Harper II.12

CHAPTER XII.

THE PRECEPTIVE THEORY EXAMINED. WHAT WAS SYMBOLIZED BY THE INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC OF THE TEMPLE—PATRISTIC EVIDENCE.

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We have been endeavoring to show, by several arguments, that instrumental music as a part of worship belonged to the ceremonial and temporary system of

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the Old Testament; but when, at expense of toil, our arguments have been set in array, expert disputants will ask, with an air of triumph, “Of what was instrumental music typical, for typical it must have been if it belonged to the ceremonial arrangements and was intimately connected with the sacrifices?” To this inquiry, which by some is supposed to be very disconcerting to the opponents of instrumental music in worship, various answers may be given. For instance, it may be said that there may be satisfactory grounds for regarding a thing as typical although there might be much difficulty in determining precisely what it typified. There are many things in the arrangements about the tabernacle and temple which hardly any will deny to have been typical, but the import of which can scarcely be ascertained. It might be so with instrumental music. Again, it may be answered, that many things pertaining to the ceremonial rites and provisions were not typical, although symbolical. A type is a prophetic symbol. A symbol is something addressed to the outward senses, but at the same time adapted by some analogy, and intended to represent something spiritual. If the thing which it is meant to represent is future, the symbol contains a prophetic aspect or element, and is properly called a type. But if the thing meant is either past or present, the sensible sign or representative is not a type, but merely a symbol. For instance, the victim offered in sacrifice was a symbol of true substitutionary sacrifice, but inasmuch as the sacrifices of the old economy pointed onward to the advent and substitutionary suffering of the Lamb of God in the fulness of time, we style the sacrifices, types. The bread and wine in the Lord’s Supper, represent the body and blood of Christ as offered for sinners, and so are called symbols; but as these material signs point back to the offering of Christ, when he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself, they are not called types. Many things embraced in the ceremonial arrangements were symbolical, not typical. For instance, the different forms of ceremonial defilement and objects pronounced unclean to the Israelites were not typical, but symbolical, because they signified present moral influences or conditions, while the modes of removing ceremonial pollution were typical, pointing, as they did, to the fountain which was to be opened “for sin and for uncleanness.” Indeed, some even of the sacrificial offerings, bore pre-eminently a symbolic aspect, although not entirely lacking in the typical bearing, as for example the thank offerings.

Now, instrumental music may be regarded as symbolical, or, if typical at all, only so in a very general sense. Of what was it symbolical? I answer, of the full and entire consecration of all our powers, mentally and bodily to God; the open and avowed acknowledgment of him in a world that dishonors and denies him. But should this answer be deemed unsatisfactory, let not any one, therefore, commit the blunder of inferring that instrumental music in Old Testament worship cannot have been symbolical. If any one should insist that, if not meant to be a permanent form of worship, it must be typical, then it might be said that it typified the energetic praises which would be rendered to God in this world, and perhaps in all worlds, as a fruit of the atoning work of Christ. I prefer, however, to view it as simply symbolical of the hearty desire of the saints to proclaim with all their

