Quotes from Church Fathers on Psalm Singing

The following are quotations from early church fathers on psalm-singing. They are taken from "A Brief History of Psalm-singing in the Ancient Church," by R. Mark Shipp, and A Cappella Music in the Public Worship of the Church, by Everett Fergusion. Used by permission.

Clement of Alexandria, died 215 AD. in The Stromata, chapter I, he commands the singing of “David” (the quotation is from Ps. 51:7–12) to the faithful laborer:

And let each of these, according to the blessed David, sing, giving thanks. “Thou shalt sprinkle me with hyssop, and I shall be cleansed. Thou shalt wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Thou shalt make me to hear gladness and joy, and the bones which have been humbled shall rejoice. Turn Thy face from my sins. Blot out mine iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit in my inward parts. Cast me not away from Thy face, and take not Thy Holy spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Thy salvation, and establish me with Thy princely spirit."

Tertullian (ca. 160-ca. 225 AD)

Tertullian lists the acts of worship as "when the scriptures are read, or the psalms are chanted, or sermons are preached, or prayers are sent up" (On the Soul, 9.4; On Prayer, 27-28).

Eusebius (ca. 260-before 341 AD)

Eusebius summarizes Christian worship as "The singing of psalms and recitation of other such words as have been given us from God" (Church History X.iii.3).

In his "Commentary on Psalms" he says

Throughout the world—in cities, in villages, and in the country—in all the churches of God the people of Christ, who have been chosen out of all the nations, send up, not to the native gods nor to demons but to the one God spoken of by the prophets, hymns and psalmody with a loud voice so that the sound of those singing can be heard by those standing outside.

Ambrose (ca. 338-397)

[W]hen the psalm is recited it makes its own "silence," since all are speaking and there is no disturbance. Psalms are sung by emperors; the common people rejoice in them. Each man does his utmost in singing what will be a blessing to all... Psalmody unites those who disagree, makes friends of those at odds, brings together those who are out of charity with one another. Who could retain a grievance against the man with whom he had joined in singing before God? The singing of praise is the very bond of unity..." (On Psalm One, Exposition 9).

John Chrysostom (c.347– c.407)
They all met together and in old time and responded to the Psalms in common. This we do also now, but then among all there was one soul and one heart (Homily XXXVI, On 1 Corinthians, 14:33).

The Costly Loss of Psalm-Singing in the Church

Presented at Friends’ Day, AGST, 9/16/06 by R. Mark Shipp

Introduction

I grew up in an environment in which few psalms were sung in church. Indeed, when one looks at the Great Songs of the Church (Number Two), its three sections include Hymns, Spiritual Songs (“gospel songs”), and Special Songs, but, interestingly, no special section for Psalms. The “new” Great Songs (1986) has abandoned any attempt at organization surrounding “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs” in favor of a modified trinitarian arrangement—songs of God the Father, Jesus the Son, and songs of the Church and Christian discipleship (presumably songs in some way related to the presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church). When one looks at the scripture index in the back of each volume, one finds that there are 126 “references” to psalms in the old Great Songs and 109 “references” to psalms in the new Great Songs, exclusive of indexed psalm readings. These are by no means all metrical versions or paraphrases of psalm texts; most are simply references or allusions to psalm passages.

When one compares recent hymnals and song collections with those of previous generations, one is struck by the paucity of metrical psalm settings in those published more recently. In The Hymnal for Worship and Celebration, a popular Evangelical hymnal, there are 105 references or allusions to psalms, but not a single one alluding to or paraphrasing more than 2 verses. The Hymnal (Episcopal Church, 1982) contains metrical versions of 23 psalms out of 720 entries—fairly typical of 20th century hymnals. The Baptist Hymnal (1956) has only 11 psalm entries of any kind.

The Function of Psalmody in the Church

Compare this decline of Psalm singing in recent years with the rich history the Psalms have had in both synagogue and church worship traditions. The unselfconscious appropriation of Old Testament psalms in the early centuries A. D. by Christians is witness to the foundational character of psalmody in church worship. In short, the canonical psalms have not been the exclusive resource for singing in the church (witness the Philippian Hymn to Christ, the Magnificat in Luke 1, etc.), but have been the primary resource. I suggest that the Psalms have functioned, and continue to function, in these ways: they inform the theology of Christian worship and provide the movement and vocabulary of worship; they provide the individual worshipper with the vocabulary of lament, praise, and thanksgiving; and they give the community resources for dealing with crises.

