The summing up of the legends, surmises, and few statements concerning the music of the earliest Christians, are well expressed in Ambros.[233]
We can conclude regarding the music of the earliest Christian times, that it was at first a species of Folk-song, founded upon the school of music then in vogue, but elevated and impregnated with a new religious spirit. But this simplicity soon was changed: profiting by the experience of the Romans in uniting all art and beauty in their theatres, (whereby the theatre grew, and the church declined;) the early Christians soon found it wise to unite every art, in the service of their church. It is also probable that much of the music was borrowed from that of the Hebrews. This is more natural when we reflect that Christianity was at first a continuation (or reorganization) of Hebrew rites and the apostles were all well acquainted with the ceremonies of the Jewish church.
The chanting of the scriptures which took place in the latter worship, was undoubtedly transplanted into the Christian service.[234] Many of the early psalms and canticles were sung in caves and subterranean retreats in which places the proscribed and persecuted worshippers were obliged to seek refuge, and where they still kept, up with undeviating regularity the practice of their ceremonies.
Pliny the younger on being made pro-consul of Bithynia was especially charged by the emperor Trajan, to find accusations against the Christians there, the number of whom was augmenting daily. A letter of his, supposed to have been written in the third year of the second century of our era,[235] contains the following regarding the new religion.
“They affirm that their fault, and errors have only consisted of this;—they convene at stated days, before sunrise, and sing, each in turn, verses in praise of Christ, as of a God; they engage themselves, by oath, not to do any crime, but never to commit theft, robbery, or adultery, never to break faith, or betray a trust. After this they separate and afterwards reassemble to eat together innocent and innocuous dishes.”[236]
At a later period (the fourth century) all proselytes and new converts were not admitted to sing in the church with the baptized. The new converts presented themselves before the hierarch, (a dignitary who was charged with the duty of classifying the catechumens in different orders) and expressed to him the desire of joining the church. If the questions of the priests were satisfactorily answered, he placed his hand on the head of the applicant and gave him the benediction with the sign of the cross, and afterwards inscribed his name among the number of candidates for baptism. The catechumen had not the right to enter the church. He might linger around the porticos, but was on no account allowed to join in the prayers, except in a low voice, and in the hymns not at all, until he had received the rite of baptism.
The candidates for baptism were divided into various classes. Even after baptism there were three orders of Christians, and those who had fallen into disgrace with the church, were sometimes disciplined by being reduced for a few years to the rank of auditors at the services. These were not allowed to join in the congregational singing, and were sometimes not even admitted to the body of the church edifice unless called there.
It is presumable that the right to join in the singing was, during the first two or three centuries, highly prized.
Little by little the spirit of improvement crept into the unskilled but soul-felt music of the early Christian church. It seems rather strange to find in the very germs of the religion, a silent, yet real contest between congregational and paid singing; and to find the same evils creeping in with the employment of singers in those early times, that we see in the present days of quartette choirs. In the days of Origen (about the middle of the second century) all the congregation sang together.
St. John Chrysostom says,—