CHAPTER XX

MUSIC OF THE EARLY CHRISTIAN CHURCH.

We now resume the chronological chain of musical history, from the termination of “Ancient Greek music;” for the music of the Christian church took its rise, from the melodies of Ancient Greece. Yet it is probable that the earliest Christian melodies were not according to the classical Grecian type, but rather conformed to the popular in style. This has always been the case in the rise of a new sect with sagacious leaders. The Jews on leaving Egypt, yet sang the popular melodies dear to their hearts, by association of childhood and youth; only at a later period, only when these songs were no longer so endeared to them did David introduce such reforms, as gave to the Hebrew music a distinctive style. So, also, it was with the Christian church in its earliest days; it would have been positively injudicious, at first, to have attempted a reform; and therefore, the old popular melodies of Greece and Rome, were set to new words and exerted a new influence.

Music has been, with every religion, the most powerful accessory of the Faith; but with none more than with Christianity. It had the additional advantage, of being in an advancing state (under the charge of able directors, who fully saw the power of the art when made popular) while the music of the Pagan church was greatly declining. The great emperor Julian, foresaw the result, and used great efforts to secure a better class of music for the Roman sacrifices, but without avail.

With regard to the Christian music of the time of the apostles, we have only tradition, but these traditions have so much probability, that they acquire some degree of authority.

Eusebius assures us that St. Mark taught the first Egyptian Christians how to chant their prayers: St. John Chrysostom affirms (in his sixth homily) that the Apostles wrote the first hymn. In Rome (according to Tertullian) the chants were given in a deep tone, and not in a sustained manner, at one part of the service, and with strong accents, and flexible voice at another. The Fathers of the church almost all bear testimony that the music of the service generally partook of the habitual style of singing of each nation.

Kiesewetter, one of the most careful of the students of Ancient Greek music, maintains that, while the early Christians borrowed much from Greece, yet from the first, the tendency was rather away from, than in the path of the Greek style. Brendel in his essays coincides with this opinion.[229]

The cause of this, so far as Rome and Greece are concerned, is very apparent. The apostles and their followers, started unencumbered in the musical field. The theory of Greek music was a most difficult one to master, and the converts were at first almost wholly among the humbler classes. It would have been impossible to have trained them in the elaborate Hellenic school, therefore, the more ear-catching melodies were at first used, combined probably with a simple chant. The same cause operated in the foundation of a newer and simpler theory of music; hence, although our modern music is the child of the ancient Greek school, yet it did not go in the same course, or arrive at the same goal which would have resulted, had the old Greek civilization been continued two thousand years longer.

We hold that the Greeks were too much devoted to the plastic arts, ever to have brought music deeply into the inner life.

Before the liturgy had been well established, improvisation was much employed; a result always to be anticipated when uncultivated persons become musical. At the evening meal, the twenty-third Psalm was usually chanted.[230] Other passages of scripture were also used, such as Exodus XV., and Daniel III.

When the water was passed around for the washing of hands, each one of the company was asked in turn to praise God in song, and the selection might either be taken from Scripture, or improvised, according to the taste or ability of the performer.[231] Some of the best of these effusions were unquestionably preserved and possibly even admitted into the regular service of the church. The songs may have been rough and uncouth, but they were given with a fervor which compensated for any short-comings. They were unaccompanied, for two reasons; first, it would have been difficult to have formed an instrumental accompaniment to such variable and primitive songs, (sometimes a mere intonation of the voice, scarcely to be called music or even chanting); and second, because all the instruments of the heathen were in daily use at the sacrifices and theatres; and it would have seemed sacrilegious to have used them in the celebration of a Christian festival.[232]

The summing up of the legends, surmises, and few statements concerning the music of the earliest Christians, are well expressed in Ambros.[233]

We can conclude regarding the music of the earliest Christian times, that it was at first a species of Folk-song, founded upon the school of music then in vogue, but elevated and impregnated with a new religious spirit. But this simplicity soon was changed: profiting by the experience of the Romans in uniting all art and beauty in their theatres, (whereby the theatre grew, and the church declined;) the early Christians soon found it wise to unite every art, in the service of their church. It is also probable that much of the music was borrowed from that of the Hebrews. This is more natural when we reflect that Christianity was at first a continuation (or reorganization) of Hebrew rites and the apostles were all well acquainted with the ceremonies of the Jewish church.

