It is unfortunately not within our power to indicate the point at which the Græco-Roman kitharœdic chant began to influence Christian religious music, nor do the relative proportions of a general history permit us to study the question here. However, it is sufficient for us to know that the kitharœdic chant was the direct ancestor of the Christian hymnody in the West. ‘Among various kinds of pieces of which the Roman antiphonary is composed,’ says Gevaert, ‘none is known by literary documents to be so old as the strophic hymnody; from the musical point of view it marks the transition from the vocal melopæia of antiquity to the liturgical chant properly so called.’ We find this transition fully accomplished in the hymns of St. Ambrose (d. 397), who is unquestionably the most striking and influential figure in early liturgical music. Gevaert aptly calls him the ‘Terpander of Western Christianity.’ His works are full of reference to music, many of which are naïvely charming. For example, he writes: ‘The angels praise the Lord, the powers of heaven sing psalms unto him, and even before the very beginning of the world the cherubim and seraphim sang with sweet voice Holy, Holy, Holy!’ He mentions the music of the spheres and recalls that it has been said the axle of heaven itself turned with a perpetual sweet sound that might be heard in the uttermost parts of the earth where there are certain secrets of Nature; that the wild beasts and birds might be soothed with the delight of voices blending. Even more practical, he points out that those things we wish well to remember we are accustomed to sing, for that which is sung stays the better in our memories. His hymns produced a great effect upon St. Augustine, who wrote of them in his ‘Confessions’ in terms almost extravagant; and a whole century later Cassiodorus constantly cites St. Ambrose and bears witness to the wide and everlasting nature of his influence on Christian hymnody.

Six hymns which have come down to us are attributed with certainty to this gifted saint. They are the Deus creator omnium, Jam surgit hora tertia, Æterne rerum conditor, Veni redemptor gentium, Illuxit orbi jam dies, and Bis ternas horas explicans. Probably also he was the author of O lux beata Trinitas, Hic est dies verus Dei, Splendor paternæ gloriæ, and Æterna Christi munera. The melodic forms of these hymns are borrowed directly from the Greeks and Romans. Stripped of their melismas their primitive contours are easily recognizable, and their structure is thoroughly in accord with the modal theory of the classic Greeks. All of these hymns which seem to be the most ancient belong to one of the principal kitharœdic modes—the Dorian, Iastian, or Æolian. The Ambrosian hymns in the Dorian mode have the same melodic texture as the hymn to Helios and the main part of the song to the Muse (see pp. 126-127 above). Hymns after the manner of Ambrose in the Iastian and Æolian modes are frequent in the Catholic hymnody.[49]

The Græco-Roman complexion of the Ambrosian hymns is still further evident in their metrical form. ‘The old ecclesiastical hymns composed in iambic dimeters and ascribed to Bishop Ambrose,’ says Riemann, ‘are still firmly founded upon the antique art, as they respect absolutely the quantity of the syllables and introduce long syllables and short ones only where it is in accordance with the laws of classic poetry.’[50] The eight syllable iambi of the Ambrosian verse became extremely popular in ecclesiastical hymnody, and the Breviary, as it is to-day, contains many hymns in that measure. But this was not the only metrical form of classic Rome that became incorporated in the liturgy of the Church. Vanantius Fortunatus in the sixth century introduced the trochaic tetrameter, which was a favorite popular verse among the ancient Romans, and still survives in the rhythm of the Roman saltarello and the Neapolitan tarantella. The elegant Sapphic strophe, so dear to Latin lyricists, made its appearance subsequent to the Carlovingian epoch. As long as Latin prosody remained dominant the ecclesiastical hymns were more or less metrical, but as literary Latin passed into desuetude these chants lost their isochronous rhythm. At the beginning of the eighth century the vogue of metrical verse had already passed. With it passed, too, the classic melopæia which had gradually become enriched by accessory inflexions.[51]

