THE ROMAN RITUAL AND ITS CHANT
COMPARED WITH THE WORKS OF MODERN MUSIC.
II.—CONTINUED.
RESPECTIVE AUTHORITY, ECCLESIASTICAL AND MORAL.
Natural religion attaches the idea of authority to God. God is King, “Dominus Exercituum,” the Lord of Hosts, the one supreme absolute source of all power and authority. Moreover, society implies authority, in order that it may exist. In social life there cannot be discordant purposes and independent wills. Now, God called all created society into being out of nothing, and through the principle of authority and subjugation of the will maintains his work in love, happiness, and mutual concord. And in the scheme of redemption he has sent his church, a working society upon earth, to heal by her sweet and divine yoke of a lawful authority the social anarchies and disorders of a fallen race. In the church, then, as sent by him who is the absolute source of authority and order, governed by him, and in continual correspondence with him through prayer, we expect to find all her important elements and modes of acting upon, and of dealing with, mankind under the direction of the principle of authority; and since God declares of himself that he is a God of order, and the “author, not of confusion, but of peace in the churches” (1 Cor. xiv. 33), we conclude that God will contemplate sacred song in the Christian Church as subject to the principle of authority, as an instrument placed by himself at the disposal of the church for carrying out her divine work, and as such to be used, under the guidance and direction of the authority which governs her.
To put, then, what is meant by the claim about to be made that the Ritual or Gregorian Chant possesses this authority, in its true light, it would be a misconception to suppose that the notion of a positive authority is identical with that of absolute monopoly. The positive authority of the chant of the Ritual by no means implies that the use of modern music cannot, under certain conditions, enjoy a just toleration, as will be plain from an instance. The sick man who is slowly recovering from a severe disease may be fully aware of the positive authority which his physician has for many reasons attached to a particular rule of diet, and may yet have the permission occasionally to deviate from it. But now, if it be asked, what is this authority which is claimed for the Roman Ritual chant-books? it may be replied, if a spectator, at a review of British military, were to ask what authority the infantry regiments had for wearing red coats, he, I suppose, would be answered at once, that in a disciplined army the regimental uniform could not be otherwise than authorized. In the same manner, in an organized state of society so perfect as that of the Catholic Church, the mere existence of such song-books as the Gradual and Antiphonary, and their immemorial use in connection with the Missal and Breviary, necessarily implies their authority. It would be in place here, if space permitted, to cite the various archiepiscopal and episcopal synods that have made these or similar song-books the subjects of their legislation, providing, down to the minutest details, for the different questions which might be liable to arise out of their use. But it may here suffice to refer to the fact, not perhaps sufficiently known, that the whole of the Roman Liturgy, the entire Breviary, the whole of the Missal, except the few parts which the celebrant himself recites in an undertone of voice at the altar, has its proper notation in music, which every efficient choir-singer and celebrant priest is required to know, as the necessary accompaniment of his functions.
The authority, therefore, of the Ritual chant is to a considerable extent identified with that of the Ritual itself in the character of the authorized form of its solemn celebration. No other music has been at any time published by the church. No other is co-extensive with the Ritual; and the use, therefore, of any other, however permissible it may have become through force of circumstances, can only be regarded as a deviation from perfect Ritual rule.
That such was the view of the fathers of the Council of Trent is evident from the fact, that they seriously debated whether it might not be advisable to put an end to the scandalous musical excesses that had found their way into the church through the partial abandonment of the Ritual chant, by rendering it henceforth imperative. But though this measure was vehemently urged by more than one father as the best remedy for the evil complained of, still the father of the council at length declined to pass the decree. They seemed to have judged it to be on the whole wiser to leave the Ritual chant to its claims as the acknowledged and authorized song of the Liturgy, and to have thought that the remedy required was rather to be sought for in prayer to God to give his people a better and more sober mind than in a severe and peremptory legislation, which might end in provoking the further and worse evil of a more formal and open disobedience.
But to return to the subject of the positive ecclesiastical authority of the Ritual chant-books. The truth and the reason of this authority appear at once, on reflecting how impossible it is that a kingdom directed by the Spirit of God, under the government of a divinely founded hierarchy, should employ sacred song to the extent which the Catholic Church does, without a sanctioned and authenticated form of it. That this form should be absolutely imperative, to the rigid exclusion of every other, could occur to no one to maintain. But still, without an acknowledged body and form of song, of such indisputable authority as to claim the willing confidence of those whose calling is with sacred song, its efficacy is certainly lamed and its mission impeded. Men that have work to do in God’s vineyard require to know not merely the general truth that what they are engaged with is in the main good, but they also desire to know that the blessing of God is with the manner of their work, and the means they employ. Now, such confidence nothing but an authorized body of song can supply.
For what reason do we trust the church in her definitions of faith? Because we feel our own weakness; because we feel how impossible it is for the mind to repose on its own conclusions. We know, from a voice that speaks from within the heart, that our heavenly Father could not have given a revelation without the conditions necessary to fit it to meet our wants. And because we feel the need of a positive authority in matters of faith, we believe it to have been given, and that the Catholic Church is the depository of it, as alone possessing the satisfactory credentials. Now, although it may be true that an equal need for a positive authority in matters of song cannot be asserted, yet if ecclesiastical music do really possess those many healing virtues which at once betoken its divine origin and heavenly mission, it may be asked, is it a wise, is it a self-distrusting, is it a pious course for each individual to imagine himself free from such an authority? Is it not rather true that, in proportion as his sense of the heavenly mission of the ecclesiastical chant deepens, the more vivid will become his perception of the need of an express living authority to which the individual can commit himself, in perfect confidence that that song which a divinely directed hierarchy shall put forth and acknowledge as their own work, will be sure to carry along with it the blessing of God upon its use.