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Starting Out with Python 4e (Gaddis)
Chapter 1 Introduction to Computers and Programming

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tion) 4th Edition
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TRUE/FALSE

1. A software developer is the person with the training to design, create, and test computer programs.

ANS: T

2. A computer is a single device that performs different types of tasks for its users.

ANS: F

3. All programs are normally stored in ROM and are loaded into RAM as needed for processing.

ANS: F

4. The instruction set for a microprocessor is unique and is typically understood only by the
microprocessors of the same brand.

ANS: T

5. The CPU understands instructions written in a binary machine language.

ANS: T

6. A bit that is turned off is represented by the value -1.

ANS: F

7. The main reason to use secondary storage is to hold data for long periods of time, even when the
power supply to the computer is turned off.

ANS: T

8. RAM is a volatile memory used for temporary storage while a program is running.

ANS: T

9. The Python language uses a compiler which is a program that both translates and executes the
instructions in a high-level language.
 ANS: F

10. IDLE is an alternative method to using a text editor to write, execute, and test a Python program.

ANS: T

MULTIPLE CHOICE

1. Programs are commonly referred to as

a. system software
b. software
c. application software
d. utility programs
ANS: B

2. Which of the following is considered to be the world's first programmable electronic computer?
a. IBM
b. Dell
c. ENIAC
d. Gateway
ANS: C

3. Where does a computer store a program and the data that the program is working with while the
program is running?
a. in main memory
b. in the CPU
c. in secondary storage
d. in the microprocessor
ANS: A

4. What type of volatile memory is usually used only for temporary storage while running a program?
a. ROM
b. TMM
c. RAM
d. TVM
ANS: C

5. Which of the following is not a microprocessor manufacturing company?

a. Intel
b. Dell
c. AMD
d. Motorola
ANS: B

6. Which computer language uses short words known as mnemonics for writing programs?
a. Assembly
 b. Java
c. Pascal
d. Visual Basic
ANS: A

7. The process known as the __________ cycle is used by the CPU to execute instructions in a program.
a. decode-fetch-execute
b. decode-execute-fetch
c. fetch-decode-execute
d. fetch-execute-decode
ANS: C

8. Which language is referred to as a low-level language?

a. C++
b. Assembly language
c. Java
d. Python
ANS: B

9. The following is an example of an instruction written in which computer language?

10110000
a. Assembly language
b. Java
c. machine language
d. C#
ANS: C

10. The encoding technique used to store negative numbers in the computer's memory is called
a. Unicode
b. ASCII
c. floating-point notation
d. two's complement
ANS: D

11. The __________ coding scheme contains a set of 128 numeric codes that are used to represent
characters in the computer's memory.
a. Unicode
b. ASCII
c. ENIAC
d. two's complement
ANS: B

12. The smallest storage location in a computer's memory is known as a

a. byte
b. ketter
c. switch
 d. bit
ANS: D

13. What is the largest value that can be stored in one byte?
a. 255
b. 128
c. 8
d. 65535
ANS: A

14. The disk drive is a secondary storage device that stores data by __________ encoding it onto a
spinning circular disk.
a. electrically
b. magnetically
c. digitally
d. optically
ANS: B

15. A __________ has no moving parts and operates faster than a traditional disk drive.
a. DVD drive
b. solid state drive
c. jumper drive
d. hyper drive
ANS: B

16. Which of the following is not a major component of a typical computer system?
a. the CPU
b. main memory
c. the operating system
d. secondary storage devices
ANS: C

17. Which type of error prevents the program from running?

a. syntax
b. human
c. grammatical
d. logical
ANS: A

18. What is the decimal value of the following binary number?

10011101
a. 157
b. 8
c. 156
d. 28
ANS: C
MULTIPLE RESPONSE

1. Select all that apply. To create a Python program you can use
a. a text editor
b. a word processor if you save your file as a .docx
c. IDLE
d. Excel
ANS: A, C

COMPLETION

1. A(n) ___________ is a set of instructions that a computer follows to perform a task.

ANS: program

2. The term ___________ refers to all the physical devices that make up a computer.

ANS: hardware

3. The __________ is the part of the computer that actually runs programs and is the most important
component in a computer.

ANS: central processing unit, CPU

4. A disk drive stores data by __________ encoding it onto a circular disk.

ANS: magnetically

5. __________ are small central processing unit chips.

ANS: Microprocessors

6. __________ is a type of memory that can hold data for long periods of time, even when there is no
power to the computer.

ANS: Secondary storage

7. Main memory is commonly known as __________.

ANS: random-access memory, RAM

8. USB drives store data using __________ memory.

ANS: flash

9. The Python __________ is a program that can read Python programming statements and execute them.

ANS: interpreter
10. In __________ mode, the interpreter reads the contents of a file that contains Python statements and
executes each statement.

ANS: script
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
the liturgical worship became more highly organized. With the
capture of Jerusalem and the establishment of the royal residence
within its ramparts, the worship of Jehovah increased in splendor; the
love of pomp and display, which was characteristic of David, and still
more of his luxurious son Solomon, was manifest in the imposing rites
and ceremonies that were organized to the honor of the people’s
God. The epoch of these two rulers was that in which the national
force was in the flower of its youthful vigor, the national pride had
been stimulated by continual triumphs, the long period of struggle
and fear had been succeeded by glorious peace. The barbaric
splendor of religious service and festal pageant was the natural
expression of popular joy and self-confidence. In all these ebullitions
of national feeling, choral and instrumental music on the most brilliant
and massive scale held a conspicuous place. The description of the
long series of public rejoicings, culminating in the dedication of
Solomon’s temple, begins with the transportation of the ark of the
Lord from Gibeah, when “David and all the house of Israel played
before the Lord with all manner of instruments made of fir-wood, and
with harps (kinnor), and with psalteries (nebel), and with timbrels
[20]
(toph), with castanets (sistrum), and with cymbals (tzeltzelim).”
And again, when the ark was brought from the house of Obed-edom
into the city of David, the king danced “with all his might,” and the
ark was brought up “with shouting and with the sound of a
[21]
trumpet.” Singers were marshalled under leaders and [25
supported by bands of instruments. The ode ascribed to David was
given to Asaph as chief of the choir of Levites; Asaph beat the time
with cymbals, and the royal paean was chanted by masses of chosen
[22]
singers to the accompaniment of harps, lyres, and trumpets. In
the organization of the temple service no detail received more careful
attention than the vocal and instrumental music. We read that four
thousand Levites were appointed to praise the Lord with instruments.
[23]
There were also two hundred and eighty-eight skilled singers who
[24]
sang to instrumental accompaniment beside the altar.
The function performed by instruments in the temple service is also
indicated in the account of the reëstablishment of the worship of
Jehovah by Hezekiah according to the institutions of David and
Solomon. With the burnt offering the song of praise was uplifted to
the accompaniment of the “instruments of David,” the singers intoned
the psalm and the trumpets sounded, and this continued until the
sacrifice was consumed. When the rite was ended a hymn of praise
was sung by the Levites, while the king and the people bowed
[25]
themselves.

