Harper II.27
James Dodson
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE PROHIBITORY THEORY DEFENDED—HISTORICAL EVIDENCE IN ITS BEHALF.
4. A general argument, which is our fourth, for the prohibitory theory is afforded by the history of the church from the close of the Apostolic age onward to modern times. For sake of clearness, it may be advisable to make three stages in this historical investigation, and inquire: first. What was the attitude of the early church toward instrumental music in worship? second, What were the circumstances in which such music acquired a place in the worship of the church? and, third, What lessons on the subject in hand does the history of the church, at and after the time of the Reformation, yield?
The first of these three branches of inquiry, which seems rather uninviting to those who favor the use of instruments in worship, I can afford to treat in a somewhat summary manner, both because several citations bearing upon it have already been made, and because I do not know that any reputable writer is bold enough to assert that instruments of music were used in worship by the early church. Learned writers of various schools, and favorable, moreover, to the practice which I am opposing, frankly admit that, in worshipping God, the primitive Christians used no instruments of music. For instance, Bingham, a minister of the Church of England, whose erudition in the department of Christian antiquities was profound, and whose approval of the use of instrumental music in praising God is undisguised, confesses, in his elaborate treatise, “Origines Ecclesiasticae,” that the reason why he gives no account of the instruments used in the early church, as some might have expected, is that no such appliances existed in the church of the early centuries of our era.
Bellarmine, the ablest of all Romish controversialists, though pleading for the use of instruments, says: “We confess, indeed, that musical instruments began at a late date to be admitted into the church.” An acknowledgment of the same tenor is made by Cajetan, Navarre, Molanus, and many other noted Romish writers.
Neander, whose thorough acquaintance with the history of the ancient church none will dispute, says: “From the French church proceeded the use of the
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organ, the first musical instrument employed in the church. A present of the Emperor Constantine Copronymus to King Pepin gave occasion to its use.” In connection with this extract, let it be noted that the transaction alluded to by Neander occurred about the year 756.
John Mason Neale, a minister of the Church of England, who died in 1866, and of whom Dr. Schaff says that “he was the most learned Anglican ritualist and liturgist, who studied the Eastern liturgies daily, and almost knew them by heart,” thus writes, in his Commentary on the Psalms: “Here,” that is in Ps. 33:2, “we have the first mention of musical instruments in the Psalms. It is to be observed that the early fathers, almost with one accord, protest against their use in churches, as they are forbidden in the Eastern Church to this day, where yet, by consent of all, the singing is infinitely superior to anything that can be heard in the West.”
Testimony to the same effect from the highest authorities of modern times, and from those among the number who are zealous for instrumental music, can be produced in abundance, and I am not aware that any scholar alleges aught to the contrary. In view of this posture of the case, I might assume, without any further attempt at proof, that for some centuries, probably not less than five or six, after the death of the Apostles, there was a total absence of instrumental music from the worship of the church. And even if it were conceded, as some claim, that there may have been, in a few places, a use made of instruments of music in worship, during the 4th and 5th centuries, no one, who has a right to give an opinion, will presume to say that instrumental music was much used in the Christian church in the centuries named, or for several centuries afterwards.
It may be proper, however, to present, out of a large stock of evidence, derivable from patristic sources, a few specimens additional to those already given in the course of our discussion.
Clemens Alexandrinus, in his “Paidagogos,” has a chapter headed thus, “How to conduct ourselves at feasts,” in which, as shown in a previous quotation, the following sentiments are expressed: “The Spirit, distinguishing from such revelry the divine service, sings, ‘Praise him with sound of trumpet,’ for with sound of trumpet he shall raise the dead; ‘Praise him on the psaltery,’ for the tongue is the psaltery of the Lord; and ‘Praise him on the lyre,’ By the lyre is meant the mouth, struck by the Spirit, as it were by a plectrum. ‘Praise him with the timbrel and the dance,’ refers to the church meditating on the resurrection of the dead in the resounding skin. ‘Praise him on the chords and organ,’ Our body he calls an organ, and its nerves are the strings by which it has received harmonious tension, and when struck by the Spirit, it gives forth human voices. ‘Praise him on the clashing cymbals.’ He calls the tongue cymbal of the mouth, which resounds with the pulsation of the lips.” * * * * “The one instrument of peace, the word alone by which we honor God, is that which we employ. We no longer use the ancient psaltery and trumpet and timbrel and flute.”*
It is true, Clemens, in the same chapter, says: “And even if you wish to sing and play to the harp or lyre, there is no blame. Thou shalt imitate the righteous Hebrew king in his thanksgiving to God.” In so expressing himself, however, he plainly refers, not to the use of instruments in stated, formal worship, but to their use at feasts for mere Christian enjoyment and edification. Besides, if instrumental music had been then used in the church, there would have been no need for Clemens to say what has just been quoted. He does not say, “Thou shalt imitate the church in its services,” but “Thou shalt imitate the righteous
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* It will be observed that, between the translation given above and that of the same passage given in a previous chapter, there are some minute differences. The translation given above is taken from T. & T. Clark’s “Ante-Nicene Library.” The translation previously given was made independently by the writer. It may be added that the extract from Hippolytus, formerly presented, was also taken from the publication aforenamed.