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ability the excellence and glorious majesty of God. To this view, I am the more inclined from the representation given in Revelation of saints with harps, just as they are portrayed with palms and linen vestments, and with golden vials “full of incense, which are the prayers of saints,” Rev. 5:8; 7:9. The harps are symbolical of the praises, whether expressed in words or acts, just as the vials full of incense are symbolical of the prayers of saints. This, it may be added, is the view taken of this subject by the Christian Fathers for centuries after the time of the apostles. The stream of patristic interpretation in reference to the importance of the instrumental service of the temple, is beyond the slightest doubt substantially this: that the instruments symbolized the various energies of our nature, particularly those of our bodies, and that the music produced on them, represented the melody of a holy life, in which the powers of body and soul blend together in doing homage to God. On this point, I have examined with care in the original, as well as with the aid in some cases of Latin or English translations, the chief writings of the most prominent fathers, inclusive of Clemens Alexandrinus, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Eusebius, Augustine, Jerome, Chrysostom, Epiphanius, Theodore of Mopsnestia, Basil, and Gregory of Nyssa, together with several others, and can affirm that the view just given, is, for substance, that which they give. I grant, indeed, that those writers indulge too freely in tracing fanciful analogies between instruments and the human body, and that the same writer, even in the same passage, is not always self-consistent in his interpretations; but in this they are all and always agreed that the instruments of music in the temple and spoken of in the psalms, symbolized human powers devoted to the honor of God. In some cases they speak of the music of the instruments as typical of the praises which would be rendered to God by the saints after the consummation of the atoning sacrifice of Christ. Occasionally also they trace resemblances between different instruments and certain parts of morality; some, for instance, going so far as to allege that the decachord, or ten-stringed instrument sometimes spoken of, denoted the ten commandments; but into whatever vagaries of interpretation they may lapse, they steadily adhere in the main to this view, that the instruments were symbolical and ceremonial.

A few citations may be given as specimens of the drift of opinion on this point among the Fathers; and I feel the more willing to present these, as they will prepare for an argument which it is my intention to draw from the sentiment and practice of the early church in relation to instrumental music.

Clemens Alexandrinus, who died about A. D. 220, and must have been born not more than 50 or 60 years after the death of the apostle John, has, in his treatise entitled, “Paidagogos,” or Instructor, a chapter headed thus:—“How to conduct ourselves at feasts.” in which the following sentiments are expressed:—

“But the Spirit, distinguishing the divine service, sings, ‘Praise him with the sound of a trumpet.’ For with the sound of a trumpet he will raise the dead. ‘Praise him on the psaltery.’ Since the tongue is the Lord’s psaltery. ‘And on the harps praise him.’ By the harp the mouth may be understood, which is struck by the Spirit as with a plectrum. ‘With timbrel and with dance, praise

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him.’ He speaks of the church which is wont to meditate on the resurrection of the flesh in the resounding skin. ‘On strings and organ, praise him.’ He calls our body an organ, and its nerves strings, by which it is regularly and harmoniously exerted, and when struck by the Spirit emits human voices. ‘Praise him on clashing cymbals.’ He calls the tongue, the cymbal of the mouth which resounds with the pulsation of the lips. And so he cries to humanity ‘Let every breath praise the Lord,’ seeing that every breathing thing which he made experiences his care. For truly man is a peaceful instrument. But if any one will inquire carefully about other instruments, he will then find to be martial, inflaming to concupiscence, kindling amorous desire, exciting the mind or fomenting wrath. In their wars, therefore, the Etruscans use a trumpet; the Arcadians, the reed. But the Sicilians used instruments called pectides; the Cretans, the lyre; the Lacedemonians, the flute; the Thracians, the horn; the Egyptians, the drum; and the Arabs, the cymbal. Therefore, one instrument, the peaceful word alone, we use, by which we honor God; no longer employing the old psaltery and trumpet, and timbrel and pipe, which they were wont to use who exercised themselves in war, and despised the fear of God, and at the same time were wont to resort to gatherings for dances, in order that by such means the mind, listless and dejected, might be roused.”

Hippolytus, commonly called bishop of Pontus Romanus, who died about A. D. 236, expresses himself thus in one of the fragments which remain of his writings:—“It is likely also that a similar account is to be given of the fact that David alone of the prophets, prophesied with an instrument, called by the Greeks the psaltery, and by the Hebrews, the nabla, which is the only musical instrument that is quite straight and has no curve. And the sound does not come from the lower parts, as is the case with the lute and certain other instruments, but from the upper. For in the lute and the lyre, the brass, when struck, gives back the sound from beneath. But this psaltery has the source of its numbers above, that we, too, may practise seeking things above, and not suffer ourselves to be borne down by the pleasure of melody to the passions of the flesh. And, I think that this truth too was signified to us deeply and clearly in a prophetic way, in the construction of the instrument, namely: that those who have souls, well ordered and trained, have the way ready to things above. And again, an instrument having the source of its melodious sound in its upper parts, may be taken as like the body of Christ and his saints, the only instrument that maintains rectitude; for he did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth. This is indeed an instrument, harmonious, melodious, well-ordered, that took in no human discord, and did nothing out of measure, but maintained in all things, as it were, harmony toward the Father.” Much more to the same effect might be given from this writer.

