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The greatest of them, Thomas Aquinas (thirteenth century) put it like this: Musical instruments in worship were condemned by various medieval theologians. For that, the Western Church had to wait another six hundred years. But this did not lead to widespread or regular use of the organ in worship.
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Pepin in turn presented it to the Church of St Corneille in Compiegne (north of Paris). It was presented to him as a gift by the Byzantine emperor Constantine V. The organ first seems to have come into Christian worship in the Western Church in the year 757, courtesy of the Frankish King Pepin. The use of musical instruments was rejected as contrary to the tradition of the Apostles - a feature of sensuous pagan or Old Testament Jewish worship, but not of spiritual Christian worship. In harmony with this, the situation in early Church worship was one of the "plain" or unaccompanied singing of psalms and hymns. This concern for the distinctiveness of New Testament worship, and for spirituality as its central feature, was typical of the early Church fathers. John Chrysostom adds his voice with the statement that instrumental worship "was only permitted to the Jews, like sacrifice, for the imbecility and grossness of their souls, God condescending to their weakness because they were only just drawn off idols," Augustine, the father we honour most in the West, was so worried about the distracting effect of melody - people enjoying the tune of the hymn rather than its truths - that he even suggested replacing singing by simple reciting. We also find Gregory of Nazianzus commenting on how much better it is in the Church that hymns and psalms replace the flutes and drums of the pagans. Whence the use of such instruments, and other things fit for children, is laid aside, and plain singing only retained. Plain singing is not childish, but only the singing with lifeless organs, with dancing and cymbals, etc. If songs were invented by unbelievers with a design of deceiving (probably a reference to Genesis 4:21), and were appointed under the law because of the childishness of their minds, why do they who have received the perfect instructions of grace, which are most contrary to the foresaid customs, nevertheless sing in the Churches, as they did who were children under the law?Ī. The treatise is in question-and-answer form: For example, we find the following in an unknown father of the second century. Many passages could be quoted from the fathers to show this. Even today the Eastern Orthodox Church does not permit organs. Some Fathers regarded it as pagan practice. It was looked upon as a form of worship which like the sacrifices of the Jerusalem temple prefigured the worship in spirit and truth. Dr Hughes Oliphant Old, in his work on The Patristic Roots of Reformed Worship, says:Īs is well known, the ancient Church did not admit the use of instrumental music in worship.
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They considered the practice as pagan or Jewish rather than Christian. The early Church fathers had strong views on the use of musical instruments in worship. It was not until the eighth century that musical instruments were first introduced into the worship of the Western Church. The early Church did not use musical instruments in its worship.