With the erection of the second temple after the return from the [26
Babylonian exile, the liturgical service was restored, although not
with its pristine magnificence. Ezra narrates: “When the builders laid
the foundation of the temple of the Lord, they set the priests in their
apparel with trumpets, and the Levites the sons of Asaph with
cymbals, to praise the Lord, after the order of David king of Israel.
And they sang one to another in praising and giving thanks unto the
Lord, saying, For he is good, for his mercy endureth forever toward
[26]
Israel.” And at the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem, as recorded
by Nehemiah, instrumentalists and singers assembled in large
numbers, to lead the multitude in rendering praise and thanks to
[27]
Jehovah. Instruments were evidently employed in independent
flourishes and signals, as well as in accompanying the singers. The
trumpets were used only in the interludes; the pipes and stringed
instruments strengthened the voice parts; the cymbals were used by
the leader of the chorus to mark the rhythm.

Notwithstanding the prominence of instruments in all observances of

public and private life, they were always looked upon as accessory to
song. Dramatic poetry was known to the Hebrews, as indicated by
such compositions as the Book of Job and the Song of Songs. No
complete epic has come down to us, but certain allusions in the
Pentateuch, such as the mention in Numbers xxi. 14 of the “book of
the wars of Jehovah,” would tend to show that this people possessed
a collection of ballads which, taken together, would properly
constitute a national epic. But whether lyric, epic, or dramatic, the
Hebrew poetry was delivered, according to the universal custom of
ancient nations, not in the speaking voice, but in musical tone. The
minstrel poet, it has been said, was the type of the race. Lyric [27
poetry may be divided into two classes: first, that which is the
expression of individual, subjective feeling, the poet communing with
himself alone, imparting to his thought a color derived solely from his
personal inward experience; and second, that which utters sentiments
that are shared by an organization, community, or race, the poet
serving as the mouthpiece of a mass actuated by common
experiences and motives. The second class is more characteristic of a
people in the earlier stages of culture, when the individual is lost in
the community, before the tendency towards specialization of
interests gives rise to an expression that is distinctly personal. In all
the world’s literature the Hebrew psalms are the most splendid
examples of this second order of lyric poetry; and although we find in
them many instances in which an isolated, purely subjective
experience finds a voice, yet in all of them the same view of the
universe, the same conception of the relation of man to his Creator,
the same broad and distinctively national consciousness, control their
thought and their diction. And there are very few even of the first
class which a Hebrew of earnest piety, searching his own heart, could
not adopt as the fitting declaration of his need and assurance.

All patriotic songs and religious poems properly called hymns belong
in the second division of lyrics; and in the Hebrew psalms devotional
feeling touched here and there with a patriot’s hopes and fears, has
once for all projected itself in forms of speech which seem to exhaust
the capabilities of sublimity in language. These psalms were set to
music, and presuppose music in their thought and their technical [28
structure. A text most appropriate for musical rendering must be
free from all subtleties of meaning and over-refinements of
phraseology; it must be forcible in movement, its metaphors those
that touch upon general observation, its ideas those that appeal to
the common consciousness and sympathy. These qualities the psalms
possess in the highest degree, and in addition they have a sublimity
of thought, a magnificence of imagery, a majesty and strength of
movement, that evoke the loftiest energies of a musical genius that
ventures to ally itself with them. In every nation of Christendom they
have been made the foundation of the musical service of the Church;
and although many of the greatest masters of the harmonic art have
lavished upon them the richest treasures of their invention, they have
but skimmed the surface of their unfathomable suggestion.