The Psalms and the Theology of Christian Worship

The Psalms provide critical and useful parameters for worship; i.e., they set boundaries for what is an appropriate expression of worship to a holy and loving God. But this must be qualified: not all expressions of worship in the Psalter are appropriate for Christians today. For one thing, we do not engage in temple worship and the sacrificial system has been discontinued. For another, some imagery is difficult or elusive for us, such as the destructive power of God’s theophanic presence in Psalm 29. In general, though, the theology of the Psalms informs our worship in at least these ways: they provide appropriate ways of thinking about God; they depict the full panorama of human expressions of grief, joy, penitence, and thanksgiving; and they provide us with appropriate expressions and movements in worship.

Psalms Theology and Concepts of God: The Psalms help us to know who it is we are worshipping in the language of religious and poetic metaphor. Some of these metaphors appear foreign to our usual ways of conceptualizing God, but are important and even critical when understood correctly. One of the more prevalent images of God in the Psalms is that of king. This is particularly evident in the Psalms of God’s Kingship (93, 95-99, 29, etc.), but his kingship also shows up elsewhere in the Psalms, such as the Royal Psalms, reflecting the human king and his relationship with the divine king. As soon as we come to Psalm 2, we immediately encounter a difficulty for the egalitarian and democratic nature of American society and even most churches—how can we conceive of God as king, when we often think of kings as despots who rule by the arbitrary exercise of force? In almost every instance of such passages, however, God exercises his kingship to defeat the malevolent forces contrary to his shalom (such as Psalm 2) and especially on behalf of his covenant people (psalm 99) and the poor, the weak, and needy (Psalm 72). God as king is a metaphor for his sovereign sway over his creation and his righteous and compassionate rule over his people.

God as creator, preserver, or convulser of his creation is common in many of the Psalms. It is difficult to read these passages without thinking of storms, earthquakes, and the like; a few years ago, a cartoonist depicted God in heaven casting down thunderbolts from heaven, while saying “Metaphorical? I’ll give you metaphorical!“ Perhaps the best known of these psalms dealing with God’s creative and destructive power is Psalm 29:

The voice of the LORD is powerful, the voice of the LORD is full of majesty. The voice of the LORD breaks the cedars, the LORD breaks the cedars of Lebanon. He makes Lebanon to skip like a calf, and Sirion like a young wild ox. The voice of the LORD flashes forth flames of fire.
The voice of the LORD shakes the wilderness, the LORD shakes the wilderness of Kadesh (vv. 4-8).

Such passages demonstrate forcefully God’s power over his creation. He is sovereign over all destructive and chaotic elements, and the mightiest natural forces known to mankind are simply tools at his command. The pastoral point must not be missed: all the chaos and disruption in the world, all the Katrinas and tsunamis combined are not somehow beyond the power and control of the Almighty. Yet another important point: where do those who sing this psalm experience God’s power and majesty in its holiness and awe-inspiring splendor most completely? Psalm 29:9 says “And in his temple all say ‘Glory!’” It is in worship where we perceive that the chaos in the natural world, in the political world, and in our relationships is under the sovereign power, control, and compassion of the Lord.

Perhaps the most prevalent image of God in the Psalms is that of covenant-keeper; he is the one who answers prayer. In his work They Cried to the Lord, Patrick Miller suggests that it is the covenant commitment of God to be near to those who cry out to him. While this is a common motif in the Psalms, Psalm 107 in particular is the psalm of the cry to the Lord and his response:

Some wandered in desert wastes, finding no way to a city to dwell in; hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted within them. Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress.

Notice in particular the last line: “Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress.” This is the common refrain throughout the psalm, occurring in verses 6, 13, 19, and 28, in response to physical and spiritual distress. Indeed, the entire Psalm is about God’s steadfast loyalty and reliability—in Hebrew the little word hesed—underscored by the occurrence of this word in both the opening and closing verses of the Psalm. He is the one who is reliable to answer our prayers when we cry out in in lament and Thanksgiving. It is to these responses to God in lament, praise, and thanksgiving to which we now turn.

