Music has come a long way from the Christian Church in the first millennium to the present day. From liturgical choirs to modern day Christian Rock in churches, coming to church sometimes seems more than just a religious service. But was it always appropriate to have a drummer and electric guitar during Mass? Where did the music all start and how did the authoritative church figures feel about music?
Some people would be surprised to hear that the church disapproved of certain music during service such as instrumental music and rejected music for pleasure. While songs of praise were encouraged, some early church leaders rejected other aspects of ancient practice. The Middle Ages began with plainchant; most sacred songs of the time represented vocals only. Gregorian chant was mostly in unison and gradually separated into parts sung in parallel motion a perfect interval below the original chant. The “Church Fathers” – otherwise known as St. Basil, St. John Chrysostom, St. Jerome, and St. Augustine – interpreted the Bible and set down principles to guide the church. The Church Fathers also shared similar views with the Greeks, who believed the power of music rested in how it ethically affected its listeners.
St. Augustine, upon hearing psalm after psalm, was afraid of the pleasure music could give him; he feared music’s pleasure factor might drive him to think less of God and more of sinful thoughts. Consequently, most church fathers rejected music simply for enjoyment for the same fear St. Augustine experienced. The Church Fathers stressed the use of music, not for secular reasons, but only as a way of praising God. Thus, they frowned upon music without religious purpose and labeled all other music evil.
However, it is hard to grasp the exact attitude of the church towards music; the relationship between music and religion remains vague. The views on music during the Middle Ages and the following years sometimes seem contradictory, as ideas are constantly changing and new ones are put forth. But above all, religion and music are inseparable under certain circumstances. As aforementioned, the Bible always comes into play when religious matters are under debate. In the Pentateuch, or Torah, music and musical instruments originate in several narratives. In the passages of Genesis which narrate the binding of Isaac, the sacrificed ram yields his horn (Genesis 22:12), which symbolically becomes the “shofar,” the musical instrument used to mark significant beginnings and endings during the Jewish liturgical calendar such as Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement (Bohlman 1). For the religious figures, such as the Church Fathers, it is hard to deny what is in a religious text and argue against what is written. Chant may be easily found acceptable in church as opposed to other types of music due to historical records telling of Jesus or other parallel religious figures reciting prayers and scripture: liturgies often included the prayers being recited upon a reciting tone, more or less being sung and not simply said.
Besides secular music being controversial, the singing of women in church was also unpopular with the Church Fathers. St. Paul set the tone for this issue when he wrote to the Corinthians: “Let your women keep silent in the churches for it is not permitted unto them to speak” (1 Corinthians 14:34). Though this issue was not discussed as much as others in the earlier years of Christianity, even today one can easily understand this issue, especially since gender roles are frequently talked about in modern society. In many movies set in the earliest years of Christianity – more specifically the biblical or religious movies – the audience sees women as kept silent in such places as synagogues. Women did not have much say when it came to religion, so to learn that women were not permitted to participate in the musical aspects of church is not surprising. There are also other somewhat obvious reasons as to why this issue came up: the appearance of women’s choirs in heretical circles of the third century and making a spectacle of the female figure. Not only did the Church Fathers see female professional musicians as a problem because of sexuality and the physical pleasure one could derive from the sight of them, but also because of musical pleasure upon listening to them. These pleasures combined would obviously be highly immoral.
The Church Fathers further took in the ideas of the Greeks, who said music was irrelevant to the life of reason. The Church Fathers tried to parallel this thought, saying music was beside the point when it came to salvation, but this caused tension seeing that music was of much importance in the liturgy (Goehr 1). Boethius, the most revered authority on music in the Middle Ages, subsequently divided music into three categories in an attempt to satisfy the several opposing views on music in church. He looked at the numerical side of music, like a branch of mathematics; and mathematics was not considered immoral or anything of the sort during the time. In his Fundamentals of Music, Boethius divided music into musica mundana, musica humana, and musica instrumentalis. The first represented the “music of the universe” which controlled the movement of cosmic life and nature; the second, “human music,” controlled the human body and soul; and the third, “instrumental music,” embraced the type of music in question: audible music. Still, Boethius’ complex thought only aroused more debate between the distinction between secular and sacred music.
Instrumental music became more of a controversy as time progressed. The association of instruments with pagan religious practices belittled instruments in the eyes of the Church Fathers. For example, St. John Chrysostom wrote about the musical abuses at a marriage celebration:
Nature indulges in Bacchic frenzy at these weddings; those present become brutes rather than men; they neigh like horses and kick like asses. There is much dissipation, much dissolution, but nothing earnest, nothing high-minded; there is much pomp of the devil here – cymbals, auloi and songs of fornication and adultery (McKinnon 1).
Words such as these may come as a shock to students learning about music today. In a society that almost embraces the sexual immorality that the Church Fathers feared and wanted to suppress, it is normal to see wild acts today rather than the reserved personalities of the past. Yet, somehow, St. John Chrysostom’s words seem illogical. Was it really music that caused men to act like animals? It appears that the Church Fathers jumped at the chance to blame devilish acts on music. However, it is important to point out that there are no examples of the Church Fathers condemning musical instruments in church directly: instrumental accompaniment was not much of a problem, since the accompanying instrument would generally be outplayed by voices or it would be a “soft” instrument (e.g., a lyre or similar instrument).
The problem that the Church Fathers were confronted with was polyphony, music with two or more independent melodic parts sounded together. This was rejected at first, since chant was usually in unison and the soloist with congregational response remained the prominent mode of performance in the earlier centuries (McKinnon 2). Christian song was not dull and unattractive before, but as the music got more complex and more musical ideas were experimented with, it was hard for the Church Fathers to accept and categorize what was considered appropriate and inappropriate. The dispute about the comprehensibility of words in polyphonic music originated with the sixteenth century composer, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. According to legend, Palestrina was said to have saved polyphonic music from complete rejection by the Council of Trent by composing the famous and lively Pope Marcellus Mass, with six voices. While the legend is most likely untrue, Palestrina noted that his collection of masses was written “in a new manner,” no doubt in response to the want for clarity in the text (Burkholder 229).
Inevitably, as cathedrals and sacred buildings became more extravagant and elegant, polyphonic music stayed with the church to parallel the extravagance. Now, it is hard to rid of the more-secular-than-sacred music in churches, since tastes have greatly changed within the past hundreds of years. In general, church standards are not nearly so high now as those prevailing in the secular field. Religious music was the predecessor of the music one hears today on the radio, and if the early Christian church had not carefully sustained the development of music, who knows what music would have developed into today (Norden 196). What would the Church Fathers say about music in the church today?
Works Cited
Anderson, Warren. Plato, §8: Influence on his successors.” Grove Music Online.
Bohlman, Philip V. “Middle East, §I: Concepts of music.” Grove Music Online.
Burkholder, Peter J. A History of Western Music, Seventh Edition. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2006.
Goehr, Lydia. “Philosophy of music, §II, 2: Early Christian thought.” Grove Music Online.
McKinnon, James W. “Christian Church, music of the early, §II, 4: The singing of women in church.” Grove Music Online.
McKinnon, James W. Christian Church, music of the early, §II, 8: The musical character of early Christian song.” Grove Music Online.
McKinnon, James W. “Christian Church, music of the early, §II, 1: Instruments.” Grove Music Online.
Norden, Lindsay. A Plea for Pure Church Music.” The Musical Quarterly. Volume 4, No. 2 (Apr. 1918): pp. 196-208.
Sanders, Ernest H. “Motet, §IV: After 1750.” Grove Music Online.