The chanting of the scriptures which took place in the latter worship, was undoubtedly transplanted into the Christian service.[234] Many of the early psalms and canticles were sung in caves and subterranean retreats in which places the proscribed and persecuted worshippers were obliged to seek refuge, and where they still kept, up with undeviating regularity the practice of their ceremonies.

Pliny the younger on being made pro-consul of Bithynia was especially charged by the emperor Trajan, to find accusations against the Christians there, the number of whom was augmenting daily. A letter of his, supposed to have been written in the third year of the second century of our era,[235] contains the following regarding the new religion.

“They affirm that their fault, and errors have only consisted of this;—they convene at stated days, before sunrise, and sing, each in turn, verses in praise of Christ, as of a God; they engage themselves, by oath, not to do any crime, but never to commit theft, robbery, or adultery, never to break faith, or betray a trust. After this they separate and afterwards reassemble to eat together innocent and innocuous dishes.”[236]

At a later period (the fourth century) all proselytes and new converts were not admitted to sing in the church with the baptized. The new converts presented themselves before the hierarch, (a dignitary who was charged with the duty of classifying the catechumens in different orders) and expressed to him the desire of joining the church. If the questions of the priests were satisfactorily answered, he placed his hand on the head of the applicant and gave him the benediction with the sign of the cross, and afterwards inscribed his name among the number of candidates for baptism. The catechumen had not the right to enter the church. He might linger around the porticos, but was on no account allowed to join in the prayers, except in a low voice, and in the hymns not at all, until he had received the rite of baptism.

The candidates for baptism were divided into various classes. Even after baptism there were three orders of Christians, and those who had fallen into disgrace with the church, were sometimes disciplined by being reduced for a few years to the rank of auditors at the services. These were not allowed to join in the congregational singing, and were sometimes not even admitted to the body of the church edifice unless called there.

It is presumable that the right to join in the singing was, during the first two or three centuries, highly prized.

Little by little the spirit of improvement crept into the unskilled but soul-felt music of the early Christian church. It seems rather strange to find in the very germs of the religion, a silent, yet real contest between congregational and paid singing; and to find the same evils creeping in with the employment of singers in those early times, that we see in the present days of quartette choirs. In the days of Origen (about the middle of the second century) all the congregation sang together.

St. John Chrysostom says,—

“The psalms which we sing united all the voices in one, and the canticles arise harmoniously in unison. Young and old, rich and poor, women, men, slaves and citizens, all of us have formed but one melody together.”[237]

A better picture of the full congregational singing of the primitive Christians cannot be given. The custom of allowing both sexes to sing together, was abolished by the Synod of Antioch in A. D. 379, and it was then decided that the men only should be allowed to sing the psalms.

In A. D. 481, the council of Laodicea ordained that the clerks only (called canonical singers “_Canonicos Cantores_,”) should be allowed to sing during the service.[238] The abuses which accompany paid singing, appeared even in the second century. Singers found themselves sought after in proportion to their talents, and therefore (in the absence of an exact method of notation) sought to make those talents more conspicuous by an introduction of florid ornaments and cadenzas into their music; they gradually forgot, or disregarded the old traditional style of singing, and sought only to excite the admiration of the masses by exhibiting to the best advantage the power and agility of their voices.

It was, without doubt, to remedy this abuse that Pope Sylvester I, who occupied the pontifical chair, A. D. 320, founded a school in Rome for the formation of singers.[239] At this time also, the choir had its own gallery or place in the church assigned to it, and every art was called into play to impress and enthrall the worshipper. Sculpture, Painting, Architecture and Music combined, as they had previously done for Pagan theatres and amusements, to render the church a beautiful as well as holy resort. Charity combined in some instances with policy; for we learn that a singing school founded in A. D. 350, by pope Hilary, was called an orphan asylum (orphanotrophia), and here the education of clerks for the church, was commenced at a very tender age.[240]

These schools did much to re-establish a dignified and worthy style of sacred singing. Yet there was great need of a sweeping reform; for as there existed no really fixed system, the differences in singing were almost as numerous as the various existing churches. Before speaking of this reform, we will briefly outline the progress of music in Christian communities outside of Rome.

