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Price, One Shilling, net
[ii]Reprinted from the Journal of
Theological Studies, October, 1899
Oxford: B. H. Blackwell, 50 & 51 Broad Street
London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co.
1901
The Author's thanks are due to the Editors of theJournal of Theological Studies, and to the Publishers,Messrs. Macmillan, for permission to reprint.
[1]What St. Augustin says of the emotion whichhe felt on hearing the music in the Portian basilicaat Milan in the year 386 has always seemed tome a good illustration of the relativity of musicalexpression; I mean how much more its ethicalsignificance depends on the musical experience ofthe hearer, than on any special accomplishmentor intrinsic development of the art. Knowing ofwhat kind that music must have been and how fewresources of expression it can have had,--beingrudimental in form, without suggestion of harmony,and in its performance unskilful, its probably nasalvoice-production unmodified by any accompaniment,--onemarvels at his description,
'What tears I shed at Thy hymns and canticles,how acutely was my soul stirred by the voices and[2]sweet music of Thy Church! As those voices enteredmy ears, truth distilled in my heart, and thencedivine affection welled up in a flood, in tearso'erflowing, and happy was I in those tears[1].'
St. Augustin appears to have witnessed the beginningsof the great music of the Western Church.It was the year of his baptism when, he tells us,singing was introduced at Milan to cheer theCatholics who had shut themselves up in thebasilica with their bishop, to defend him fromthe imperial violence:
'It was then instituted that psalms and hymns shouldbe sung, after the manner of the Eastern Churches,lest the folk in the weariness of their grief shouldaltogether lose heart: and from that day to this thecustom has been retained; many, nay, nearly allThy flocks, in all regions of the world, following theexample[2].'
What great emotional power St. Augustin attributedto ecclesiastical music, and of what importancehe thought it, may be seen in the tenth book of theConfessions: he is there examining himself underthe heads of the senses, and after the sense of smell,his chapter on the sense of hearing is as follows:
'The lust of the ears entangled and enslaved me[3]more firmly, but Thou hast loosened and set me free.But even now I confess that I do yield a very littleto the beauty of those sounds which are animatedby Thy eloquence, when sung with a sweet andpractised voice; not, indeed, so far that I am limedand cannot fly off atpleasure[3]:and yield thoughI do, yet these sweet sounds, joined with the divinewords which are their life, cannot be admitted tomy heart save to a place of some dignity, andI hesitate to give them one as lofty as theirclaim...