Of the manner in which the psalms were rendered in the ancient

Hebrew worship we know little. The present methods of singing in
the synagogues give us little help, for there is no record by which
they can be traced back beyond the definite establishment of the
synagogue worship. It is inferred from the structure of the Hebrew
poetry, as well as unbroken usage from the beginning of the Christian
era, that the psalms were chanted antiphonally or responsively. That
form of verse known as parallelism—the repetition of a thought in
different words, or the juxtaposition of two contrasted thoughts
forming an antithesis—pervades a large amount of the Hebrew
poetry, and may be called its technical principle. It is, we might say, a
rhythm of thought, an assonance of feeling. This parallelism is [29
more frequently double, sometimes triple. We find this peculiar
structure as far back as the address of Lamech to his wives in Gen. iv.
23, 24, in Moses’ song after the passage of the Red Sea, in the
triumphal ode of Deborah and Barak, in the greeting of the Israelitish
women to Saul and David returning from the slaughter of the
Philistines, in the Book of Job, in a large proportion of the rhythmical
imaginative utterances of the psalmists and prophets. The Oriental
Christians sang the psalms responsively; this method was passed on
to Milan in the fourth century, to Rome very soon afterward, and has
been perpetuated in the liturgical churches of modern Christendom.
Whether, in the ancient temple service, this twofold utterance was
divided between separate portions of the choir, or between a
precentor and the whole singing body, there are no grounds for
stating,—both methods have been employed in modern times. It is
not even certain that the psalms were sung in alternate half-verses,
for in the Jewish Church at the present day the more frequent usage
is to divide at the end of a verse. It is evident that the singing was
not congregational, and that the share of the people, where they
participated at all, was confined to short responses, as in the
Christian Church in the time next succeeding the apostolic age. The
female voice, although much prized in secular music, according to the
Talmud was not permitted in the temple service. There is nothing in
the Old Testament that contradicts this except, as some suppose, the
reference to the three daughters of Heman in 1. Chron. xxv. 5, [30
where we read: “And God gave to Heman fourteen sons and three
daughters;” and in verse 6: “All these were under the hands of their
father for song in the house of the Lord.” It is probable, however, that
the mention of the daughters is incidental, not intended as an
assertion that they were actual members of the temple chorus, for we
cannot conceive why an exception should have been made in their
behalf. Certainly the whole implication from the descriptions of the
temple service and the enumeration of the singers and players is to
the effect that only the male voice was utilized in the liturgical
worship. There are many allusions to “women singers” in the
Scriptures, but they plainly apply only to domestic song, or to
processions and celebrations outside the sacred enclosure. It is
certainly noteworthy that the exclusion of the female voice, which has
obtained in the Catholic Church throughout the Middle Age, in the
Eastern Church, in the German Protestant Church, and in the
cathedral service of the Anglican Church, was also enforced in the
temple worship of Israel. The conviction has widely prevailed among
the stricter custodians of religious ceremony in all ages that there is
something sensuous and passionate (I use these words in their
simpler original meaning) in the female voice—something at variance
with the austerity of ideal which should prevail in the music of
worship. Perhaps, also, the association of men and women in the
sympathy of so emotional an office as that of song is felt to be
prejudicial to the complete absorption of the mind which the sacred
function demands. Both these reasons have undoubtedly combined in
so many historic epochs to keep all the offices of ministry in the
house of God in the hands of the male sex. On the other hand, in the
more sensuous cults of paganism no such prohibition has existed.
There is difference of opinion in regard to the style of melody [31
employed in the delivery of the psalms in the worship of the
temple at Jerusalem. Was it a mere intoned declamation, essentially a
monotone with very slight changes of pitch, like the “ecclesiastical
accent” of the Catholic Church? Or was it a freer, more melodious
rendering, as in the more ornate members of the Catholic Plain Song?
The modern Jews incline to the latter opinion, that the song was true
melody, obeying, indeed, the universal principle of chant as a species
of vocalism subordinated in rhythm to the text, yet with abundant
movement and possessing a distinctly tuneful character. It has been
supposed that certain inscriptions at the head of some of the psalms
are the titles of well-known tunes, perhaps secular folk-songs, to
which the psalms were sung. We find, e. g., at the head of Ps. xxii.
the inscription, “After the song beginning, Hind of the Dawn.” Ps. lvi.
has, “After the song, The silent Dove in far-off Lands.” Others have,
“After lilies” (Ps. xlv. and lxix.), and “Destroy not” (Ps. lvii.-lix.). We
cannot on a priori principles reject the supposition that many psalms
were sung to secular melodies, for we shall find, as we trace the
history of music in the Christian era, that musicians have over and
over again borrowed profane airs for the hymns of the Church. In
fact, there is hardly a branch of the Christian Church that has not at
some time done so, and even the rigid Jews in modern times have
employed the same means to increase their store of religious
melodies.

That the psalms were sung with the help of instruments seems [32
indicated by superscriptions, such as “With stringed instruments,”
and “To the flutes,” although objections have been raised to these
translations. No such indications are needed, however, to prove the
point, for the descriptions of worship contained in the Old Testament
seem explicit. The instruments were used to accompany the voices,
and also for preludes and interludes. The word “Selah,” so often
occurring at the end of a psalm verse, is understood by many
authorities to signify an instrumental interlude or flourish, while the
singers were for a moment silent. One writer says that at this point
[28]
the people bowed in prayer.
Such, generally speaking, is the most that can definitely be stated
regarding the office performed by music in the worship of Israel in
the time of its glory. With the rupture of the nation, its gradual
political decline, the inroads of idolatry, the exile in Babylon, the
conquest by the Romans, the disappearance of poetic and musical
inspiration with the substitution of formality and routine in place of
the pristine national sincerity and fervor, it would inevitably follow
that the great musical traditions would fade away, until at the time of
the birth of Christ but little would remain of the elaborate ritual once
committed to the guardianship of cohorts of priests and Levites. [33
The sorrowing exiles who hung their harps on the willows of
Babylon and refused to sing the songs of Zion in a strange land
certainly never forgot the airs consecrated by such sweet and bitter
memories; but in the course of centuries they became lost among the
strange peoples with whom the scattered Israelites found their home.
Many were for a time preserved in the synagogues, which, in the
later years of Jewish residence in Palestine, were established in large
numbers in all the towns and villages. The service of the synagogue
was a liturgical service, consisting of benedictions, chanting of psalms
and other Scripture passages, with responses by the people, lessons
from the law and the prophets, and sermons. The instrumental music
of the temple and the first synagogues eventually disappeared, and
the greater part, if not the whole, of the ancient psalm melodies
vanished also with the dispersion of the Levites, who were their
especial curators. Many details of ancient ritual and custom must
have survived in spite of vicissitude, but the final catastrophe, which
drove a desolate, heart-broken remnant of the children of Judah into
alien lands, must inevitably have destroyed all but the merest
fragment of the fair residue of national art by sweeping away all the
conditions by which a national art can live.

Does anything remain of the rich musical service which for fifteen
hundred years went up daily from tabernacle and temple to the
throne of the God of Israel? A question often asked, but without a
positive answer. Perhaps a few notes of an ancient melody, or a horn
signal identical with one blown in the camp or in the temple court, [34
may survive in the synagogue to-day, a splinter from a mighty edifice
which has been submerged by the tide of centuries. As would be
presumed of a people so tenacious of time-honored usages, the voice
of tradition declares that the intonations of the ritual chant used in
the synagogue are survivals of forms employed in the temple at
Jerusalem. These intonations are certainly Oriental in character and
very ancient, but that they date back to the time of David cannot be
proved or disproved. A style of singing like the well-known
“cantillation” might easily be preserved, a complete melody possibly,
but the presumption is against an antiquity so great as the Jews, with
pardonable pride, claim for some of their weird, archaic strains.

