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THE EARLY CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 281
(under the charge of able directors, who fully saw the power of the art when made popular) while the music of the Pagan church was greatly declining. The great emperor Julian, foresaw the result, and used great efforts to secure a better class of music for the Roman sacrifices, but without avail.
With regard to the Christian music of the time of the apostles, we have only tradition, but these traditions have so much probability, that they acquire some degree of authority.
Eusebius assures us that St. Mark taught the first Egyptian Christians how to chant their prayers: St. John Chrysostom affirms (in his sixth homily) that the Apostles wrote the first hymn. In Rome (according to Tertullian) the chants were given in a deep tone, and not in a sustained manner, at one part of the service, and with strong accents, and flexible voice at another. The Fathers of the church almost all bear testimony that the music of the service generally partook of the habitual style of singing of each nation.
Kiesewetter, one of the most careful of the students of Ancient Greek music, maintains that, while the early Christians borrowed much from Gi-reecr, yet from the first, the tendency was rather away from, than in the path of the Greek style. Brendel in his essays coincides with this opinion.*
The cause of this, so far as Borne and Greece
•Brendel. Oech. d. Husik, p. 7. |
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