GREEK CHURCH.

The Greek church, from the very beginning, paid great attention to music in all its details. The first institution of the mass, is attributed to St. James the lesser, first bishop of Jerusalem, who died a martyr in A. D. 62. This mass is still in existence. There are also existing, masses by the two great luminaries of the Greek Church, Sts. John Chrysostom and Basilius, who flourished in the last half of the fourth century.

Although there are doubts expressed as to whether St. John Chrysostom wrote the one attributed to him, yet it is certain that the mass was used in Constantinople (of which city he was the Patriarch) as long ago as the end of the fourth century, and was not materially changed until the eighth century. It is entitled “The mystery of the divine Eucharist.”[241]

The _hymns_, which at first were not used at all in the Roman church, were one of the brightest ornaments of the Greek. The verses and ancient tunes of these hymns were at first well adapted to each other; but, by the constant introduction of embellishments, shakes, and cadenzas, the connection was soon lost.

This taste for ornamentation in sacred music was driven to far greater excess in the Greek church, than even in Rome; the taste _fioritura_ is to-day, and always has been, a characteristic of most Eastern nations. This is driven to such excess in the Greek church, that (in the churches of the Orient, at least), the hymns are executed by two singers, one of whom sings the hymns, while the other sustains the key note or principal tone only.

This note the singer gives out with regularity and monotony, its only object being to keep the principal singer in bounds and to prevent him from straying away from the key on account of the numerous trills and _fiorituri_ which he is expected to introduce into the song.

It may be well to mention here, as we shall not recur to the music of the Eastern Greek church again, that its style of notation, and singing has altered very little, in the course of centuries; it is totally different from that of all other countries, and consists wholly of signs, which are not in any manner measured off into bars, but somewhat resemble the chants of the Catholic church. The notes are only relative in value, and the scale on which the melodies are founded, may be represented thus,—

Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Si, Do, Re. Pa, Bou, Ga, Di, Ke, Zô, Ne, Pa.

Every embellishment is represented by a character; rising and falling inflections by others, and comparative length of notes by yet others.

It will therefore be seen that although the notation is decidedly complicated, there is a comprehensible system followed, by consulting which, we attain certain information as to one branch of the early church.[242]

The works found in the old monasteries of the Orient are almost invaluable to the musical antiquary. We believe that many more will yet be discovered among the monks of Mt. Athos, those strange and illiterate custodians of some of the rarest manuscripts in existence, relative to this subject.[243]

We are sorry that a thorough description of this subject (though full of interest) would demand much space and many engravings. The effect of the singing of this church in its oriental branches is very similar to that of the Hebrews in their services of the present day.

SYRIAN CHURCH.

We now turn to the early Christian church of Syria, founded by the Apostles Paul and Barnabas.

One of the earliest in existence, the church of Antioch soon became the metropolis of Syrian Christianity. Yet it was in this church also that the first heresy took place, by the rise of the Gnostics (disciples of science); one of this sect, named Bardesanes, founded a separate denomination of these, and was the first who composed hymns in the native tongue, and adapted them to melodies. He composed one hundred and fifty psalms in imitation of David.

But greatest of all the musicians of the Orthodox Christian church of Syria, was Ephraem Syrus. He is still called “Harp of the Holy Spirit” in many churches who yet honor him and celebrate his feast.

He was a monk of Syria, born of poor parents, in a village of Mesopotamia. At eighteen years of age he was converted and baptized, and soon retired to a desert spot to practice penitence and piety. It was in this retreat that he composed his voluminous sermons, hymns, etc., all of which have much poetic beauty and oriental imagery.[244] He wrote fifteen hymns on the “Nativity,” fifteen on “Paradise,” fifty-two on “Faith,” and “The Church,” fifty-one on “The Virginity,” eighty-seven against “Heresy,” and “The Arians,” eighty-five “Mortuary,” fifteen moral hymns, etc. His writings on the _Peshito_ or Syriac version of the scriptures are still of use to the theological student.