The Panorama of Human Responses: The Psalter is remarkably comprehensive in its depiction of the human condition and in its portrayal of the worshipper’s response to God. Contrary to many modern voices which call for very few if any “downer” songs, echoing the tendency of pop radio to avoid soft, slow, or contemplative songs, the Psalter is roughly 1/2 composed of laments. At least three types or genres of psalms are represented: laments, thanksgivings, and hymns of praise. There are also many sub-categories, which more or less fall under these types: wisdom psalms (1, 119), Zion (46) and royal psalms (2, 72, 110), psalms of trust, entrance liturgies (25), pilgrimage songs (120-134), and even a royal wedding (45). Individuals lament due to the presence of sin (psalm 51), oppressors or false accusations (5), illness (6 and 22), etc. Communities lament due to famine (possibly 126), corporate sin (106), military conquest, or exile (137).

The full range of responses to God in times of crisis, thanksgiving for deliverance, and praise to God for what he has done in creation and redemption is represented in the corporate worship of Israel. I have heard it said that we are not the people of the lament, that in Christ it is no longer appropriate to lament; we are the people of praise, only. It strikes me that this is like saying to a small child, “It is not appropriate for you to cry to me when you are hurt or frightened, because I love you and provide for you.” In the same way, the Psalter encourages us to bring our brokenness, our despair, our thanksgiving, and our joy before the throne of the one who not only breaks the oaks and makes the mountains dance (29), but who also calms and quiets our souls, like a child in its mother’s lap (131). To fail to engage the full range of lament, thanksgiving, and praise is, I think, to fail to take seriously the fact that in a congregation of 500, at least 250 of them are in the middle of a profound crisis any given Sunday.

The Psalms and Christian Worship: It is a truism that the Psalter is the hymnbook of the second temple. Whatever the origin of individual psalms, the book of Psalms as a collection has come down to us as a type of hymnal. There are many indications of this. First, there are specific, probably musical directions given in the superscriptions or internally in several psalms (i.e., many of them are indicated for the mnatseah, usually translated “choir director,” found 55 times in the Psalter; possible tunes such as the “Doe of the Dawn;” and liturgical terms such as selah). Also, there are several internal indications in the book that the collection as a whole is intended for corporate worship, such as the response pattern in Psalm 136 (“For he is good, for his loyalty is everlasting”), the call to respond with “Glory!” in Psalm 29:9, and the call “Let all the people say ‘Amen! Praise the Lord!’” in Psalm 106:48.

There is also a kind of literary and theological movement in individual psalms and in the entire book. Walter Brueggemann has noted that there is a movement from what he calls orientation (creation and some wisdom psalms which depict God in heaven and a stable and responsive world), to disorientation (lament due to the collapse of previous stability), to re-orientation (thanksgiving for deliverance from the peril or difficulty, and anticipation of praise). There is a particular movement from psalms of stability, to lament, to thanksgiving, to praise, which should not be overlooked. First, many individual laments remember the good times of the past and lament the distress of the present (Psalm 22). Second, laments almost always look forward to deliverance and offering sacrifices of thanksgiving and praise (psalm 22, 6, etc.). Third, thanksgiving psalms often recall the distress of the past, the cry to the Lord, his response, and the deliverance of the Lord (Psalm 32), and look forward to praise. Hymns of praise praise the Lord for what he has done in creation and redemption. There is a movement, therefore, between many of the types of psalms corresponding to the experience of worshippers who cry out to the Lord and wait for his deliverance.

But there is a movement in the Psalter as a whole, as well. In Hebrew, the book is called the Book of Praises, but this title is by no means the obvious designation from the first half of the book. Books 1-3 are are comprised largely of laments, while books 4-5 contain many of the hymns, suggesting that there is a movement from lament to praise in the Psalter as a whole. Perhaps it is fair to say that indeed it is the book of praises, and that we are the people of praise, but it is a visceral, gutsy kind of praise, praise which comes on the other side of lament.

What I mean to say is this: not only does the Psalter portray the whole panorama of human responses to God, it provides structured lament, thanksgiving, and praise for individual and corporate worship. For example, lament is not just a cry; it is a cry to God. It is not the absence of faith, it is faith on the edge, quintessential faith, when one is hanging by a single fingernail, but nevertheless cries out to God. It is structured grief, faith in the middle of chaos, focussed and directed towards the Lord of the storm, and it looks ahead to God’s eventual and certain response. Thanksgivings are not just mindless recitation of thanks, but the offering of gratitude to God for his intervention and deliverance. Praise is not just a a mantra—praise, praise, praise, praise—but there is always content to that praise, indicated in the Psalms by the little word “for.” Praise is due him because of what he has done in the world and what he has done in the life of the worshipper.

