It says that Jesus is portrayed as more of a great teacher and man in the other three, but that Jesus is looked upon as more divine and all-powerful in the gospel of John. In these scholar’s eyes, this idea is one that developed over the decades since Christ’s death--or, in other words, Jesus’s reputation and importance had been inflated by second-generation Christians over the more mortal one held by the contemporary disciples of Christ. This idea of “High Christology” developing over the centuries, however, is one that I reject. As a practicing Latter-Day Saint, I believe that the earliest apostles and disciples of Jesus knew who he was, and that the church organized by Christ with Peter presiding had a pure knowledge of the gospel, in the same form we have it today.
This rejection is also supported by some of the texts of earlier writings. In a few places of the New Testament, early Christian hymns are quoted by the writers. Indeed, John opens the first chapter of his record quoting a song about how the Word was with God in the beginning, and that the world was created through the Word. This is obviously in keeping with the accepted view in John that Jesus was divine and important to God’s overall plan for his children. It even goes so far as to say that Jesus was a key figure in the creation of the Earth. This is not the only instance of quoting early Christian hymns, nor was it the earliest. In fact, Paul quoted some early Christian hymns in his writings well before John did such. These hymns are powerful evidence that first-generation Christians also believed in the High Christ.
One example of Paul quoting a hymn is in