All of the arguments for and against the use of instruments in
public worship have been considered for centuries without final
resolution. Marvin Vincent discussed the
opinions of some of the church fathers on both sides of the issue. He stated, “Some think that the verb here has
its original signification of singing with an instrument. This is the dominant sense in the Septuagint
and both Basil and Gregory of Nyssa define a psalm as implying instrumental
accompaniment; and Clement of Alexandria, while forbidding the use of the flute
in the agape, permitted the harp. But
neither Ambrose nor Chrysostom mention it in their panegyrics upon music,
mention instrumental music, and Basil expressly condemns it. Bingham dismisses the matter summarily, and
cites Justin Martyr as saying that instrumental music was not used in the
Christian church.” Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament by Marvin R Vincent pp. 269-270
One can see from the opinions of the church fathers that they
were of differing opinions concerning the use of instruments with vocal
music. The greatest impetus for
supporting the use of instruments in worship is the fact that the worship
examples in the Bible record very clearly that instrumental music was a part of
ancient public worship and is therefore definitely an ancient landmark of
worship.
Whether or not the church fathers supported the use of
instrumental worship in worship is not the sine qua non of historical musical
worship. Although every Christian
musician would be interested in what went on musically in the early church,
their beliefs and policies should never be considered a higher authority than
what is recorded about musical worship in the Bible.
No comments:
Post a Comment