Quotes on Christians and Music

Quotes on Music:

• St. Augustine has said is true, that no one is able to sing things worthy of God except that which he has received from him.
• Augustin paraphrase.. music distracts me from the message
• Untrusting attitude of church toward music. Don't get crazy.
• John of Salisbury… in excess excite sensual but in order …The very service of the Church86 is defiled, in that before the face of the Lord, in the very sanctuary of sanctuaries, they, showing off [42] as it were, strive with the effeminate dalliance of wanton tones and musical phrasing to astound, enervate, and dwarf simple souls. When one hears the excessively caressing melodies of voices beginning, chiming in, carrying the air, dying away, rising again, and dominating, he may well believe that it is the song of the sirens and not the sound of men's voices; he may marvel at the flexibility of tone which neither the nightingale, the parrot, or any bird with greater range than these can rival. Such indeed is the ease of running up or down the scale, such the dividing or doubling of the notes and the repetitions of the phrases and their incorporation one by one; the high and very high notes are so tempered with low or somewhat low that one's very ears lose the ability to file:///D|/07%20AMH%201/3%20FD%20UNL/Licenciatura...of%20y,%20Policraticus,%20Books%201,%202,%203.htm (29 of 402)16-02-2005 20:08:22 John of Salisbury, Policraticus, Books 1, 2, 3 discriminate, and the mind, soothed by such sweetness, no longer has power to pass judgment upon what it hears. When this type of music is carried to the extreme it is more likely to stir lascivious sensations in the loins than devotion in the heart. But if it be kept within reasonable limits it frees the mind from care, banishes worry about things temporal, and by imparting joy and peace and by inspiring a deep love for God draws souls to association with the angels.
• Thomas Aquinas, in the introduction to his commentary on the Psalms, defined the Christian hymn thus: "Hymnus est laus Dei cum cantico; canticum autem exultatio mentis de aeternis habita, prorumpens in vocem." ("A hymn is the praise of God with song; a song is the exultation of the mind dwelling on eternal things, bursting forth in the voice.")
• “For even now, if believers choose to cheer themselves with musical instruments, they should, I think, make it their object not to dissever their cheerfulness from the praises of God. But when they frequent their sacred assemblies, musical instruments in celebrating the praises of God would be no more suitable than the burning of incense, the lighting up of lamps, and the restoration of the other shadows of the law. The Papists, therefore, have foolishly borrowed this, as well as many other things, from the Jews.” JOHN CALVIN
• John Chrysostom (347-407), Archbishop of Constantinople, wrote “that it [Psalm 63] was decreed and ordained by the primitive [church] fathers, that no day should pass without the public singing of this Psalm.”
• Charles H. Spurgeon said that, “This Psalm [Psalm 63] is peculiarly suitable for the bed of sickness, or in any constrained absence from public worship.”
• Matlbie Babcock’s “This is my Father's World” -- All nature sings, and round me rings, The music of the spheres.
• Karl Barth -- “The Christian church sings. It is not a choral society. Its singing is not a concert. But from inner, material necessity it sings. Singing is the highest form of human expression….What we can and must say quite confidently is that the church which does not sing is not the church. And where…it does not really sing but sighs and mumbles spasmodically, shamefacedly and with an ill grace, it can be at best only a troubled community which is not sure of its cause and of whose ministry and witness there can be no great expectation….The praise of God which finds its concrete culmination in the singing of the community is one of the indispensable forms of the ministry of the church.”
• John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion “the chief use of the tongue is in public prayers, which are offered in the assembly of the believers, by which it comes about that with one common voice, and as it were, with the same mouth, we all glorify God together, worshiping him with one spirit and the same faith”
• John Calvin, “we should be very careful that our ears be not more attentive to the melody than our minds to the spiritual meaning of the words….[S]uch songs as have been composed only for the sweetness and delight of the ear are unbecoming to the majesty of the church and cannot but displease God in the highest degree.”
• It is also important that the emotional power of music in worship be evocative rather than manipulative, honest rather than manufactured, and that the congregation’s singing allow for the full range of emotions in worship., https://www.faithward.org/the-theology-and-place-of-music-in-worship/
• John Chrysostom- everything must be banished which recalls the culture of pagan gods and the songs of actors.