With the possible exception of scanty fragments, nothing remains of

the songs so much loved by this devoted people in their early home.
We may speculate upon the imagined beauty of that music; it is
natural to do so. Omne ignotum pro magnifico. We know that it often
shook the hearts of those that heard it; but our knowledge of the
comparative rudeness of all Oriental music, ancient and modern,
teaches us that its effect was essentially that of simple unison
successions of tones wedded to poetry of singular exaltation and
vehemence, and associated with liturgical actions calculated to
impress the beholder with an overpowering sense of awe. The
interest which all must feel in the religious music of the Hebrews is
not due to its importance in the history of art, but to its place in the
history of culture. Certainly the art of music was never more highly
honored, its efficacy as an agent in arousing the heart to the most [35
ardent spiritual experiences was never more convincingly
demonstrated, than when the seers and psalmists of Israel found in it
an indispensable auxiliary of those appeals, confessions, praises, and
pious raptures in which the whole after-world has seen the highest
attainment of language under the impulse of religious ecstasy. Taking
“the harp the monarch minstrel swept” as a symbol of Hebrew
devotional song at large, Byron’s words are true:

“It softened men of iron mould,

It gave them virtues not their own;
No ear so dull, no soul so cold,
 That felt not, fired not to the tone,
Till David’s lyre grew mightier than his throne.”

This music foreshadowed the completer expression of Christian art of

which it became the type. Inspired by the grandest of traditions,
provided with credentials as, on equal terms with poetry, valid in the
expression of man’s consciousness of his needs and his infinite
privilege,—thus consecrated for its future mission, the soul of music
passed from Hebrew priests to apostles and Christian fathers, and so
on to the saints and hierarchs, who laid the foundation of the sublime
structure of the worship music of a later day.
[36

CHAPTER II
RITUAL AND SONG IN THE EARLY CHRISTIAN
CHURCH
A.D. 50-600
The epoch of the apostles and their immediate successors is that
around which the most vigorous controversies have been waged ever
since modern criticism recognized the supreme importance of that
epoch in the history of doctrine and ecclesiastical government. Hardly
a form of belief or polity but has sought to obtain its sanction from
the teaching and usages of those churches that received their
systems most directly from the personal disciples of the Founder. A
curiosity less productive of contention, but hardly less persistent,
attaches to the forms and methods of worship practised by the
Christian congregations. The rise of liturgies, rites, and ceremonies,
the origin and use of hymns, the foundation of the liturgical chant,
the degree of participation enjoyed by the laity in the offices of praise
and prayer,—these and many other closely related subjects of inquiry
possess far more than an antiquarian interest; they are bound up
with the history of that remarkable transition from the homogenous,
more democratic system of the apostolic age, to the hierarchical
organization which became matured and consolidated under the
Western popes and Eastern patriarchs. Associated with this
administrative development and related in its causes, an elaborate [37
system of rites and ceremonies arose, partly an evolution from
within, partly an inheritance of ancient habits and predispositions,
which at last became formulated into unvarying types of devotional
expression. Music participated in this ritualistic movement; it rapidly
became liturgical and clerical, the laity ceased to share in the worship
of song and resigned this office to a chorus drawn from the minor
clergy, and a highly organized body of chants, applied to every
moment of the service, became almost the entire substance of
worship music, and remained so for a thousand years.

In the very nature of the case a new energy must enter the art of
music when enlisted in the ministry of the religion of Christ. A new
motive, a new spirit, unknown to Greek or Roman or even to Hebrew,
had taken possession of the religious consciousness. To the adoration
of the same Supreme Power, before whom the Jew bowed in awe-
stricken reverence, was added the recognition of a gift which the Jew
still dimly hoped for; and this gift brought with it an assurance, and
hence a felicity, which were never granted to the religionist of the old
dispensation.

The Christian felt himself the chosen joint-heir of a risen and

ascended Lord, who by his death and resurrection had brought life
and immortality to light. The devotion to a personal, ever-living
Saviour transcended and often supplanted all other loyalty
whatsoever,—to country, parents, husband, wife, or child. This
religion was, therefore, emphatically one of joy,—a joy so [38
absorbing, so completely satisfying, so founded on the loftiest
hopes that the human mind is able to entertain, that even the
ecstatic worship of Apollo or Dionysus seems melancholy and
hopeless in comparison. Yet it was not a joy that was prone to
expend itself in noisy demonstrations. It was mingled with such a
profound sense of personal unworthiness and the most solemn
responsibilities, tempered with sentiments of awe and wonder in the
presence of unfathomable mysteries, that the manifestations of it
must be subdued to moderation, expressed in forms that could
appropriately typify spiritual and eternal relationships. And so, as
sculpture was the art which most adequately embodied the
humanistic conceptions of Greek theology, poetry and music became
the arts in which Christianity found a vehicle of expression most
suited to her genius. These two arts, therefore, when acted upon by
ideas so sublime and penetrating as those of the Gospel, must at last
become transformed, and exhibit signs of a renewed and aspiring
activity. The very essence of the divine revelation in Jesus Christ must
strike a more thrilling note than tone and emotional speech had ever
sounded before. The genius of Christianity, opening up new soul
depths, and quickening, as no other religion could, the higher
possibilities of holiness in man, was especially adapted to evoke
larger manifestations of musical invention. The religion of Jesus
revealed God in the universality of his fatherhood, and his
omnipresence in nature and in the human conscience. God must be
worshipped in spirit and in truth, as one who draws men into
communion with him by his immediate action upon the heart. This [39
religion made an appeal that could only be met by the purification
of the heart, and by reconciliation and union with God through the
merits of the crucified Son. The believer felt the possibility of direct
and loving communion with the Infinite Power as the stirring of the
very bases of his being. This new consciousness must declare itself in
forms of expression hardly glimpsed by antiquity, and literature and
art undergo re-birth. Music particularly, the art which seems peculiarly
capable of reflecting the most urgent longings of the spirit, felt the
animating force of Christianity as the power which was to emancipate
it from its ancient thraldom and lead it forth into a boundless sphere
of action.

Not at once, however, could musical art spring up full grown and
responsive to these novel demands. An art, to come to perfection,
requires more than a motive. The motive, the vision, the emotion
yearning to realize itself, may be there, but beyond this is the mastery
of material and form, and such mastery is of slow and tedious
growth. Especially is this true in respect to the art of music; musical
forms, having no models in nature like painting and sculpture, no
associative symbolism like poetry, no guidance from considerations of
utility like architecture, must be the result, so far as any human work
can be such, of actual free creation. And yet this creation is a
progressive creation; its forms evolve from forms preëxisting as
demands for expression arise to which the old are inadequate. Models
must be found, but in the nature of the case the art can never go
outside of itself for its suggestion. And although Christian music must
be a development and not the sudden product of an exceptional [40
inspiration, yet we must not suppose that the early Church was
compelled to work out its melodies from those crude elements in
which anthropology discovers the first stage of musical progress in
primitive man. The Christian fathers, like the founders of every
historic system of religious music, drew their suggestion and perhaps
some of their actual material from both religious and secular sources.
The principle of ancient music, to which the early Christian music
conformed, was that of the subordination of music to poetry and the
dance-figure. Harmony was virtually unknown in antiquity, and
without a knowledge of part-writing no independent art of music is
possible. The song of antiquity was the most restricted of all melodic
styles, viz., the chant or recitative. The essential feature of both chant
and recitative is that the tones are made to conform to the metre and
accent of the text, the words of which are never repeated or
prosodically modified out of deference to melodic phrases and
periods. In true song, on the contrary, the words are subordinated to
the exigencies of musical laws of structure, and the musical phrase,
not the word, is the ruling power. The principle adopted by the
Christian fathers was that of the chant, and Christian music could not
begin to move in the direction of modern artistic attainment until, in
the course of time, a new technical principle, and a new conception
of the relation between music and poetry, could be introduced.

