Musical Thought in the Early Church
On a youth group outing recently, several of our teenagers and I began discussing one of our favorite topics—music. I told them that my musical preferences had changed over the past year in favor of hymns, folk songs, and classical music. When one young man asked why I was making such changes I explained that it was due to some of my recent reading. A New Song for an Old World: Musical Thought in the Early Church has been particularly influential.
With a background in music history, author Calvin Stapert reviews the early church fathers’ writings for insight concerning the “worship wars” of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. His extensive research, spanning the first five centuries of the church, produces two surprising results: The early church fathers (1) did not distinguish between songs sung in the home and songs sung in the church; and (2) they disagreed little concerning music.
Stapert’s two findings are particularly interesting when viewed through the context of two important influences upon the fathers: (1) Jewish tradition and (2) Greek philosophy.
Holistic Hymnody
The worship services of the Jewish Temple and first-century synagogue were foundational to the early church fathers’ understanding of music. First, in Jewish temple worship the Levite temple singers sang the Psalms rather than the people. By emphasizing the natural rhythms and accents of the spoken language, the songs’ rhythms were dictated by the words of the Psalms. The result resembled chant or recitative. Instrumentally, melody-supporting strings accompanied the songs, unlike the overpowering double reeds used in pagan rites. Additionally, the trumpets and cymbals were used to signal the beginning and ending of the singing, and to direct worshipers when to fall prostrate [1].
Jewish temple music differed from the surrounding pagan temple music particularly by being word-oriented rather than instrument-oriented. The orgiastic music of the pagan temple was meant to elicit ecstatic trances, euphoric rituals, and manipulate gods. But, the Psalms were ever the heartfelt communication between two members of a close relationship.
Synagogue worship, though related to the temple, differed in several ways. In synagogue worship, the Hebrews read and discussed Scripture, offered prayer, and chanted psalms [2]. Here, the people sang rather than the Levites, as in the Temple—though the style was similar. The music was rhythmically word-driven and melodically simple, but unaccompanied by instruments.
The early church appropriated this form of musical worship from the synagogues in which it met. In addition, the early Christians drew from their Jewish heritage a life-style of music. The apostle Paul exhorts the churches of Ephesus and Colossi to sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to one-another at all times (cf. Eph. 5:18-19; Col. 3:16). As a result they perceived singing and music as holistic, pertaining to all of life.
“The Music of the Spheres” [3]
In addition to being influenced by the Jewish tradition, early Christians were also influenced by Greek tradition. Whereas the Jewish influence was practical, the Greek influence was philosophical. To understand this influence, we must consider the Greek philosophers Pythagoras (6th century BC) and Plato (424/23-348/47 BC). Pythagoras first theorized about a connection between music and mathematics. Then Plato expanded this thought in Timaeus, suggesting that music is connected with the harmony and order of nature and man [3].
The Roman philosopher Boethius (AD 480-524/25) later coalesced Plato’s theories into three categories: (1) musica mundana, (2) musica humana, and (3) musica instrumentalis. First, musica mundana refers to the creation’s order and harmony, particularly as it relates to the heavenly bodies. Next, musica humana concerns the order and harmony of the human body with the spirit. Finally, musica instrumentalis refers to audible music’s order and harmony. This is what we sing in our homes, cars, and churches.
Plato theorized that these three forms of music are highly interconnected and should be reflective of one another. Since the universe is ordered, Plato and the early Greeks concluded that music and humans should also be ordered [4]. The early church fathers followed this belief, teaching that Christian’s lives and their music should be ordered and harmonious. Note however, that while the church fathers drew on the culture around them, they always viewed it through the prism of Scripture. They never “Christianized” the culture; they only accepted those concepts which were congruent with the whole of Scripture.
For example, both Clement of Alexandria (ca. A.D. 150-215) and Saint Ambrose (A.D. 339-397) embraced the Greek concept of music, though each modified it in small ways. For example, Clement held that musica mundana refers to the ordered mind of the Creator who set the universe into ordered rhythm. He also believed musica humana derived its true order and harmony only from the word of God. He additionally taught the story of David’s playing his harp for Saul as a great example of the importance of ordered musica instrumentalis [5]. Ambrose differs from Clement only slightly. Whereas Clement understood musica humana as the order and harmony of the human body with the spirit, Ambrose saw it as being related merely to the physical human body.
Both men, however, saw music as a pervasive aspect to all of creation that should be orderly and harmonious at all times. They also realized that music should be used to calm or control the affections rather than to inflame them. We see this thought-process fleshed out in both church and classical music for nearly the entire following two millennia. Not until the Romantic period (approx. 1770-1900) were order and harmony questioned. The church would wait until the second half of the twentieth century before it began to question the importance of order, harmony, and controlled affections.
Fathers Know Best
Evident from these examples, the early church fathers were heavily influenced by the Jewish and Greek traditions that were congruent with Scripture. The early church fathers were very concerned with guiding the music and entertainment of the early church. They understood music’s power and effect. Accordingly, they were unanimous and vociferous in their denunciations of pagan theater music (the popular music of the day), while consistently promoting the singing of hymns, psalms, and folk songs [7]. Since music was inevitably part of life, they taught that it should be productive and edifying.