In some ways the Psalms may provide structure for our corporate worship as well. We must never forget that we come into the presence of a holy God, broken and unprofitable vessels. It is only because a death has occurred—our Lord’s and subsequently our own—that we can come into his presence at all. We as ministers of the Word have the privilege of bringing to our congregations a word of judgment and grace: judgment, because the world, its corruption and values have been judged; grace, because in our corruption and need God has not abandoned us but has brought us into his presence through the blood of his son. The Psalms help us to recognize in corporate and individual worship the reality of sin, judgment, sickness, and evil, as well as the reality of God’s overwhelming grace and compassion.

A Brief History of Psalm Singing in the Bible and in the Early Church

by Mark Shipp, Austin Graduate School of Theology, 3/21/08

Explicit references to canonical psalms outside of the Psalter are sparse. 2 Samuel 22 is virtually in toto psalm 18. The “Psalmic Refrain,” kî tôb, kî le`ôlam hasdô, “for he is good, for his loyalty is everlasting,” is found a number of times within and without the Psalter (Pss. 100:5; 106:1; 107:1; 118:1, 2, 3, 4, 29; 136:1–26, 138:8, Jeremiah 33:11; Ezra 3:11; 1 Chronicles 16:34, 41; 2 Chronicles 5:13; 7:3, 6; and 20:21). Within the Psalter, there are several indications that they were sung—note psalm 106:48, the apparent response pattern in psalm 136, the call for response in psalm 29:9, and the possible musical instructions in the psalm superscriptions (such as “According to the Doe of the Dawn,“ psalm 22, “According to the ‘Eighths’,” psalms 6 and 12, etc.) and the recurrence of the enigmatic selah (such as in psalms 3:2, 4, and 8).

The first reference to psalm singing in a worship setting outside of the book of Psalms is found in 1 Chron. 16:4–33. This “new psalm” of David is composed from the bricks and mortar of three older canonical psalms: psalms 96, 105, and 106. While 96 is difficult to date, psalms 105 and 106 are patently post-exilic. leading many scholars to the conclusion that this psalm is the “sort of thing” David may have composed for the installation of the ark in Jerusalem, but that its overt themes, motifs, and concerns are those of post-exilic Judah. Regardless of its original setting and authorship, it is clear that the very first allusion to singing in corporate worship refers to three canonical psalms.

Explicit references to the book of Psalms, or psalm singing, in the New Testament is uncommon, but exists. The canonical book of Psalms is mentioned in Luke 20:42 and 24:44, Acts 1:20, and Acts 13:33. References to or commands to sing psalms (psalmoi) are found in 1 Corinthians 14:26, Eph. 5:19, and Col. 3:16, where the singing of psalms always begins the list. Psalmoi is the normal translation into the Greek Septuagint of the Hebrew mizmor, usually translated ”psalm” in many superscriptions to the Psalms. “Song,“ Greek ode, is also found in the New Testament. It appears to be distinct from psalmoi in Eph. 5:19 and Col. 3:16. The word occurs three times in Revelation as songs the 24 elders and the redeemed sing in heaven (5:9, 14:3, 15:3). Another word for psalm, hymnos, also translates mizmor in the Septuagint of Psalms and occurs a few times in the New Testament. Most significantly, Jesus and the disciples “sing a hymn” after the Passover meal in Matthew and Mark’s account. This hymn should probably be considered one of the “Halleluyah” psalms of Psalms 111–118, associated with Passover celebrations. Hughes Old draws our attention to the possible citation of Pss. 96 and 98 in the “New Song” that they sing, as well as to the prayer the disciples offered after the deliverance of Peter and John, a quotation of Psalm 2 in Acts 4:25–26.

Psalm-singing in the Early and Medieval Church: Ferguson states that “the Psalms of the Old Testament continued to be used by Christians in their worship.” Hurtado suggests

[A] great part of earliest Christian hymnody involved the chanting of Old Testament psalms, interpreted christologically. Indeed, the influence of Psalm 110 and other psalms reflected in the New Testament is probably to be accounted for by positing their familiarity through wide and frequent usage in earliest Christian worship. I suggest that in the setting of early Christian worship, . . . the Old Testament psalms. . . were ‘unlocked’ as predictions of Jesus and as descriptions of his glory. . . . Along with this christological interpretation/appropriation of OT psalms, there were also fresh compositions pneumatically inspired and patterned after the biblical psalms.