In theory, style, usage, and probably to some extent in actual [41

melodies also, the music of the primitive Church forms an
unbroken line with the music of pre-Christian antiquity. The relative
proportion contributed by Jewish and Greek musical practice cannot
be known. There was at the beginning no formal break with the
ancient Jewish Church; the disciples assembled regularly in the
temple for devotional exercises; worship in their private gatherings
was modelled upon that of the synagogue which Christ himself had
implicitly sanctioned. The synagogical code was modified by the
Christians by the introduction of the eucharistic service, the Lord’s
Prayer, the baptismal formula, and other institutions occasioned by
the new doctrines and the “spiritual gifts.” At Christ’s last supper with
his disciples, when the chief liturgical rite of the Church was
instituted, the company sang a hymn which was unquestionably the
[29]
“great Hallel” of the Jewish Passover celebration. The Jewish
Christians clung with an inherited reverence to the venerable forms of
their fathers’ worship; they observed the Sabbath, the three daily
hours of prayer, and much of the Mosaic ritual. In respect to musical
usages, the most distinct intimation in early records of the
continuation of ancient forms is found in the occasional reference to
the habit of antiphonal or responsive chanting of the psalms. Fixed
forms of prayer were also used in the apostolic Church, which were to
a considerable extent modelled upon the psalms and the benedictions
of the synagogue ritual. That the Hebrew melodies were borrowed at
the same time cannot be demonstrated, but it may be assumed as a
necessary inference.

With the spread of the Gospel among the Gentiles, the increasing [42
hostility between Christians and Jews, the dismemberment of the
Jewish nationality, and the overthrow of Jewish institutions to which
the Hebrew Christians had maintained a certain degree of
attachment, dependence upon the Jewish ritual was loosened, and
the worship of the Church came under the influence of Hellenic
systems and traditions. Greek philosophy and Greek art, although
both in decadence, were dominant in the intellectual life of the East,
and it was impossible that the doctrine, worship, and government of
the Church should not be gradually leavened by them. St. Paul wrote
in the Greek language; the earliest liturgies are in Greek. The
sentiment of prayer and praise was, of course, Hebraic; the psalms
formed the basis of all lyric expression, and the hymns and liturgies
were to a large extent colored by their phraseology and spirit. The
shapeliness and flexibility of Greek art, the inward fervor of Hebrew
aspiration, the love of ceremonial and symbolism, which was not
confined to any single nation but was a universal characteristic of the
time, all contributed to build up the composite and imposing structure
of the later worship of the Eastern and Western churches.

The singing of psalms formed a part of the Christian worship from the
beginning, and certain special psalms were early appointed for
particular days and occasions. At what time hymns of contemporary
origin were added we have no means of knowing. Evidently during
the life of St. Paul, for we find him encouraging the Ephesians and
[30]
Colossians to the use of “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.” [43

To be sure he is not specifically alluding to public worship in these

exhortations (in the first instance “speaking to yourselves” and
“singing and making melody in your hearts,” in the second “teaching
and admonishing one another”), but it is hardly to be supposed that
the spiritual exercise of which he speaks would be excluded from the
religious services which at that time were of daily observance. The
injunction to teach and admonish by means of songs also agrees with
other evidences that a prime motive for hymn singing in many of the
churches was instruction in the doctrines of the faith. It would appear
that among the early Christians, as with the Greeks and other ancient
nations, moral precepts and instruction in religious mysteries were
often thrown into poetic and musical form, as, being by this means
more impressive and more easily remembered.

It is to be noticed that St. Paul, in each of the passages cited above,

alludes to religious songs under three distinct terms, viz.: ψαλμοί,
ὕμνοι, and ᾠδαὶ πνευματικαί. The usual supposition is that the terms
are not synonymous, that they refer to a threefold classification of the
songs of the early Church into: 1, the ancient Hebrew psalms
properly so called; 2, hymns taken from the Old Testament and not
included in the psalter and since called canticles, such as the
thanksgiving of Hannah, the song of Moses, the Psalm of the Three
Children from the continuation of the Book of Daniel, the vision of
Habakkuk, etc.; and, 3, songs composed by the Christians
themselves. The last of these three classes points us to the birth [44
time of Christian hymnody. The lyric inspiration, which has never
failed from that day to this, began to move the instant the proselyting
work of the Church began. In the freedom and informality of the
religious assembly as it existed among the Hellenic Christians, it
became the practice for the believers to contribute impassioned
outbursts, which might be called songs in a rudimentary state. In
moments of highly charged devotional ecstasy this spontaneous
utterance took the form of broken, incoherent, unintelligible
ejaculations, probably in cadenced, half-rhythmic tone, expressive of
rapture and mystical illumination. This was the “glossolalia,” or “gift of
tongues” alluded to by St. Paul in the first epistle to the Corinthians
as a practice to be approved, under certain limitations, as edifying to
[31]
the believers.

