16,951
edits
Changes
m
link
Singing has been part of the liturgy since the earliest days of the Church. Until the mid-1990s, it was widely accepted that the psalmody of ancient Jewish worship significantly influenced and contributed to early Christian ritual and chant. This view is no longer generally accepted by scholars, due to analysis that shows that most early Christian hymns did not have Psalms for texts, and that the Psalms were not sung in [[synagogue]]s for centuries after the Destruction of the Second Temple in [[Anno Domini|AD]] 70.<ref>David Hiley, ''Western Plainchant'' pp. 484–5.</ref> However, early Christian rites did incorporate elements of ancient Jewish worship that survived in later chant tradition. Canonical hours have their roots in ancient Jewish prayer hours. "Amen" and "alleluia" come from [Hebrew, and the threefold "[[sanctus]]" derives from the threefold "kadosh" of the Kedusha.<ref>Willi Apel, ''Gregorian Chant'' p. 34.</ref>
The [[New Testament]] mentions singing hymns during the [[Last Supper]]: "When they had sung the hymn, they went out to the [[Mount of Olives]]" {{bibleverse||Matthew|26.30|NT}}. Other ancient witnesses such as [[Clement of Rome|Pope Clement I]], [[Tertullian]], [[Athanasius of Alexandria|St. Athanasius]], and Egeria confirm the practice,<ref>Apel, ''Gregorian Chant'' p. 74.</ref> although in poetic or obscure ways that shed little light on how music sounded during this period.<ref>Hiley, ''Western Plainchant'' pp. 484–7 and James McKinnon, ''Antiquity and the Middle Ages'' p. 72.</ref> The 3rd-century Greek "[[Oxyrhynchus hymn]]" survived with musical notation, but the connection between this hymn and the plainchant tradition is uncertain.<ref>McKinnon, James W.: "Christian Church, music of the early", Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed 11 July 2006), [http://www.grovemusic.com/ (subscription access)]</ref>
Musical elements that would later be used in the Roman Rite began to appear in the 3rd century. The ''[[Apostolic Tradition]]'', attributed to the theologian Hippolytus, attests the singing of Hallel psalms with Alleluia as the refrain in early Christian ''agape'' feasts.<ref>Hiley, ''Western Plainchant'' p. 486.</ref> Chants of the Office, sung during the canonical hours, have their roots in the early 4th century, when desert monks following [[Anthony the Great|St. Anthony]] introduced the practice of continuous psalmody, singing the complete cycle of 150 psalms each week. Around 375, antiphonal psalmody became popular in the Christian East; in 386, [[Ambrose|St. Ambrose]] introduced this practice to the West.
