Music in Jewish, Pagan and Christian Antiquity

The seminar will examine extracts from the work of early Christian bishops (Athanasius, Nicetas, Severus of Minorca, Basil and Augustine) who were prompted to reflect on the effect which singing had on their congregations’ understanding and practice of the faith, paying special attention to:

  1. The ways in which music was thought to turn the senses towards God and to communicate a grasp of the mysteries of the faith through performance and affective response.
  2. The relation of Christian music to that practiced in Jewish and pagan contexts.

Reading (don’t panic: these are short extracts!)

Athanasius Letter to Marcellinus 9-12; 27-33 (London:Mowbray, 1963) (Mahwah NJ: Paulist Press, 1980)

Nicetas of RemesianaLiturgical Singing (Fathers of the Church 7, 55-64)

Severus of Minorca Letter On the Conversion of the Jews (Oxford: OUP, 1996) chapter 11-14; 16; 26-27.

Basil Homily of the First Psalm 1-2 (in O. Strunk Source Readings in Music History Antiquity and the Middle Ages (New York NY: Norton, 1950) 64-66

Chrysostom Exposition of Psalm 61 (selection) (in O. Strunk Source Readings in Music History Antiquity and the Middle Ages (New York NY: Norton, 1950) 67-70

Augustine Confessions 9.4.8-11; 7.15-16; 10.33.49-50

Questions you might like to bear in mind while reading these texts:

  1. What difference does it make to sing something rather than say it? How important are words?
  2. Does music convey intellectual or affective cognition – or both?
  3. How does singing convey the mysteries of the faith?
  4. What is the relation between singing and virtuous action?
  5. What role does the beauty and ‘sweetness’ of singing have?
  6. ‘They [hymns] put out rather than excite passion’ (Nicetas, 7). Do they?
  1. What does Christian, Jewish and Pagan music have in common? How do they differ?
  2. What was the particular role of the psalms?
  3. Why was there ambivalence about singing in a Christian context?
  4. What sort of singing do the authors recommend?
  5. How are musical instruments regarded?

Additional reading:

Primary texts

Aristides QuintilianusOn Music in Andrew Barker (ed.) Greek Musical Writings II Cambridge Readings in the Literature of Music (Cambridge: CUP, 1989) chapter 12.

Odes of Solomon (J. H. Bernard (ed.) and Rendel Harris (trans.) Texts and Studies 8.3 (Cambridge 1912)

Ambrose Splendor paternaegloriaeand PrudentiusCathemerinon 9 in Carolinne White Early Christian Latin Poets (London:Routledge, 2000) p47-48; 82-86

Music

Chants de L’Église Milanaise; Chants de L’Église de Rome CD’s

Bibliography

Jeremy Begbie and Stephen R. Guthrie, eds., Resonant Witnesses: Conversations between Music and Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011) paper by Carol Harrison ‘Augustine on Music’.

Charles H. Cosgrove ‘Clement of Alexandria and Early Christian Music’ Journal of Early Christian Studies 14:3, 255-282

Brian Daley and Paul Kolbet (eds.) The Harp of Prophecy: Early Christian Interpretation of the Psalms (IN: University of Notre Dame, 2014)

** Brian DunkleEnchantment and Creed in the Hymns of Ambrose of Milan (Oxford: OUP, 2016) (the first chapter is particularly useful on early Christian music)

Edward Foley, Foundations of Christian Music: The Music of Pre-Constantinian Christianity Alcuin / GROW Liturgical Study 23-24 (Bramcote Nottingham: Grove Books Limited, 1992)

Carol Harrison ‘Enchanting the Soul: The Music of the Psalms’ in A. Andreopoulos, A. Casiday and Carol Harrison (eds.) Meditations of the Heart: The Psalms in Early Christian Thought and Practice (Turnhout: Brepols) 205-23.

**--- ‘Mellifluous Music in Early Western Christianity’ (forthcoming) (on weblearn – useful for relations with Judaism)

**Paul Kolbet ‘Athanasius, The Psalms, and the Reformation of the Self’ Harvard Theological Review 99:1 (2006) 85-101 (on weblearn)

E. Lash On the Life of Christ: Kontakia of St Romanos(Harper Collins, 1995)

LouthSt John Damascene: Tradition and Originality in Byzantine Theology (Oxford:OUP, 2002) chapter 9

James McKinnon Music in Early Christian Literature (Cambridge: CUP, 1987) (a very useful anthology)

--- ‘Desert Monasticism and the later fourth century Psalmodic Movement’ Music and Letters (1994) 505-521

Christopher Page, The Christian West and Its Singers: The First Thousand Years (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010).

** Johannes QuastenMusic and Worship in Pagan and Christian Antiquity transl. B. Ramsay, NPM Studies in Church Music and Liturgy (Washington: National Association of Pastoral Musicians, 1983) (very useful on relation to pagan music)

E. Wellesz, A History of Byzantine Music and Hymnography (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961)

Carolinne White Early Christian Latin Poets (London: Routledge, 2000)

Oxford Handbook of the Early Church 30-32 (Poetry and Hymnography)