In his elaborate commentary on the Book of Psalms, Eusebius, bishop of Cæsarea, whose life extended from A. D. 250 to A. D. 340, expresses himself frequently on the point before us. Commenting on Ps. 68:5, 6, he says, “He sings (psallei) to his name, who with his bodily motions and the actions of his

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senses displays conduct which induces onlookers to praise the name of God.” Again in his exposition of Ps. 71:22–24, he pursues this strain:—“But the vessels and instruments agreeable to God, and by which to-day the church of God utters psalms and hymns, and praises to God, the Father, throughout the whole world, what are they but the peoples composing the church of Christ, whose souls framed and bound together in one chain of symphony and harmony by the Word of God, send forth a pleasant and sweet melody? Were any one, therefore, to compare those instruments of the ancient Jews, formed of lifeless chords and producing no articulate sound, with the hymns sent up to God in the church of Christ from the rational souls, he should find no comparison between them. For the multitude throughout the world which with one concert and symphony celebrates God, who is over all, is more excellent than any material psaltery. By the ministrations of this multitude, the Son confesses that he sings (psallei) to the Father.”

Still further, on Ps. 92:2, he writes, “Formerly, indeed, when the people of the circumcision worshipped God through symbols and figures, it was not incongruous to utter hymns with psalteries and harps, and to do that on the Sabbath, dismissing ease, and so transgressing the law of the Sabbath. But, preserving the Jew in secret, according to the Apostle’s saying, ‘For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly,’ etc., pour ye out a hymn with the living psaltery and animated harp and spiritual songs. For sweeter and more acceptable to Christ than all instruments of music, is the joint symphony of his people in which, in all the churches of God, with one mind and with one heart, we send forth melody in psalm singing (psalmodia). Therefore we are wont to use such psalm singings and spiritual harps, because the apostle teaches so in these words, ‘In psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.’ In another way, also, the whole body may be the harp by whose motions and operations the soul sends out a becoming hymn to God. But the psaltery of ten strings is the worship of the Holy Spirit exhibited by the five senses of the body and as many virtues of the soul; which things the same apostle declares in these words, ‘I will pray with the spirit; I will pray also with the understanding; I will sing with the spirit, I will sing with the understanding also.’”

On Ps. 98:4–6, Eusebius remarks, “For he calls the symphony of the body with the soul a harp. Moreover, this law may be seen carefully observed in the churches, for on a spiritual instrument, we produce divine melody. Nay, we even make our mouths rational harps, and for chords use the teeth, for brass the lips, and swifter than any plectrum, the vibrating tongue utters a harmonious sound; but the mind moves the tongue like a skillful musician.”

Many other citations of like import can be made from Eusebius, who was thoroughly conversant with the theological lore and expository canons current in his age.

Among the Fathers none holds higher rank as a theologian than Augustine, born A. D. 354, the date of his death being A. D. 430. It is, however, beyond question that his view of the import of the musical instruments mentioned in the Psalms, is substantially the same with that held by Clemens, Hippolytus and

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Eusebius. One or two quotations will suffice to show this. Discoursing on Ps. 92, he says:—“Psalle ergo nomini Dei, ut fixum sit apud Deum, nomen tuum. Psallere, autem, Deo quid est fratres? Psalterium organi genus est, chordas habet. Opus nostrum, psalterium nostrum est. Quicumque manibus operatur opera bona, psallit Deo. Quicumque ore confitetur, cantat Deo. Canta ore, psalle operibus,” which may be rendered thus:—“Sing, therefore, to the name of God, that thy name may be established with God. But to sing, what is it, brethren? A psaltery is a kind of instrument; it has strings. Our work is our psaltery. Whosoever performs good works with his hands, sings to God; whosoever confesses with his mouth, chants to God. Chant with thy mouth: sing with thy works.”