He arranged the music to his hymns, and he himself speaks of having arranged sixty-six of them in the style of Bardesanes.

Many of the songs and prayers in the Syrian liturgy, ascribed to St. Ephraem are spurious. It is related that at the first interview between him and St. Basilius, the former was endowed by the Holy Ghost with sudden power to speak Greek, and the latter Syriac, thus giving them a choice of languages in which to converse.

It is impossible to give a thorough account of the music of the Syrian Church, as although the first instruments mentioned in the Bible (the taboret, a tambourine held in one hand and struck with the other, and Kinnor, a seven stringed triangular harp) are Syrian, yet the people have never, from time immemorial, written down their melodies, but always handed them down orally, father to son, or teacher to pupil.

The mass in Syrian liturgy, is very different in its form, from the Catholic: there is neither _Kyrie Eleison_, _Gloria_, nor _Epistle_, contained in it.

There are two distinct sects in the Syrian church; the first Ephraemitic, or followers of the Orthodox saint; the second, heretical and followers of Jacob Baradaeus, a Syrian monk of the sixth century. These are called Jacobites, and hold Eutychian doctrines.

The music of the latter is ornamented to excess; that of the Ephraemitic rite nobler and plainer.

THE ARMENIAN CHURCH.

The rise of Christianity among the Armenians, goes back to the third century, but they early developed the doctrines of Eutychius, and the Monophysites. At times, portions of the Armenian church have adhered to the Western church, but in its rites it far more resembles the Eastern Greek church. The language is well adapted for song.

Their most ancient religious songs were written by _Sahac_, the great _Katholicos_, or patriarch of the church; the psalms were sung by them to popular melodies.

THE CHURCHES OF AFRICA.

St. Mark is considered as the Apostle of Egypt and founder of the church of Alexandria; the liturgy used by this church is said to have been written by him; but many manuscripts exist which point to St. Basilius as its author, and it bears internal evidence that St. Mark could not have written it, for among the prayers for the dead, it names many saints, martyrs, bishops, etc., _including St. Mark_.

The songs of the early Christians here, as throughout the Orient, were hymns, psalms, and anthems of which the melodies were taken from the popular music of the day.

The Coptic church in its liturgy entirely resembled the Greek church of Egypt, and in looking over its ritual, one continually meets with translations of the liturgies of St. Basil, St. Cyrille, or St. Gregory Nazianzen. In the National Library, of Paris there is also a Coptic translation of the Liturgy of St. Mark.

The music of the Coptic church is very much embellished, and of inordinate length; for, owing to the practice of the singers to vocalise upon one syllable sometimes to the length of _several minutes_[245] the vespers alone, often attain the length of _four or five hours_.

As the rules of worship of the Copts do not allow them either to kneel or to sit down during services, they are obliged to support themselves by placing under their arm-pits, a long crutch, in order not to drop from fatigue.

This race is degenerating fast, and will soon disappear under the despotic sway of the Arabs. Their number is about one hundred and fifty thousand. Few of them understand the Coptic language, and although part of the service is sung in that tongue, it is usually afterwards explained in Arabic. Their modulations in singing are very bold, constant, and fatiguing; so much so, that long before the end of the song, all remembrance of any key-note, is lost.

All writers agree in speaking of their music, as tiresome in the extreme. This proceeds from three causes;—their extraordinary length, their insignificant melody, and the constant repetition of the syllables and vowels of a single word, whereby it is made almost impossible to follow the sense of the text. This fault is not confined to the Coptic sect only, but is largely found in the Greek church throughout the Orient. Fetis gives a strong example of one case, taken from an Eastern Hymnal, it runs as follows,—

Aga-a-a-a-a-a-aate-e-e-e-e mara ky-y-y-ri-i-i-i-i-ou.

Each of the vowels is given separate from the others, and the effect is ludicrous in the extreme. The Copts do worse than this; after mincing a word into such minute fragments, they go back and re-mutilate the first syllable, then again the second, then perhaps the first two, and so on for a long time before they give the word complete like the Syrians.

