![]() Dennis then describes that great drama at once human and divine which is enacted in our sacred books, and in the liturgy, and continues: "Wherefore the sacred chants form, as it were, a universal hymn telling forth the things of God, and work in those who recite them devoutly an aptitude for either receiving or conferring the various sacraments of the Church. For in the whole sacred and inspired Book is shown forth God, the Creator and Disposer of all things." St. It was, in his conception, the preparation for the deepest mysteries of the faith. “The hallowed chant of the Scriptures," he writes, "which is essentially a part of all our mysteries, cannot be separated from the most sacred of them all (he is speaking of the mystery of the Eucharist or Synaxis). Dennis was of this opinion, and none have treated of the divine psalmody with greater insight than he. Paul: "Teach and admonish one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual canticles." In the mouth of the great Apostle this precept had all the force of law: rightly, therefore, may music be considered a constituent element of the Church's worship. She had, moreover, treasured those words of St. But Holy Church set her strength and her hope in her divine Head, that true Orpheus, whose voice has power to charm the beasts, and melt the very rocks. She inherited the traditions of antiquity, and gave a foremost place to the art of music, using it in her liturgy as well as for the instruction and sanctification of her children, no light task indeed when one recalls the state of society when that peaceful conquest was begun. The Catholic Church, that society of souls established by our Lord Jesus Christ, is the depository of all that is good and beautiful in the world. Rather was the soul to be lifted into a sphere of idealistic contemplation, there to find peace with herself and with the outer world, and so to rise to greater power of action." 3 Greek music may not always have remained faithful to this ideal, but it is enough to know that in its primitive purity it rose to such heights. The noise and bustle whither modern music carries our fancy, the representation of strife and strain, the portrayal of those opposing forces which contend for the mastery of the soul, were all alike unknown to the Greek mind. ![]() "The ancients," says Westphal, "never attempted to express the actual and passionate life of the soul. ![]() The very nature of that music, its dignity and simplicity, its gentle, tranquil movement seconded the master's endeavors, and led, as it were, naturally to the desired end. ![]() For, as a matter of fact, man's whole being has need of rhythm and of harmony." Their masters were insistent that "rhythm and harmony should be so identified with the minds of the young that as they became more balanced and composed, they might be better able to speak and act aright. It was, in their conception, the expression of order in all things: far from regarding it as a mere pastime, they made it the indispensable foundation of civilization and morality, a source of peace and of order for the soul, and of health and beauty for the body. "It is to serve no idle pleasures," he says in another place, "that the Muses have given us harmony, whose movements accord with those of the soul, but rather to enable us thereby to order the ill-regulated motions of the soul, even as rhythm is given us to reform our manners, which in most men are so wanting in balance and in grace." This was the high ideal which the Greeks had of music. ![]() "It is," he says, "art so ordering sound as to reach the soul, inspiring a love of virtue." He would have the best music to be that which most perfectly expresses the soul's good qualities. Plato has given us an excellent definition of music. ![]()
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