Eric Werner agrees, and states that

The Church itself proclaims the synagogal origin of many of its musical traditions. . . Eusebius states. . . that the Psalmody of the Jewish Therapeuts, as described by Philo, was absolutely identical with the Christian Psalmody of his own time. The complaint of Diodor of Tarsus, that the Church is imitating Jewish songs, confirms the above statements. . . Damasus and Coelestinus state that the Psalms have been rendered according to Jewish tradition.

In the second century, singing in Christian worship is attested in Pliny’s letter to Trajan and in the letters of Ignatius of Antioch, although direct evidence of psalm singing is scant.

At the end of the second century, Clement of Alexandria (died 215 A. D.) explicitly mentions the practice of psalm-singing and, in The Stromata, chapter I, commands the singing of “David” (the quotation is from Ps. 51:7–12) of the faithful laborer:

And let each of these, according to the blessed David, sing, giving thanks. “Thou shalt sprinkle me with hyssop, and I shall be cleansed. Thou shalt wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Thou shalt make me to hear gladness and joy, and the bones which have been humbled shall rejoice. Turn Thy face from my sins. Blot out mine iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit in my inward parts. Cast me not away from Thy face, and take not Thy Holy spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Thy salvation, and establish me with Thy princely spirit.

Clement also characterizes the kind of devotional life the ”Christian Gnostic” lives:

And his whole life is a holy festival. His sacrifices are prayers, and praises, and readings in the Scriptures before meals, and psalms and hymns during meals and before bed, and prayers also again during night. By these he unites himself to the divine choir, from continual recollection, engaged in contemplation which has everlasting significance.

At the beginning of the third century, relative to a Montanist “prophetess,” Tertullian (ca. 160–230 A. D.) mentions the chanting of psalms as a church practice and inadvertently presents us with the standard liturgical sequence:

Whether it be the reading of Scriptures, or in the chanting of psalms, or in the preaching of sermons, or in the offering up of prayers, in all these religious services matter and opportunity are afforded to her seeing visions.

Tertullian also advocates the singing of psalms privately between spouses and by individual men alone. John Chrysostom (347–407 A.D.) addresses a homily to church leaders and mentions teaching, the “chanting of two or three Psalms,“ and prayers as insufficient for salvation, if the heart is not right. Athanasius (298–373), in the Life of St. Antony, says that Antony advised monks to “sing Psalms before sleeping and after.” He also quotes Antony to the effect that demons “pretend to sing Psalms without appearing, and to quote sayings from Scripture,” suggesting that psalm-singing and scripture reading were common devotional practice in the fourth century.

Also in the fourth century, Basil of Caesarea (329–379 A. D.) assumes psalm-singing in Christian worship and apparently criticizes antiphonal singing, an innovation. Ferguson states:

Basil’s affirmation that he approaches God in the very words which the Spirit gives, that is the biblical Psalms and odes, serves as a reminder of another fourth-century controversy: whether non-biblical psalms could be used in the liturgy. The canons of the Council of Laodicea prescribed that “no psalms composed by private individuals nor any uncanonical books may be read in the church, but only the canonical books of the Old and New Testaments” (canon 59). . . . It has been argued that the intent was not to restrict singing to the Biblical Psalms but to eliminate unauthorized private compositions.

Augustine (354–430 A. D.) is very explicit that “David’s Psalter” was sung in the Church, but that the style of music and the “warbling of the voice” were distracting to true worship.

Space fails to discuss in detail the rich history of psalm-singing in the Medieval church. By at least the fourth century, psalms were regularly sung in the liturgy. By the seventh century, according to Holladay, psalm-singing characterized much of the liturgy in both East and West—the Introit, the Lauda/Alleluia, the Old Testament lesson, and the distribution of communion all involved the singing of a psalm or psalm portion. By ca. 530, the Benedictine monastic rule specified the praying of the Psalms throughout the day in a series of eight “offices,” with the entire book of Psalms completed each week. Holladay says that “Where there were monastic communities which could be trained, the office was chanted to traditional melodies (plainsong) that have come to be called ‘Gregorian chant.’” During the Middle Ages, the Book of Psalms was understood to be the possession of all Christians, lay and clergy, in a way that the rest of the scriptures was not. The “Earlier Rule” of St. Francis specifies this: “All the brothers, whether clerical or lay, should celebrate the Divine Office, the praises and prayers, as is required of them. . . . And the lay [brothers] who know how to read the Psalter may have it.”