Music of the Old Testament and Religion of Israel. 175

worldliness because the religious instinct, darkened by sin, led to the immoral worship of the Assyrians,* the self-immolation of the Hindoo Brahmans and the human sacrifices of the Aztecs? As the heart is cleansed from sin both in individuals. and nations by higher conceptions of God and duty, by the entrance of the kingdom of heaven centred in the Person and Church of Christ, the boundless realm of the ideal in all its forms and phases subordinate only to the "one thing needful," under the guiding hand of the Holy Spirit, obtains the rightful recognition and exercise of its purposes. And thus art, philosophy and science serve their divinely appointed mission as the handmaids of religion. Hence what we call poetic creation, art achievement and scientific discovery, evolution in short, as related to the life and soul of man, is after all at bottom a selfrevelation of eternal thoughts, attributes and essences.†

In the study of the music of the ancient Hebrews, we must always keep the following facts in mind.

I. The present high development of the art began only two hundred years ago and cannot be of any service in the elucidation of this subject, except by contrast with the most meagre historic sources.

II. The real character of Hebrew music is unknown. Not even a well authenticated fragment of early Jewish melody has come down to modern times. This makes the difficulty of

*"Still we are perhaps not to conclude from this comparative purity, that the Assyrian religion was really exempt from that worst feature of idolatrous systems-a licensed religious sensualism. According to Herodotus, the Babylonian worship of Beltis was disgraced by a practice which even he, heathen as he was, regarded as most shameful."-Rawlinson, Seven Great Monarchies, vol. 1, p. 367. † Beethoven was the greatest tone master the world thus far has seen. The story goes that he never began a composition without preparatory prayer. "Nothing can be more sublime," he writes in one of his letters, "than to draw nearer to the Godhead than other men, and to diffuse here on earth these God-like rays among men."

To what degree the hymns which at the present day are used in the Jewish Synagogues, trench upon the old temple music, it is impossible to say. The destruction of the second temple by Titus and the dispersion of the Israelites with the disestablishment of the Jewish state, annihilated the national and independent character of Hebrew music.-Naumann, Musik-Geschichte, vol. I. p. 75.

at fe istante wys the grids caused him to wander from hi the gas appeared u Jacob. The Hebrew

BL & BELT SURDOSEL U DE Brendel 15 a court resembling the divan of an I h and Las Jow in the mids, of the divine conclave of the Iliad, if he summumaet ta omgregation of saints and mighty ones, with all the HỊ ĐỂ DATEL &: La Tight Land and at his left'"-Mackay, Progress of the

Music of the Old Testament and Religion of Israel. 177

*

and hearts. Indeed, the Theocracy antedates the reign of the Judges and the Kings. Neither the exclusive nationalism of the Jews, the superstitious recognition they paid the heathen deities, nor the temporary abandonment of their ancestral rites,t affects to any degree whatsoever the overwhelming mportance of their age-long monotheistic faith. Though sometimes won away from it by the seductive rites of paganism, they never wholly exchanged the promises and covenant mercies of Abraham for the vicious, superstitious and degradng mummeries of idolatry. The difference between heathersm and the spiritual religion of the Old Testament, in their nfluence upon the arts, is incalculable. The savage possesses conception of melody which is limited and vague.§ His music consists in the infinite and meaningless repetition of a single movement. The Mongolian races, in this respect, occupy stage not far removed from savagery. In the worship of Jahveh the use of images was prohibited, and the holiest and leepest emotions of the soul were called into play. The cause of the exceptional musical attainments of the Israelites, unequaled by any ancient people, unquestionably lies in the Jahveh worship. "Among the Hebrews, music, for the first time in its history, was the medium of a personal relation between man and God." In Israel the growth of music kept pace with the deepening of faith. As religion declined, music became secularized. Thus religion, the true idea of God and His redemptive will, the right conception of man's relation to

"Woher kam nun Religion diesen Voelkern? Hat jeder Elende sich einen Gottesdienst etwa wie eine natuerliche Theologie erfunden? Diese Muehseligen erfinden nichts; sie folgen in Allem der Tradition ihrer Vaeter. Auch gab ihnen von aussen zu diesen Erfindungen nichts Anlass; denn wenn ie Pfeil und Bogen, Angel und Kleid den Thieren oder der Natur ablernten, welchem Thier, welchem Naturgegenstande sahen sie Religion ab? Tradition st also auch hier die fortpflanzende Mutter, wie ihrer Sprache and wenigen Kulter, so auch ihrer Religion und heiligen Gebraeuche."-Herder, Philosophie er Gesch' te der Mensch't, B'k 9, p. 138.