John Chrysostom (AD ca. 347-407), for example, often preached against the music of Antioch’s theaters and scurrilous wedding processions. When confronted with the argument that immoral music does no harm to a listener, John responded by speaking of the Spectacles of Antioch, “If even now you are chaste, you would have become more chaste by avoiding such sights” [8]. Even assuming there are no direct deleterious effects on a person, John pointed out that they were spending their time fruitlessly and their support of such entertainment may cause another to stumble [9].
Tertullian (AD ca. 160-225) spoke to the same issue. If we have been baptized, he stated, we mustn’t re-entangle ourselves with those activities so closely associated with Satan [10]. His response to those who attempted to defend the pagan spectacles was two-fold:
- We must always remember that the love of pleasure clouds the judgment of men.
- Though the primary elements of each show are not sinful in themselves, they are being used and manipulated by fallen man in a fallen manner.
Tertullian was also clear to point out that the music of the theater carried with it the bawdy and immoral outside the actual theater [11]. They each concluded that the music of the Christian should reflect the principles of Scripture.
Clement was also clear about what music he found reflective of Scripture in The Instructor and in Miscellanies. He believed that music should be decorous, ordered, sincere, modest, joyful, celebratory, temperate, grave, and soothing, while he denounced music that was boisterous, intractable, enervating, scurrilous, licentious, mournful, frantic, and frenzied [12].
Though we’ve explored just a few, these early church fathers are representative of the whole population of the early church. Despite the near unanimous agreement among the early church fathers concerning music, present day Christians never consider them. Yet, they are instructive. Our twenty-first century discussions concerning music both inside and outside the church might strike a new timbre if we seasoned our thoughts with history rather than fancy.
Conclusion
What does all of this mean for me, or for a modern teenager? Music is pervasive. As a result we mustn’t segment it up for different portions of our lives. Music is holistic. The music we choose to listen to will inform every part of our lives. So the question remains, do we take the voluptuous and boisterous that we find in the world and use it in worship, or do we take the modest and temperate, psalms and hymns to the world? Considering the early church fathers’ input, as we do in most areas of doctrine, we should be taking the modest and temperate, psalms and hymns to the world.
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[1] Calvin R. Stapert, A New Song for an Old World: Musical Thought in the Early Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2007) 153.
[2] Musical worship within the first century synagogue has been reasonably assumed by many scholars. It would seem to have been part of the purpose of the synagogue; however, there is no direct evidence of singing or chanting in synagogue worship until the eighth century. Stapert, 153-155.
[3] In the hymn “This Is My Father’s World” by Maltbie D. Babcock (1901) we can here an echo of the Greek concept of the music of the universe “This is my Father’s World/ And to my listening ears/ All nature sings and round me rings/ The music of the spheres.”
[4] While Plato had a broad understanding of music, it was not labeled and categorized as musica mundana, musica humana, and musica instrumentalis until the early sixth century AD by the Roman philosopher Boethius (AD 480-524/25). Though the early church fathers did not have these labels they obviously drew from Plato’s concept of music. I have used these labels because they greatly streamline and clarify any discussion of Plato’s theories concerning music.
[5] Plato states in Timaeus:
[A]ll audible music was given us for the sake of harmony, which has motions akin to the orbits in our soul, and which, as anyone who makes intelligent use of the arts knows, is not to be used, as is commonly thought, to give irrational pleasure, but as a heaven sent ally in reducing to order and harmony any disharmony in the revolutions within us.
Timaeus, Trans. H.D.P. Lee (Baltimore, MD: Penguin Books, 1965), 64-65 via Stapert, 52.
[6] Stapert, 53.
[7] The folk music referred to by the early church fathers consisted of songs sung by people as they worked in the field, on the docks, and at the loom. The content consisted of the joys and sorrows of everyday life in that line of work.
[8] Chrysostom, John, Homily XXXVII on Mat 9 from Homilies on the Gospel of St. Matthew Trans. M.B. Riddle A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers Vol. 9 Ed. Philip Schaff (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1956), 250 via Stapert, 124. As English author William Gurnall (1617-79) put it centuries later, “If we do not wish to yield to sin, we must take care not to walk by or sit at the door of the occasion. Do not look on temptation with a wandering eye, nor allow your mind to dwell on that which you do not want lodged in your heart” (William Gurnall, The Christian in Complete Armor, 1655).
[9] Stapert, 124.
[10] Ibid. 70.
[11] Ibid. 70-71.
[12] Ibid. 54-55. Note that often in modern Christian worship the joyful and celebratory are emphasized to the exclusion of the decorous, modest, temperate, and grave. This has been derived from the rise and dominance of charismatic thought (or anti-thought) on the evangelical mainstream of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Ideally, each characteristic should inform and temper a Christian doctrine of music. The result should resemble hymns and songs that are decorously joyful and temperate, or gravely and modestly celebratory.
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