Listen to an example of ancient Jewish chant: Psalm
8.
Listen to an example of early Christian (Mozarabic) chant: Pater
Noster.
Listen to an early Christian hymn: Oxyrhincus
Hymn (RealPlayer). Read about Oxyrhyincus.
The leaders of the early Christian Church, guided by Old Testament
precedent and New Testament admonition (e.g. Colossians iii.16 and
James v.13), gave their general approval to the use of music in the
services of the church; but although Christianity was a Jewish
sect at its inception and therefore heir to the musical materials
and practices of Judaism, it possessed during its earliest period
neither the financial resources nor, since it was forced by persecution
to conceal its activities, the physical facilities necessary for the
development of a tradition of choir singing like that of the Jews.
As a result of these circumstances the singing that flourished
among the early Christians was largely congregational. Specific
practices varied from place to place, but the activity of singing
praise was common to Christians everywhere. 'The Greeks use Greek',
reported Origen (c185--c254), 'the Romans Latin ... and everyone prays
and sings praises to God as best he can in his mother tongue'. The
singing of Old Testament psalms was practiced, initially at least,
by Christians of both sexes and of all ages, but some of the later
church Fathers, heeding the interdiction of St. Paul (1 Corinthians
xiv.34), opposed the participation of women in congregational singing.
Not only were the psalms themselves borrowed by the Christians from
their Jewish predecessors but Jewish methods of performance were
also incorporated into Christian worship. References to antiphonal
and responsorial singing occur in the works of several patristic
writers. Eusebius (c260--c340), Bishop of Caesarea, in whose Historia
ecclesiastica Philo's account of antiphony among the Therapeutae is
quoted, remarked that in his own time the manner of singing described
by Philo was still practiced among the Christians. Responsorial
psalmody was mentioned, probably with reference to Rome, by Tertullian
(c155--c222). Antiphonal and responsorial singing may have
appeared first among those Christians in closest geographical proximity
to the Judaic roots of Christianity, but by the end of the 4th century
at the latest these methods of performance were common to Eastern
and Western churches alike. Moreover, antiphonal and responsorial
singing were not used exclusively in connection with psalm texts but
were applied to other types of texts as well, and exercised
an influence on the development of the early Christian liturgy. Patristic
opinion was divided concerning the propriety of using instruments
to accompany singing. Because of their association with pagan festivities,
instruments were censured by many of the church Fathers, among
them Clement of Alexandria (c150--c220), who forbade their use in
church. Even as late a writer as Didymus of Alexandria (c313--38),
however, defined a psalm as 'a hymn which is sung to the instrument
called either psaltery or cithara'.
* * * * * * *
The origins of Christian song are extremely difficult to trace.
Indeed the subject remains obscure even between the later 2nd and
earlier 4th centuries, a period in which the evidence becomes relatively
more plentiful. Not until the later 4th century, the peak period of
patristic production, was a measure of clarity achieved. Moreover,
it is not only insufficient evidence that makes the earlier centuries
so difficult to understand; it is highly probable that the musical
practices were themselves in a state of considerable fluidity until
the later 4th-century consolidation and standardization of liturgical
usage.
The subject has been rendered all the more obscure in recent years
because it has lost one of its principal certainties. Most
liturgical and music historians had long assumed that the early
Christian liturgy was adopted from Jewish ritual practices. Now,
however, it appears that for all the obvious general influence of
Judaism upon Christianity - Christianity after all originated as a
Jewish sect - it is often a mistake to trace Christian liturgical
usage to specific Jewish practices. In many cases the Jewish
rites in question did not yet exist in the 1st century, but neither
did their purported Christian counterparts. This applies most notably
to the ancient Synagogue service and the pre-eucharistic synaxis,
or Fore-Mass, as it came to be called. The Synagogue service was thought
to have consisted of four elements - reading, discourse, psalmody
and prayer - and to have been adopted en bloc by the first
Christians. It is true that the reading of scripture and commentary
upon that reading was customary in the synagogues of the 1st century;
indeed Jesus himself participated in the practice (Luke iv.16). And
it is not unlikely that some sort of prayer might have accompanied
the synagogal readings, although there is no positive evidence for
it. But at this time it was the Temple that was looked upon
as the center of Jewish worship, and all the evidence suggests that
a stable and formalized Synagogue service of prayer was established
only after the Temple’s destruction by the Romans in 70 CE.
And even then it was developed only gradually, indeed reluctantly,
as a temporary substitute for the Temple service; the hope that the
Temple and its ritual would be restored remained alive in Judaism
for centuries. As for psalmody, its regular practice is not attested
in the sources until the 8th-century tractate Sopherim, which tells
how the recitation of the daily Temple psalm was finally allowed
in the Synagogue as a surrogate for its original performance at the
moment of sacrifice.
But again, to deny the Christian adoption of specific Jewish rituals
is not to deny a more general, indeed more profound, influence of
Judaism upon early Christian worship. At issue here is the status
of the Temple among Jews at the time of Jesus. The Temple of Jerusalem
shared a common ritual pattern with the pagan temples of antiquity.
It was fundamentally different from a church or synagogue,
whereby a congregation would gather within a room for instruction
and prayer; rather, the people stood in a temple square and looked
on as priests slaughtered the sacrificial animals. The sacrificial
act was generally accompanied by the playing of musical instruments,
which performed magical functions such as the frightening away of
unwanted demons. It is not true, as many have maintained, that the
more enlightened Jews had by the dawn of the Christian era rejected
this form of worship in favor of the Synagogue; most Jews of the time
remained loyal to the Temple and its ritual, even though they were
engaged in the process of creating new religious resources. They developed
a complex ethical code and a pervasive habit of prayer, and they established
a canon of sacred books, among them the incomparable Book of Psalms.
It is true that the Synagogue, though as much a civic as a
religious institution, was the center of a considerable portion of
this activity, particularly those aspects of it that involved instruction.
But just as important was the home; indeed Jesus berated the hypocrites
who prayed publicly in the synagogues and on the street corners rather
than in the privacy of their homes (Matthew vi.5). And within the
home the event that was the focus of the most intense religiosity
was the evening meal, which was also an event of special
musical significance.
From: New
Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (personal
online subscription: $30.00 month.; $295.00 year.) This excellent
general resource has several articles containing information on Music
of the Early Christian Church. Music Ref ML100.N48
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