There was quite a large school of hymn writers in the Ambrosian style, among whom may be mentioned especially St. Augustine (350-430), St. Paulinus of Nola (ca. 431), the Spanish poet Prudentius (fourth century),[52] Sedulius (fifth century), Ennodius and Venantius Fortunatus (sixth century). The style spread rapidly from Milan into the different western provinces of the Roman empire. A text of the time of Sidonius Apollinaris (second half of the fifth century) tells us that at the feast of Christmas all the churches of Gaul and Italy resounded to the hymn Veni creator gentium, and Rhabanus Maurus, bishop of Mayence in the middle of the ninth century, tells us that the Ambrosian hymns were then in use in all the churches of the West.[53] Further proof of their wide prevalence is furnished by the rules of St. Benedict and Aurelian of Arles (first half of sixth century). For many centuries, however, they were frowned upon by Rome. The Council of Braga (563) expressly excluded from the divine office all chants in verse and all texts not taken from the sacred scriptures. Three centuries later the deacon Amalarius, charged by Louis the Pious with regulating the chants of the office for all the churches of the Frankish empire, leaves hymns completely aside in conformity with the usage of Rome at that time. In fact, the local rite of Rome had not yet welcomed hymns as late as the beginning of the twelfth century.

III

Priority is given to the Ambrosian hymns in this discussion, not because they are the most ancient forms of liturgical chant, but because they form the most easily demarcable point of transition from Græco-Roman music to Christian ecclesiastical music. The most ancient forms of the liturgy undoubtedly had their genesis in the Orient. There, of course, the influence of Greek music was also active, though to what extent it affected the Hebrew traditions we cannot even surmise. We find, too, the vogue of the kitharœdic chant even greater among the Roman citizens of the Orient than among the inhabitants of Italy. The former carried their passion for this form of expression to the extent of engraving the songs with their melodies on funeral monuments. It may again be remarked, however, that the first Christians were not of the class likely to be influenced easily by extraneous culture. Acquainted with foreign music they undoubtedly were. The apostles, for instance, speak of the Greek ‘zither’ as a familiar instrument.[54] But this acquaintance was in all probability superficial. Humble and uneducated for the most part, those pioneers of a new cult were of the sort with whom custom and tradition die hard. They were reared in the atmosphere of the synagogue; and it must be remembered that they were not iconoclasts of the Hebrew faith, but rather professed reformers and purifiers of it. The Temple of Solomon, the Ark of the Covenant, the patriarchs and prophets were subjects as sacred to them as they were to older generations of the children of Israel. Their quarrel was not with the Jews, but with such Jews as refused to recognize their new king. While, therefore, they had every reason for avoiding the music of the Pagan Greeks and Romans, they had no reason whatever for abandoning that which had been handed down to them from David. They certainly took over the texts of the Old Testament psalmody, and it is a natural assumption that with them they adopted the music to which these texts were sung. We may conjecture with some plausibility that the psalmodic solo, responsorial chant, and antiphonal chant—all ancient Hebrew liturgical forms—passed directly from the Temple and Synagogue into the first Christian communities, with such minor changes as may have been necessitated by the new ritual and attendant upon the transference of its conduct from trained cantors to untrained laymen.

The psalmodic solo has no special significance in the development of the Christian liturgy. Of more importance is the responsorial chant, which consists of a solo interrupted periodically by the voice of the people.[55] It is very probable that this form of psalmody was in use among the first Christians, though we have no direct evidence on the point. We learn, however, from church historians that psalms were sung in this fashion at Alexandria in the time of Bishop Athanasius in the early part of the fourth century. The antiphonal chant, which is the most interesting and important of liturgical forms, is of extreme antiquity. David, we know, divided the singers of the Temple into two choirs. Whether this form passed directly and without interruption from the Temple and Synagogue into the religious services of the first Christians we have no means of knowing. It was, however, adopted at a very early date by Christian communities in the Orient. Eusebius, bishop of Cesarea (third century) reproduces a text of Philo in which occurs the following description: ‘Suddenly all rose on both sides ... and formed two choirs, men and women. Each choir chose its coryphee and soloist ... then they sang to God hymns of different melodies and metres, sometimes together and sometimes answering each other in suitable manner.’ As showing the early expansion of this style of singing throughout the Christian world we may quote from a letter of St. Basil (fourth century) to the inhabitants of Nova Cesarea. ‘The people rise in the night,’ he writes, ‘and go to the house of prayer; when they have prayed they pass to the psalms. Sometimes they divide into two alternate parts, sometimes a soloist sings and all answer; and having thus passed the night in divers psalms they intone all together, as one voice and one heart, the penitential psalm.... If it is for this reason [the organization of the psalmody] you wish to separate from me you must also separate from the Egyptians and Lybians, from the inhabitants of Thebes, Palestine, Arabia, Phœnicia, Syria, and the banks of the Euphrates—in a word, from all those who hold in honor vigils and psalms performed in common.’ It may be remarked that the antiphon originally was merely the alternate singing of two choirs. Later it came to mean the solo refrain intoned by the high priest before the biblical psalm or canticle and repeated by the choir when the psalm or canticle is finished. According to the rules of St. Benedict this solo refrain was intended to give (imponere) the melody to the singers. Musically, says Gevaert, it forms the introduction and finale of the psalmodic chant to which it is bound by a community of mode. It probably took the place of an earlier instrumental introduction and finale, as, for some reason or reasons upon which it is idle to speculate, instruments were excluded from the services of the primitive church.

