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Morning and Evening Service, which are, for the most part, verses of the Psalms thus divided.

Although the practice of antiphonal psalmody was probably known in the days of the Apostles, it does not seem to have been reduced to system, and finally established in the Church, till the middle of the fourth century, when Flavian and Diodore, monks of Antioch, and afterwards bishops, the one of that see, the other of Tarsus, are said to have employed it, with singular success, to counteract the influence of the Arian heresy. In the Eastern Church, it was introduced by S. Basil, at Neocæsarea, about the middle of the fourth century; and by S. Chrysostom, about half a century later, at Constantinople. By both of these great Fathers of the Church it was used, as by Flavian at Antioch, for the protection of Catholic Truth, and the consolation of Catholic hearts, against the disturbing inroads of heretical error. By the heretics themselves the psalmody of the Church was variously treated; by Arius it was profanely counterfeited, by Sabellius decried as a wanton innovation. In answer to the latter charge, S. Basil pleads the precedent of numerous Eastern Churches, and thus bears incidental testimony to the prevalence, or, as we may say without any doubt, the universality, of the practice in his time.

It may be added, that the very early use of the antiphonal chant in the Christian Church is intimated by a heathen writer. Pliny, in his celebrated letter to the Emperor Trajan, describes the Christians of Pontus and Bithynia as chanting a hymn to our Lord "among themselves in turns," (secum invicem).

In the Western Church, the antiphonal chant was introduced at Rome by Pope Damasus towards the close of the fourth century, and, rather before that

time, at Milan by S. Ambrose. The latter bishop, indeed, is famous in ecclesiastical history for the wonders which he wrought, by the help of antiphonal psalmody, in quieting the excited feelings of the populace, who sided with him in his resistance to the impious demands of the Arian Empress Justina.* S. Augustine speaks in more than one place of his "Confessions" of the power of the Ambrosian chant as heard by him at Milan. It is an old tradition of the Church, that the Te Deum was the work of these two great saints, S. Ambrose and S. Augustine, and that it was composed for the baptism of the latter. Of the hymns and psalms sung on that occasion S. Austin speaks in these glowing terms:

"How many tears I shed during the performance of Thy hymns and chants, keenly affected by the notes of Thy melodious Church! My ears drank up those sounds, and they distilled into my heart as sacred truths, and overflowed thence again in pious emotion and gushed forth into tears, and I was happy in them."

In another place, he is almost disposed to contrast the chants of S. Ambrose with the simpler and severer tones of S. Athanasius, to the advantage of the latter.

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Sometimes, from over jealousy, I would entirely put from me and from the Church the melodies of the sweet chants which we use in the Psalter, lest our ears seduce us; and the way of Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, seems the safer; who, as I have often heard, made the reader chant with so slight a change of note, that it was more like speaking than singing. And yet, when I call to mind the tears I shed when I heard the chants of Thy Church in the infancy of

* See Fleury's Eccl. History, Oxford Translation, book xviii. c. 46; and "Church of the Fathers," c. 2.

my recovered faith, and reflect that at this time I am affected, not by the mere music, but by the subject, brought out, as it is, by clear voices and appropriate tune; then, in turn, I confess how useful is the practice."*

The Church of Alexandria, it may be observed, of whose practice in the time of S. Athanasius mention is here made, probably derived its method of chanting from the Essenes, a contemplative sect of the Jews, which had settlements in those parts, and of whose psalmody a writer of the first century gives the following description:

"They sing hymns composed in honour of God, varying in metre and in tune; chanting them sometimes in chorus, sometimes in antiphonal harmonies, ..... after the fashion of the hymn of thanksgiving sung after the passage of the Red Sea, when the quire of men was led by Moses, and of women by Miriam." +

But the name of all others most celebrated in the history of Antiphonal Chanting is that of the illustrious Saint from whom we derive the Gregorian Tones; Gregory the First and Great, Bishop of Rome from A.D. 590 to A.D. 604. That S. Gregory the Great did not introduce the antiphonal chant into Western Christendom, nor even into the Roman Church, is evident from what has been said: he did but "gather up the fragments" of an earlier antiquity; and give shape and method to sacred strains, which, in the West, may be directly traced up to S. Ambrose and S. Damasus, three centuries before him; through them into the Oriental Church; and so on to their springs in the very age of the Apostles

* Confessions, x. 50. Oxford Translation.

Philo Judæus De Vitâ Contemplativâ, p. 902; quoted in the Oxford Ed. of Hooker, Eccl. Pol. B. v. c. xxxix. [2.]

themselves. But, at all events, it is in the Gregorian Chant that the aboriginal music of the Church has been preserved from age to age; so that we to whose times it has descended, and among whom it is at this day in use, may have the comfort of feeling ourselves associated with the "Church of the Fathers," not merely through the words of our "Psalms, Hymns, and spiritual Canticles," but in the very tones in which we utter them.

The following short notice of S. Gregory the Great, and of his labours in the cause of ecclesiastical psalmody, appeared, some time since, in the pages of a periodical.

"S. Gregory, surnamed the Great, was born at Rome about A. D. 545. The Emperor Justin the Younger appointed him prefect of the city; but he speedily became weary of political life, and withdrew into a monastery. He was induced to return into public by Pope Pelagius II., who sent him A. D. 580 as his nuncio to Constantinople. On the death of the Emperor Tiberius, Gregory returned to Rome and became secretary to Pelagius. His heart, however, was all the while in the monastery whence he had been reluctantly withdrawn at the command of his ecclesiastical superior, and at length he obtained permission from the Pope to return to it. He was afterwards recalled to Rome by the great pestilence of which Pelagius died. On occasion of the plague, he instituted Litanies and solemn processions, interceding for the people night and day. On the death of Pelagius, Gregory was unanimously chosen to succeed him; but he shrank from the dignity, got himself conveyed out of the city in a basket, and hid himself in a wood. At length he was prevailed upon to return, and invested with the pontifical robes. He was consecrated Bishop of Rome in the year of our

Lord 590. He presided over the Church thirteen years, and died in 604. He was of a profound humility, and won the regard even of his enemies, by a rare kindness and moderation. The facts of his history seem to prove that his heart was above the world. Such was Gregory; a name which should be had in honour by all English Christians. He is remembered in our Calendar on the 12th of March, the day on which he was taken from the Church below. It is to be feared that in this country, which is largely in his debt, fewer think of him on that day than could be wished.

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Pope Gregory the Great remodelled the Antiphonary of the Roman Church, founded the schools for chanting, and instituted the 'canto fermo,' or plain chant, in the form in which it has been since carefully, or, as we may rather say, religiously preserved in the Church. It is worth mentioning that his various labours in the cause of religion were undertaken and accomplished against the discouragements of very bad health. It is related that he used to instruct his choristers from his bed; this bed was preserved with other mementos of his zeal and diligence to a late period. S. Gregory constructed his celebrated chant upon the basis of the Ambrosian, increasing the number of tones from four to eight. We believe, but we speak under correction, that the old Ambrosian chant is known at present only through the medium of the Gregorian. . . . A strong evidence against the genuineness of the present 'Ambrosian chant' is in the almost inevitable tendency of music to degenerate without such persevering care as there is no reason for believing has been bestowed upon any chant except the Gregorian. It has required the vigilance of Popes and the protests of Councils to guard the severe tones of Pope

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