Vernon, Esthetics, p. 303.

the Creator and the surrounding world, open the way normal activity of musical genius. Instead of being san by religion, because of its ideal character, music serves as to religion and acts as a necessary medium of religious e sion.*

According to the Scriptures, the life of man on earth marred at its very fountain by willful separation from Go the shedding of innocent blood. "The story of the fall re to us how sin came into the world, and death by sin," and the awful gloom of guilt and the trail of the serpent were upon the thoughts and actions of men. We are told Jubal, the son of Adah, was the father of all such as h the harp and organ. But this statement leaves the cond of the arts in the archaic period of Hebrew history to conjecture. Only one fragment of song has come down that distant day as a witness to the early bondage of art u the angry love of war. The barbarous, bloodthirsty revengeful spirit of that age here finds utterance and gives t a hasty, keen and startling glimpse into the wickedness of times. The hymn ascribed to Lamech, but whose author unknown, shows how hopelessly the purposes of harmony w defiled by sin.

Adah and Zillah, hear my voice;

Ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speach;
For I have slain a man for wounding me,

And a young man for bruising me;

If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold,

Truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold.?

This is an antediluvian hymn. Centuries of silence follo its first appearance. The period of the patriarchs passes b Nothing more that savors of song is preserved in the sacre books, excepting the promise to Rebekah,|| the blessing

"Music was designed, on the one hand, to prepare the mind for th apprehension of the Divine voice (com. 2 Kings 3: 15); on the other, to be vehicle for the utterance of the prophetic inspiration."-Oehler, O. T. Theol. I † Gen. 4: 21. Gen. 25: 23.

866.

Gen. 6: 5.

& Gen. 6: 24.

Music of the Old Testament and Religion of Israel. 179 Jacob, the answer of Isaac to Esau,† and the great prophecy of Jacob to his sons until the time of Moses. And yet we have reason to hold that music continued to be cultivated among the progenitors of the Jews, because those years whose remaining raditions are so barren of recorded results in art, were not Fruitless in religious growth. Though captive in Egypt, held in subjection under the iron heel of oppression and contaminated by the idolatry of their masters,§ the Hebrews moved Onward in the lesson of faith, however slight the advance may have been. They must have stood upon higher ground in matters of religion, else they could not have lent a reverential ear to the holy benedictions of Moses and Aaron, which those great leaders, after Oriental fashion, may have chanted in the presence of the assembled hosts. Nor could they have received with any show of obedience whatsoever, the tables of the law prepared for them on a lonely mountain in the wilderness.

The royal song that characterizes this stage of their religious growth, a song dating from the first year of the Exodus, writen by Moses and taught by his sister, the prophetess, to the women of Israel, is Miriam's Hymn of Triumph. Humbled by oppression and united by affliction, Israel for the time had ost the savage venom of revengeful war, and in the outstart eveled in the enjoyment of national deliverance under the guidance of the God of Abraham. Thus in the hour of bloodess victory they shouted:

Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously,
The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.¶

Song

To this period in the journey through the desert, the " of the Well" belongs. It is a fragment of a hymn of thanksgiving, commemorative of material blessing.

* Gen. 27: 27-29.

Gen. 27: 39, 40.

Gen. 49: 2-27.

Whilst they carried the worship of Osiris, coupled with the heathen dance Ex. 32: 19), into the desert, many arts unknown in patriarchal times apeared among the Israelites after the Exodus. Vide Geikie, Hours with the Bible, vol. 2, p. 67.