Dr. Schaff defines the gift of tongues as “an utterance proceeding

from a state of unconscious ecstasy in the speaker, and unintelligible
to the hearer unless interpreted. The speaking with tongues is an
involuntary, psalm-like prayer or song uttered from a spiritual trance,
in a peculiar language inspired by the Holy Spirit. The soul is almost
entirely passive, an instrument on which the Spirit plays his heavenly
melodies.” “It is emotional rather than intellectual, the language of
[32]
excited imagination, not of cool reflection.” St. Paul was himself an
adept in this singular form of worship, as he himself declares in 1 Cor.
xiv. 18; but with his habitual coolness of judgment he warns the [45
excitable Corinthian Christians that sober instruction is more
profitable, that the proper end of all utterance in common public
worship is edification, and enjoins as an effective restraint that “if any
man speaketh in a tongue, let one interpret; but if there be no
interpreter, let him keep silence in the Church; and let him speak to
[33]
himself and to God.” With the regulation of the worship in stated
liturgic form this extemporaneous ebullition of feeling was done away,
but if it was analogous, as it probably was, to the practice so common
in Oriental vocal music, both ancient and modern, of delivering long
wordless tonal flourishes as an expression of joy, then it has in a
certain sense survived in the “jubilations” of the Catholic liturgical
chant, which in the early Middle Age were more extended than now.
Chappell finds traces of a practice somewhat similar to the
“jubilations” existing in ancient Egypt. “This practice of carolling or
singing without words, like birds, to the gods, was copied by the
Greeks, who seem to have carolled on four vowels. The vowels had
probably, in both cases, some recognized meaning attached to them,
as substitutes for certain words of praise—as was the case when the
[34]
custom was transferred to the Western Church.” This may or may
not throw light upon the obscure nature of the glossolalia, but it is
not to be supposed that the Corinthian Christians invented this
custom, since we find traces of it in the worship of the ancient pagan
nations; and so far as it was the unrestrained outburst of emotion, it
must have been to some extent musical, and only needed regulation
and the application of a definite key-system to become, like the
mediaeval Sequence under somewhat similar conditions, an
established order of sacred song.

Out of a musical impulse, of which the glossolalia was one of [46

many tokens, united with the spirit of prophecy or instruction,
grew the hymns of the infant Church, dim outlines of which begin to
appear in the twilight of this obscure period. The worshipers of Christ
could not remain content with the Hebrew psalms, for, in spite of
their inspiriting and edifying character, they were not concerned with
the facts on which the new faith was based, except as they might be
interpreted as prefiguring the later dispensation. Hymns were
required in which Christ was directly celebrated, and the
apprehension of his infinite gifts embodied in language which would
both fortify the believers and act as a converting agency. It would be
contrary to all analogy and to the universal facts of human nature if
such were not the case, and we may suppose that a Christian folk-
song, such as the post-apostolic age reveals to us, began to appear in
the first century. Some scholars believe that certain of these primitive
hymns, or fragments of them, are embalmed in the Epistles of St.
[35]
Paul and the Book of the Revelation. The magnificent description
of the worship of God and the Lamb in the Apocalypse has been
supposed by some to have been suggested by the manner of
worship, already become liturgical, in the Eastern churches. [47
Certainly there is a manifest resemblance between the picture of
one sitting upon the throne with the twenty-four elders and a
multitude of angels surrounding him, as set forth in the Apocalypse,
and the account given in the second book of the Constitutions of the
Apostles of the throne of the bishop in the middle of the church
edifice, with the presbyters and deacons on each side and the laity
beyond. In this second book of the Constitutions, belonging, of
course, to a later date than the apostolic period, there is no mention
of hymn singing. The share of the people is confined to responses at
the end of the verses of the psalms, which are sung by some one
[36]
appointed to this office. The sacerdotal and liturgical movement
had already excluded from the chief acts of worship the independent
song of the people. Those who assume that the office of song in the
early Church was freely committed to the general body of believers
have some ground for their assumption; but if we are able to
distinguish between the private and public worship, and could know
how early it was that set forms and liturgies were adopted, it would
appear that at the longest the time was very brief when the laity
were allowed a share in any but the subordinate offices. The earliest
testimony that can be called definite is contained in the celebrated
letter of the younger Pliny from Bithynia to the Emperor Trajan, in the
year 112, in which the Christians are described as coming together
before daylight and singing hymns alternately (invicem) to Christ.
This may with some reason be held to refer to responsive or [48
antiphonal singing, similar to that described by Philo in his account
of the worship of the Jewish sect of the Therapeutae in the first
century. The tradition was long preserved in the Church that Ignatius,
bishop of Antioch in the second century, introduced antiphonal
chanting into the churches of that city, having been moved thereto by
a vision of angels singing in that manner. But we have only to go back
to the worship of the ancient Hebrews for the suggestion of this
practice. This alternate singing appears to have been most prevalent
in the Syrian churches, and was carried thence to Milan and Rome,
and through the usage in these cities was established in the
permanent habit of the Western Church.

Although the singing of psalms and hymns by the body of worshipers

was, therefore, undoubtedly the custom of the churches while still in
their primitive condition as informal assemblies of believers for mutual
counsel and edification, the steady progress of ritualism and the
growth of sacerdotal ideas inevitably deprived the people of all
initiative in the worship, and concentrated the offices of public
devotion, including that of song, exclusively in the hands of the
clergy. By the middle of the fourth century, if not earlier, the change
was complete. The simple organization of the apostolic age had
developed by logical gradations into a compact hierarchy of
patriarchs, bishops, priests, and deacons. The clergy were no longer
the servants or representatives of the people, but held a mediatorial
position as the channels through which divine grace was transmitted
to the faithful. The great Eastern liturgies, such as those which [49
bear the names of St. James and St. Mark, if not yet fully
formulated and committed to writing, were in all essentials complete
and adopted as the substance of the public worship. The principal
service was divided into two parts, from the second of which, the
eucharistic service proper, the catechumens and penitents were
excluded. The prayers, readings, and chanted sentences, of which the
liturgy mainly consisted, were delivered by priests, deacons, and an
officially constituted choir of singers, the congregation uniting only in
a few responses and ejaculations. In the liturgy of St. Mark, which
was the Alexandrian, used in Egypt and neighboring countries, we
find allotted to the people a number of responses: “Amen,” “Kyrie
eleison,” “And to thy spirit” (in response to the priest’s “Peace be to
all”); “We lift them up to the Lord” (in response to the priest’s “Let us
lift up our hearts”); and “In the name of the Lord; Holy God, holy
mighty, holy immortal,” after the Trisagion; “And from the Holy Spirit
was he made flesh,” after the prayer of oblation; “Holy, holy, holy
Lord,” before the consecration; “Our Father, who art in heaven,” etc.;
before the communion, “One Father holy, one Son holy, one Spirit
holy, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, Amen;” at the dismissal, “Amen,
blessed be the name of the Lord.”