It was in the monasteries of the East, of Syria and Egypt, that the forms of the liturgy first began to take shape, and in Antioch and Alexandria there developed schools of singing which were to the Greek churches of the East what the schola cantorum was to the Latin churches of the seventh and eighth centuries. In the fourth century, as we may gather from the canons of the council of Laodicea, they had already trained singers in the churches of Syria, and St. Augustine speaks of the singing of St. Athanasius as if the latter must have had a careful schooling in the art. Silvia, the Gallic pilgrim, mentions the singing of antiphons and psalms in the church at Alexandria (385-88). In the fifth century, as we learn from a letter of Sidonius Apollinaris, Syrian cantors were used in Italian churches.

The prejudice against Pagan music, which must have excluded all Greek or Græco-Roman influences from the Christian services of apostolic times, proved hard to kill. We find it cropping out even in Clement of Alexandria, who admits only ‘modest and decent harmonies’ and excludes harmonies that are ‘chromatic and light, such as are used in the lascivious orgies of courtesans.’ By that time, however, the prejudice apparently had become discriminating. The extraordinary popularity of the kitharœdic songs was bound to have its influence. The heresiarchs were not slow to recognize the hold of profane melodies on the people, and composed dogmatic chants to the melodies of popular songs, much in the manner of the Salvation Army of our day. Arius, for instance, the great heresiarch who was condemned by the council of Nicea (325), reproduced in his Thalia the lascivious musical forms of the Ionian Sotades—to the great scandal of Athanasius. St. Ephraem (320-79), adopting the same idea, turned the Syrians from the songs of Harmonius by writing hymns in the Syrian language on the same melodies, and Gregory of Nazianza (328-89) composed canticles to take the place of the heterodox psalms of the Apollinarists.

While probably there was never any break in the communication between the churches of the East and those of the West, it is likely that they developed their liturgical forms more or less independently until about the middle of the fourth century. Then the floodgates of Oriental influence seem to have been opened by St. Hilarius and St. Ambrose. The former, who was bishop of Poitiers, is said to have introduced into his church the antiphonal and other forms of psalmody then practised in the churches of Asia, where he had lived in exile for four years (356-60). He is supposed to have introduced the Syrian hymnody into the Western Church. ‘Hymnorum carmine floruit primus,’ Isidor of Seville said of him. He is credited with having been the pioneer of the metrical style of hymn known as Ambrosian, though the three hymns from his pen which have been preserved hardly bear out this contention. They are crude in rhythm and not likely to have served as models for the cultured Ambrose. From all available evidence one is impelled to award to St. Ambrose the honor of having first introduced antiphonal psalmody to the West.[56] Indeed there is little doubt that he was the real founder of the Latin chant in general. Ecclesiastical songs, as we have already seen, had already developed, both in the East and in the West, to something like a formal art; but Ambrose seems to have been the first to gather together the various elements composing it and lay the foundations of a strictly ordered liturgy. From Milan the antiphonal psalmody spread through all the churches of the West. Even Rome, which until the twelfth century excluded the Ambrosian hymns, adopted antiphonal psalmody in the time of Pope Celestine I (422-32).[57] It is to Rome that one must look for the subsequent development of liturgical song; though until the time of the great schism the formative influences were more Byzantine than Latin. St. Leo the Great (440-61) established in the immediate vicinity of the Basilica of St. Peter a monastic community especially entrusted with the service of the canonical hours, under the patronage of Saints John and Paul, and this was followed in the second half of the seventh century by the community of St. Martin and, under Gregory III (731-41), by that of St. Stephen.