The Copts have no musical notation whatever, and it is a most curious fact in music, that they should be able to recollect such lengthy songs, devoid of any apparent melody, or sequence, and hand them down traditionally, from generation to generation; they must possess either phenomenal memories, or an insight to a connection of ideas in their songs, which has escaped European perception. These remarkable descendants of the ancient Egyptians, hate other Christian sects with much more fervor than they do the Mohammedans.

Of the Abyssinian Church we have already spoken, (see chapters on “African Music”);—there is little more to add. They have different modes of singing for different grades of sacred festivals. Responses made by the people or the choir, enter largely into their mass. The number of choristers is from eight to twelve, and they have all powerful voices; this is in fact a prime necessity, as at the door of the church, during service, a constant din of drums, cymbals, and sistrums is kept up.

On certain days, the priests and people have a grand religious dance, to the sound of these instruments, while the chorus sing a litany and all mark the time by a clapping of hands.

GENERAL SYNOPSIS OF EARLY CHRISTIAN MUSIC.

That the art of music was esteemed among the more educated of the early Christians is very strongly shown by a fresco in the cemetery of Domitilla (in Rome). This painting which seems to be of the first or second century of our era, represents Christ as Orpheus, charming all nature by his music.[246] It is probably only an allegorical figure, representing his divine gifts, but the figure must be a shock to all who are accustomed to see the face of Jesus, as drawn by the Leonardo da Vinci. Instead of the meek and beautiful form, we see here a lank loosely-built young man, sitting in a very uncomfortable attitude, on a rock, and twanging away at a four-stringed lyre.

Regarding the origin of the present pictures of Christ (although not strictly belonging to our subject) we are tempted to make the following remarks.

It is believed by some scholars that the head of Christ was first copied from the statue of Jupiter (or the Greek Zeus), which was, in the early centuries regarded as the most perfect model of manly beauty. It is scarcely to be doubted that the general model of the Pagan sculptures was followed in the early representations of the Saviour. But the style of portraits was altered in consonance with the description handed down by good authorities.

A brass medal with a head of Christ on one side, was discovered in 1702, in some Druidical ruins, at Aberfraw, Wales, which although of a later era than that assigned to it, is of great antiquity, and coincides with the pictures of to-day.

There exists a letter ascribed to Publius Lentulus and directed to the emperor Tiberius, which describes Jesus. Although it is apocryphal, yet it was certainly written in the days of the primitive Christians. It is translated as follows,—[247]

“There hath appeared in these, our days, a man of great virtue, named Jesus Christ, who is yet living among us, and of the Gentiles, is accepted as a prophet, but his disciples call him the Son of God. He raiseth the dead, and cures all manner of diseases; a man of stature somewhat tall and comely, with very reverend countenance, such as the beholders both love and fear; his hair the color of chestnut, full ripe, plain to his ears, whence downward it is more orient, curling and waving about his shoulders.”

“In the midst of his head is a seam or partition of the hair, after the manner of the Nazarites; his forehead plain and very delicate; his face without a spot or wrinkle, beautified with the most lovely red; his nose and mouth so formed that nothing can be reprehended; his beard thickish, in color like his hair, not very long but forked; his look innocent and mature, his eyes gray, clear, and quick. In reproving he is terrible; in admonishing, courteous and fair spoken; pleasant in conversation mixed with gravity.”

“It cannot be remarked that any one saw him laugh, but many have seen him weep. In proportion of body, most excellent; his hands and arms most delicate to behold. In speaking, very temperate, moderate and wise. A man for his singular beauty, surpassing the children of men.”

From this letter of the predecessor of Pontius Pilate (?) the two earliest known portraits of Christ (in the Calixtine and Pontine catacombs at Rome) were probably sketched and the model has been followed up to our day.

But there is another description, by St. John of Damascus, which is much more in keeping with the Jewish type, of which he supposes the Saviour probably may have had some trait.

According to him, Christ had beautiful eyes, but the eyebrows meeting; a regular nose, flowing locks, a black beard, and a straw colored complexion, like his mother.