In the liturgy of St. James, the liturgy of the Jerusalem Church, a very
similar share, in many instances with identical words, is assigned to
the people; but a far more frequent mention is made of the choir of
singers who render the Trisagion hymn, which, in St. Mark’s [50
liturgy, is given by the people: besides the “Allelulia,” the hymn to
the Virgin Mother, “O taste and see that the Lord is good,” and “The
Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall
overshadow thee.”

A large portion of the service, as indicated by these liturgies, was

occupied by prayers, during which the people kept silence. In the
matter of responses the congregation had more direct share than in
the Catholic Church to-day, for now the chancel choir acts as their
representatives, while the Kyrie eleison has become one of the choral
portions of the Mass, and the Thrice Holy has been merged in the
choral Sanctus. But in the liturgical worship, whatever may have been
the case in non-liturgical observances, the share of the people was
confined to these few brief ejaculations and prescribed sentences,
and nothing corresponding to the congregational song of the
Protestant Church can be found. Still earlier than this final issue of
the ritualistic movement the singing of the people was limited to
psalms and canticles, a restriction justified and perhaps occasioned by
the ease with which doctrinal vagaries and mystical extravagances
could be instilled into the minds of the converts by means of this very
subtle and persuasive agent. The conflict of the orthodox churches
with the Gnostics and Arians showed clearly the danger of unlimited
license in the production and singing of hymns, for these formidable
heretics drew large numbers away from the faith of the apostles by
means of the choral songs which they employed everywhere for
proselyting purposes. The Council of Laodicea (held between 343 [51
and 381) decreed in its 13th Canon: “Besides the appointed
singers, who mount the ambo and sing from the book, others shall
[37]
not sing in the church.” The exact meaning of this prohibition has
not been determined, for the participation of the people in the church
song did not entirely cease at this time. How generally representative
this council was, or how extensive its authority, is not known; but the
importance of this decree has been exaggerated by historians of
music, for, at most, it serves only as a register of a fact which was an
inevitable consequence of the universal hierarchical and ritualistic
tendencies of the time.

The history of the music of the Christian Church properly begins with
the establishment of the priestly liturgic chant, which had apparently
supplanted the popular song in the public worship as early as the
fourth century. Of the character of the chant melodies at this period
in the Eastern Church, or of their sources, we have no positive
information. Much vain conjecture has been expended on this
question. Some are persuaded that the strong infusion of Hebraic
feeling and phraseology into the earliest hymns, and the adoption of
the Hebrew psalter into the service, necessarily implies the
inheritance of the ancient temple and synagogue melodies also.
Others assume that the allusion of St. Augustine to the usage at
Alexandria under St. Athanasius, which was “more like speaking than
[38]
singing,” was an example of the practice of the Oriental and
Roman churches generally, and that the later chant developed out [52
of this vague song-speech. Others, like Kiesewetter, exaggerating
the antipathy of the Christians to everything identified with Judaism
and paganism, conceive the primitive Christian melodies as entirely
[39]
an original invention, a true Christian folk-song. None of these
suppositions, however, could have more than a local and temporary
application; the Jewish Christian congregations in Jerusalem and
neighboring cities doubtless transferred a few of their ancestral
melodies to the new worship; a prejudice against highly developed
tune as suggesting the sensuous cults of paganism may have existed
among the more austere; here and there new melodies may have
sprung up to clothe the extemporized lyrics that became perpetuated
in the Church. But the weight of evidence and analogy inclines to the
belief that the liturgic song of the Church, both of the East and West,
was drawn partly in form and almost wholly in spirit and complexion
from the Greek and Greco-Roman musical practice.

But scanty knowledge of Christian archaeology and liturgies is

necessary to show that much of form, ceremony, and decoration in
the worship of the Church was the adaptation of features anciently
existing in the faiths and customs which the new religion supplanted.
The practical genius which adopted Greek metres for Christian
hymns, and modified the styles of basilikas, scholae, and domestic
architecture in effecting a suitable form of church building, would not
cavil at the melodies and vocal methods which seemed so well suited
to be a musical garb for the liturgies. Greek music was, indeed, in [53
some of its phases, in decadence at this period. It had gained
nothing in purity by passing into the hands of Roman voluptuaries.
The age of the virtuosos, aiming at brilliancy and sensationalism, had
succeeded to the classic traditions of austerity and reserve. This
change was felt, however, in instrumental music chiefly, and this the
Christian churches disdained to touch. It was the residue of what was
pure and reverend, drawn from the tradition of Apollo’s temple and
the Athenian tragic theatre; it was the form of vocalism which austere
philosophers like Plutarch praised that was drafted into the service of
the Gospel. Perhaps even this was reduced to simple terms in the
Christian practice; certainly the oldest chants that can be traced are
the plainest, and the earliest scale system of the Italian Church would
appear to allow but a very narrow compass to melody. We can form
our most accurate notion of the nature of the early Christian music,
therefore, by studying the records of Greek practice and Greek views
of music’s nature and function in the time of the flowering of Greek
poetry, for certainly the Christian fathers did not attempt to go
beyond that; and perhaps, in their zeal to avoid all that was
meretricious in tonal art, they adopted as their standard those phases
which could most easily be made to coalesce with the inward and
humble type of piety inculcated by the faith of the Gospel. This
hypothesis does, not imply a note-for-note borrowing of Greek and
Roman melodies, but only their adaptation. As Luther and the other
founders of the music of the German Protestant Church took [54
melodies from the Catholic chant and the German and Bohemian
religious and secular folk-song, and recast them to fit the metres of
their hymns, so the early Christian choristers would naturally be
moved to do with the melodies which they desired to transplant.
Much modification was necessary, for while the Greek and Roman
songs were metrical, the Christian psalms, antiphons, prayers,
responses, etc., were unmetrical; and while the pagan melodies were
always sung to an instrumental accompaniment, the church chant
was exclusively vocal. Through the influence of this double change of
technical and Aesthetic basis, the liturgic song was at once more free,
aspiring, and varied than its prototype, taking on that rhythmic
flexibility and delicate shading in which also the unique charm of the
Catholic chant of the present day so largely consists.