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Hebrew king.” Calvin, whose opposition to instrumental music was avowed, and even in a passage in which he makes such an avowal, uses language, which may be quoted in the sequel, almost identical with that of Clemens.
Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, who was born A. D. 200, and who fell a martyr in A. D. 258, uses this language, “Such instruments were then permitted to them for this cause, even for the sake of their weakness, to excite their minds to perform their external worship with some delight.”
Isidore of Pelusium, born in the latter part of the fourth century, says (Book I, Ep. 176), “When God tolerated victims and blood-shedding, on account of the puerility of the sacred rites which then marked them, why do you wonder that he also tolerated that music which is produced by harp and psaltery?”
Augustine, commenting on Ps. 33:2, expresses himself thus:—“Nemo convertat cor ad organa theatrica. Quod ei jubetur in se habeat, sicut alibi dicitur, ‘in me sunt, Deus, vota tua, quae reddam laudationes tibi,’” that is, Let no one think of theatrical instruments of music. What is enjoined upon him, each one has in himself, as it is said in another place, In me, O God! are thy vows, which I will render as praises to thee. Then he proceeds to show the symbolical import of the instruments mentioned in the Psalm.
In his exposition of Ps. 150, Augustine uses these words:—“Ne quis autem cymbala intelligeret quae sine anima sonant, ideo puto additum ‘in cymbalis jubilationis.’ Jubilatio namque, id est ineffabilis laus, non nisi ab anima proficiscitur,” which is to say, But lest any one should understand lifeless cymbals, it is, I think therefore added, “On cymbals of joy.” For joy, that is unutterable praise, proceeds only from a soul.
Chrysostom, the eloquent bishop of Constantinople, discoursing near the close of the fourth century, says in reference to instrumental music:—“Like sacrifice, it was permitted to the Jews for the heaviness and grossness of their hearts. God condescended to their weakness because they were lately drawn off from idols; but now we may employ our bodies, instead of instruments, to praise him.”
The witnesses now summoned are all that we need, not all that can be produced, and let us now see how the case stands.
In the first place, we have a stream of testimony extending from the second century onward to the beginning of the fifth (and we might trace it still farther down if time allowed), the drift of which is that in the services of the church, in the time specified, there was no instrumental music.
In the second place, this testimony comes from men in prominent positions, some of them, as, for instance, Chrysostom, in the very centres of wealth and fashion, where, if anywhere, the pomp of instrumental music must have found a place in worship.
In the third place, these men deal with the subject of instrumental music, not as if combating a practice which had found a footing in the church. On the contrary, they invariably speak of it as something entirely external and foreign to the Christian church.
In the fourth place, they give us (and they were, in their days, the great lights of the church) their views as to the symbolical meaning of the instruments of music used in the Old Testament worship. On this point there is a remarkable unanimity among them.
In the fifth place, there is not, so far as I know, a single sentence of conflicting testimony, from any writer of the first five centuries, or even much later, that is to say, there is not a single statement from those early times, to the effect that instrumental music was then used in worship. What Clement of Alexandria says, which some have taken to be evidence to the contrary, has already been considered.
In the sixth place, the ancient writers frequently refer to the exercise of singing the praises of God, without the least allusion to the use of instruments, and that,
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too, in circumstances in which, had instruments been employed, there would have been an inducement to speak of them. A notable instance of this kind occurs in Jerome’s Commentary on Ephesians, where, in his exposition of chap. v. verse 19, he censures very sharply the theatrical mode of singing which had begun to be exhibited in churches, but says not a word about instrumental music.
In the seventh place, in the accounts transmitted to us of the persecutions sustained by the Christians of the early ages, while we read of the destruction of their places of worship, of their psalm-books, and of their copies of the scriptures, we never read of the destruction of their instruments of music.
In the eighth place, the first definite hints which come down to us, as to the introduction of instruments of music into the churches, indicate that this did not take place until the seventh or, more probably, the eighth century.
In the ninth place, it was not till several centuries later still that the practice of using instrumental music in praising God acquired any prominence in the church. Thomas Aquinas, one of the great lights of the Romish church, writing about A. D. 1250, uses the following language: “In the old law, God was praised both with musical instruments and human voices. But the church does not use musical instruments, lest she should seem to Judaize. Nor ought a pipe, nor any other artificial instruments, such as organ or harp, or the like, be brought into use in the Christian church, but only those things which shall make the hearers better men. Under the Old Testament, such instruments were used, partly because the people were harder and more carnal, and partly because these bodily instruments were typical of something.” There is some ground to think that, at the time when Thomas wrote thus, there were instruments used in worship in some places. But had the practice been common, he could not have thus written. Moreover, he indicates that the church, as such, had not sanctioned such a practice. The first instance of the use of an organ in Scotland, for purposes of worship, occurred about, I believe, the year 1460.
In the tenth place, the Eastern, or Greek Church, now numbering about seventy-five or eighty millions of members and adherents, has never, to this day, permitted the use of instruments in her worship. It is a fact, also, that, in some of the most ancient Romish cathedrals, as, for instance, that of Lyons, in France, no instrumental music has ever been heard; while from the Pope’s chapel, at Rome, it is utterly excluded, at least when he is present. Some Roman Catholic writers, themselves, such as Molanus and Bouvier, note these facts, and understand them, justly, I think, to be lingering echoes of the remote past, when in none of the churches was the music of instruments tolerated.