As time went on emperors like Constantine, began to take away the death penalty from those believing in Christ and gradually as the Romans saw the beauty of His teachings they became Christians in increasing numbers. Many of these Romans came from the upper classes, and as Greek was the language of culture they had had a thorough Greek education and owned many instruments, so they brought their Greek musical inheritance to the growing band.
Thus, the chants composed in Rome for the kithara were the direct ancestors of our Christian hymns. These early hymns were also a bridge between the single melody line of the Orient and Greece and Rome, and the many melody lines, called polyphonic music, of Europe.
In 325 A.D., Emperor Constantine made Christianity the national religion of Rome. He also founded the Christian Church in Byzantium, later called Constantinople, and all through the Dark Ages, in many parts of Europe, the cathedrals and church schools were the only gleam of learning in a time of darkness and struggle.
After the Roman Empire reached its greatest height, in the 2nd century, it gradually grew weaker and during the 4th and 5th centuries, the Goths, Vandals and Huns drove the government from Rome to Constantinople. In the 7th century Mohammedanism rose and swept over Syria, Egypt and North Africa, and reached Spain in the 8th century.
Answering Music
It is related that St. Ignatius (49–107 A.D.) one of the early Christian fathers, had a vision in which he heard the Heavenly choirs praising the Holy Trinity, in alternating chants, and he was so impressed by it, that he introduced into the Church the idea of two choirs of singers answering each other.
In singing the Psalms of David, the Hebrews used this idea of antiphonal music. (Anti—against, phonal—sounding: antiphonal—sounding against each other.) We see it too in the Greek choruses, in the Roman kitharoedic chants (chants accompanied by the kithara), and now in the early Christian hymns. From this antiphonal music to the later polyphony (poly—many, phony—sounds: many voices or parts) is a natural step. Here again is an instance of the influence of one nation on another.
The Patron Saint of Music
Among the martyrs to the cause of the Christian faith, was St. Cecilia, a member of a noble Roman family, who was put to death for becoming a Christian about 177 A.D. She is believed to be buried in the Roman catacombs (underground burial chambers) and is the patron saint of music, and she is supposed to have invented the organ.
It was St. Ambrose (333–397 A.D.) who worked out the first system for church music and put it on a foundation that lasted for two hundred years.