In view of the controversies over the use of instrumental music in

worship, which have been so violent in the British and American
Protestant churches, it is an interesting question whether instruments
were employed by the primitive Christians. We know that instruments
performed an important function in the Hebrew temple service and in
the ceremonies of the Greeks. At this point, however, a break was
made with all previous practice, and although the lyre and flute were
sometimes employed by the Greek converts, as a general rule the use
of instruments in worship was condemned. Many of the fathers,
speaking of religious song, make no mention of instruments; others,
like Clement of Alexandria and St. Chrysostom, refer to them only to
denounce them. Clement says: “Only one instrument do we use, [55
viz., the word of peace wherewith we honor God, no longer the
old psaltery, trumpet, drum, and flute.” Chrysostom exclaims: “David
formerly sang in psalms, also we sing to-day with him; he had a lyre
with lifeless strings, the Church has a lyre with living strings. Our
tongues are the strings of the lyre, with a different tone, indeed, but
with a more accordant piety.” St. Ambrose expresses his scorn for
those who would play the lyre and psaltery instead of singing hymns
and psalms; and St. Augustine adjures believers not to turn their
hearts to theatrical instruments. The religious guides of the early
Christians felt that there would be an incongruity, and even profanity,
in the use of the sensuous nerve-exciting effects of instrumental
sound in their mystical, spiritual worship. Their high religious and
moral enthusiasm needed no aid from external stimulus; the pure
vocal utterance was the more proper expression of their faith. This
prejudice against instrumental music, which was drawn from the very
nature of its aesthetic impression, was fortified by the associations of
instruments with superstitious pagan rites, and especially with the
corrupting scenes habitually represented in the degenerate theatre
and circus. “A Christian maiden,” says St. Jerome, “ought not even to
know what a lyre or a flute is, or what it is used for.” No further
justification for such prohibitions is needed than the shameless
performances common upon the stage in the time of the Roman
empire, as portrayed in the pages of Apuleius and other delineators of
the manners of the time. Those who assumed the guardianship of the
morals of the little Christian communities were compelled to [56
employ the strictest measures to prevent their charges from
breathing the moral pestilence which circulated without check in the
places of public amusement; most of all must they insist that every
reminder of these corruptions, be it an otherwise innocent harp or
flute, should be excluded from the common acts of religion.

The transfer of the office of song from the general congregation to an

official choir involved no cessation of the production of hymns for
popular use, for the distinction must always be kept in mind between
liturgical and non-liturgical song, and it was only in the former that
the people were commanded to abstain from participation in all but
the prescribed responses. On the other hand, as ceremonies
multiplied and festivals increased in number, hymnody was
stimulated, and lyric songs for private and social edification, for the
hours of prayer, and for use in processions, pilgrimages, dedications,
and other occasional celebrations, were rapidly produced. As has
been shown, the Christians had their hymns from the very beginning,
but with the exception of one or two short lyrics, a few fragments,
and the great liturgical hymns which were also adopted by the
Western Church, they have been lost. Clement of Alexandria, third
century, is often spoken of as the first known Christian hymn writer;
but the single poem, the song of praise to the Logos, which has
gained him this title, is not, strictly speaking, a hymn at all. From the
fourth century onward the tide of Oriental hymnody steadily rose,
reaching its culmination in the eighth and ninth centuries. The
Eastern hymns are divided into two schools—the Syrian and the [57
Greek. Of the group of Syrian poets the most celebrated are
Synesius, born about 375, and Ephraem, who died at Edessa in 378.
Ephraem was the greatest teacher of his time in the Syrian Church,
and her most prolific and able hymnist. He is best remembered as the
opponent of the followers of Bardasanes and Harmonius, who had
beguiled many into their Gnostic errors by the charm of their hymns
and melodies. Ephraem met these schismatics on their own ground,
and composed a large number of songs in the spirit of orthodoxy,
which he gave to choirs of his followers to be sung on Sundays and
festal days. The hymns of Ephraem were greatly beloved by the
Syrian Church, and are still valued by the Maronite Christians. The
Syrian school of hymnody died out in the fifth century, and poetic
inspiration in the Eastern Church found its channel in the Greek
tongue.

Before the age of the Greek Christian poets whose names have
passed into history, the great anonymous unmetrical hymns appeared
which still hold an eminent place in the liturgies of the Catholic and
Protestant Churches as well as of the Eastern Church. The best
known of these are the two Glorias—the Gloria Patri and the Gloria in
excelsis; the Ter Sanctus or Cherubic hymn, heard by Isaiah in vision;
and the Te Deum. The Magnificat or thanksgiving of Mary, and the
Benedicite or Song of the Three Children, were early adopted by the
Eastern Church. The Kyrie eleison appears as a response by the
people in the liturgies of St. Mark and St. James. It was adopted into
the Roman liturgy at a very early date; the addition of the Christe [58
eleison is said to have been made by Gregory the Great. The
Gloria in excelsis, the “greater doxology,” with the possible exception
of the Te Deum the noblest of the early Christian hymns, is the
angelic song given in Luke ii. 14, with additions which were made not
later than the fourth century. “Begun in heaven, finished on earth.” It
was first used in the Eastern Church as a morning hymn. The Te
Deum laudamus has often been given a Western origin, St. Ambrose
and St. Augustine, according to a popular legend, having been
inspired to improvise it in alternate verses at the baptism of St.
Augustine by the bishop of Milan. Another tradition ascribes the
authorship to St. Hilary in the fourth century. Its original form is
unknown, but it is generally believed to have been formed by
accretions upon a Greek original. Certain phrases contained in it are
also in the earlier liturgies. The present form of the hymn is probably
[40]
as old as the fifth century.

Of the very few brief anonymous songs and fragments which have
come down to us from this dim period the most perfect is a Greek
hymn, which was sometimes sung in private worship at the lighting of
the lamps. It has been made known to many English readers through
Longfellow’s beautiful translation in “The Golden Legend:”

“O gladsome light
[59
Of the Father immortal,
And of the celestial
Sacred and blessed
Jesus, our Saviour!
Now to the sunset
Again hast thou brought us;
And seeing the evening
Twilight, we bless thee,
Praise thee, adore thee
Father omnipotent!
Son, the Life-giver!
Spirit, the Comforter!
Worthy at all times
Of worship and wonder!

Overlapping the epoch of the great anonymous hymns and continuing

beyond it is the era of the Greek hymnists whose names and works
are known, and who contributed a vast store of lyrics to the offices of
the Eastern Church. Eighteen quarto volumes, says Dr. J. M. Neale,
are occupied by this huge store of religious poetry. Dr. Neale, to
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