Again he thus expatiates on Ps. 149, “Quare assumit tympanum et psalterium? Ut non sola vox laudet, sed opera. Quando assumuntur tympanum et psalterium, manus concinunt voci. Sic et tu quando halleluia cantas, porrigas et panem esurienti, vestias nudum, suscipias peregrinum; non sola vox sonat, sed et manus consonat, quia verbis facta concordant. Assumpsisti organum, consentiant digiti linguæ. Et ipsum mysterium tympani et psalterii non est tacendum. In tympano corium extenditur, in psalterio chordæ extenduntur; in utroque organo caro crucifigitur. Quam bene psalebat in tympano et psalterio qui dicebat, ‘Mihi mundus crucifixus est,’” which may be translated thus:—“Why does he assume a timbrel and a psaltery? That not the voice alone may praise, but the works. When the timbrel and psaltery are assumed, the hands accord with the voice. So thou too when thou chantest Halleluia, mayest also offer bread to the hungry, mayest clothe the naked, mayest succor the stranger: not only does the voice sound, but the hand also is in concert with it, because the deeds correspond to the words. Thou hast assumed an instrument, let thy fingers accord with thy tongue. And the mystery itself of the timbrel and psaltery is not to be overlooked. In the timbrel the skin is stretched; in the psaltery the chords are extended; in both instruments the flesh is crucified. How well did he sing on timbrel and psaltery, who said, ‘The world is crucified to me!’”

On Psalm 150, he observes, “Iidem ipsi sancti, sunt in omnibus musicis organis deinceps significati, ad laudandum Deum,” that is, The very saints themselves are in fine denoted in all musical instruments for praising God. Further, he says, “Vos estis tuba, psalterium, cithera, tympanum, chorus, chordæ et organum, et cymbala jubilationis bene sonantia quia consonantia,” that is, “You are trumpet, psaltery, harp, timbrel, dance, strings, organ and cymbals of joy sounding well, because sounding in harmony.”

Jerome, the celebrated contemporary of Augustine, expresses similar views in his Commentary on the Book of Psalms, and in his exposition of Eph. 5:19.

Basil, surnamed the Great, born A. D. 328, commenting on Ps. 33, explains the instruments there named to mean the human body, but with this exception that the decachord, or ten-stringed instrument represents or symbolizes the ten commandments.

Of the same tenor in general is the view expressed by Isidore of Pelusium, in his letter numbered 364.

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The renowned Chrysostom, born A. D. 347, the date of his death being 407, comments on Ps. 150, thus, “For as the Jews praised God with all instruments (organōn), so he commands us to praise him with all members (melōn), with the eyes, the ears, the tongue, the hands. For the eye praises him when it does not look unchastely, and the tongue when it sings (hōtan psallē).”

The specimens of patristic teaching now given, which are but a few of many at command, certainly prove that the most distinguished among the Fathers regarded the musical instruments of the Old Testament ritual, as symbolical and ceremonial. Add to this, that, so far as I know there is not a single writer of the first five or six centuries, or even much later, that expresses any different opinion on this subject. The interpretations given by the Fathers on this point, as well as on many others, are often whimsical and fanciful; but it cannot be denied that those men were substantially of one mind as to the symbolic import of the instruments of music employed in the temple worship. From the earliest period, from almost the very age of the apostles down to our own day, we find a chain of witnesses, who coincide in substance with the view we take of the symbolic and ceremonial character of the instruments of music used in the temple service, and the nearer we approach to the age of the apostles, the more unanimous is the mind of the church on this point found to be.