Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. Colossians 3:16

And your public assemblies I have come to hate. For there are excessive banqueting, and subtle flutes which provoke to lustful movements, and useless and luxurious anointings, and crowning with garlands. With such a mass of evils do you banish shame; and you fill your minds with them, and are carried away by intemperance, and indulge as a common practice in wicked and insane fornication. Justin Martyr (A.D. 160) Ante-Nicene Fathers vol.1 pg. 272

Of such persons, too, the Spirit has spoken by Isaiah: "They drink wine with [the accompaniment of] harps, and tablets, and psalteries, and flutes; but they regard not the works of God, neither do they consider the work of His hands." Irenaeus (A.D. 180) Ante-Nicene Fathers vol.1 pg.464

For if people occupy their time with pipes, and psalteries, and choirs, and dances, and Egyptian clapping of hands, and such disorderly frivolities, they become quite immodest and intractable, beat on cymbals and drums, and make a noise on instruments of delusion; for plainly such a banquet, as seems to me, is a theatre of drunkenness. For the apostle decrees that, "putting off the works of darkness, we should put on the armor of light, walking honestly as in the day, not spending our time in rioting and drunkenness, in chambering and wantonness." Let the pipe be resigned to the shepherds, and the flute to the superstitious who are engrossed in idolatry. For, in truth, such instruments are to be banished from the temperate banquet, being more suitable to beasts than men, and the more irrational portion of mankind. Clement of Alexandria (A.D. 195) Ante-Nicene Fathers vol.2 pg.248

For we have heard of stags being charmed by the pipe, and seduced by music into the toils, when hunted by the huntsmen. And when mares are being covered, a tune is played on the flute - a nuptial song, as it were. And every improper sight and sound, to speak in a word, and every shameful sensation of licentiousness - which, in truth, is privation of sensation - must by all means be excluded; and we must be on our guard against whatever pleasure titillates eye and ear, and effeminates. For the various spells of the broken strains and plaintive numbers of the Carian muse corrupt men's morals, drawing to perturbation of mind, by the licentious and mischievous art of music. Clement of Alexandria (A.D. 195) Ante-Nicene Fathers vol.2 pg.248

The Spirit, distinguishing from such revelry the divine service, sings, "Praise Him with the sound of trumpet;" for with sound of trumpet He shall raise the dead. "Praise Him on the psaltery;" for the tongue is the psaltery of the Lord. "And praise Him on the lyre." By the lyre is meant the mouth struck by the Spirit, as it were by a plectrum. "Praise with the timbrel and the dance," refers to the Church meditating on the resurrection of the dead in the resounding skin. "Praise Him on the chords and organ." Our body He calls an organ, and its nerves are the strings, by which it has received harmonious tension, and when struck by the Spirit, it gives forth human voices. "Praise Him on the clashing cymbals." He calls the tongue the cymbal of the mouth, which resounds with the pulsation of the lips. Therefore He cried to humanity, "Let every breath praise the Lord," because He cares for every breathing thing which He has made. For man is truly a pacific instrument; while other instruments, if you investigate, you will find to be warlike, inflaming to lusts, or kindling up amours, or rousing wrath. Clement of Alexandria (A.D. 195) Ante-Nicene Fathers vol.2 pg.248

In their wars, therefore, the Etruscans use the trumpet, the Arcadians the pipe, the Sicilians the pectides, the Cretans the lyre, the Lacedaemonians the flute, the Thracians the horn, the Egyptians the drum, and the Arabians the cymbal. The one instrument of peace, the Word alone by which we honor God, is what we employ. We no longer employ the ancient psaltery, and trumpet, and timbrel, and flute, which those expert in war and void of the fear of God were wont to make use of also in the choruses at their festive assemblies; that by such strains they might raise their dejected minds. Clement of Alexandria (A.D. 195) Ante-Nicene Fathers vol.2 pg.248-249

And again he adds, "The LORD will take pleasure in His people." For temperate harmonies are to be admitted; but we are to banish as far as possible from our robust mind those liquid harmonies, which, through pernicious arts in the modulations of tones, train to effeminacy and scurrility. But grave and modest strains say farewell to the turbulence of drunkenness. Chromatic harmonies are therefore to be abandoned to immodest revels, and to florid and meretricious music. Clement of Alexandria (A.D. 195) Ante-Nicene Fathers vol.2 pg.249

Music is then to be handled for the sake of the embellishment and composure of manners. For instance, at a banquet we pledge each other while the music is playing; soothing by song the eagerness of our desires, and glorifying God for the copious gift of human enjoyments, for His perpetual supply of the food necessary for the growth of the body and of the soul. But we must reject superfluous music, which enervates men's souls, and leads to variety, -- now mournful, and then licentious and voluptuous, and then frenzied and frantic. Clement of Alexandria (A.D. 195) Ante-Nicene Fathers vol.2 pg.500-501

(In the theater) they resemble each other also in their pomp, having the same procession to the scene of their display from temples and altars, and that mournful profusion of incense and blood, with music of pipes and trumpets. Tertullian (A.D. 198) Ante-Nicene Fathers vol.3 pg.84

Nay, if he also first strung the chord to give forth melody, I will not deny, when listening to David, that this invention has been in use with the saints, and has ministered to God. Tertullian (A.D. 198) Ante-Nicene Fathers vol.3 pg.97

What trumpet of God is now heard unless it be in the entertainments of the heretics? Tertullian (A.D.198) Ante-Nicene Fathers vol.3 pg.562

If you seek to live, being a believing man, as do the Gentiles, the joys of the world remove you from the grace of Christ. With an undisciplined mind you seek what you presume to be easily lawful, both your dear actors and their musical strains; nor do you care that the offspring of such an one should babble follies. While you think that you are enjoying life, you are improvidently erring. The Highest commands, and you shun His righteous precepts. Commodianus (A.D. 200) Ante-Nicene Fathers vol.4 pg.214

For God gave man also a voice; and yet love-songs and indecent things are not on that account to be sung. Cyprian (A.D. 250) Ante-Nicene Fathers vol.5 pg. 433

“Be sober, and watch; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goes about seeking any one to devour.” He goes about every one of us; and even as an enemy besieging those who are shut up (in a city), he examines the walls, and tries whether there is any part of the walls less firm and less trustworthy, by entrance through which he may penetrate to the inside. He presents to the eyes seductive forms and easy pleasures, that he may destroy chastity by the sight. He tempts the ears with harmonious music, that by the hearing of sweet sounds he may relax and enervate Christian vigor. Cyprian (A.D. 250) Ante-Nicene Fathers vol.5 pg.491

Was it for this He sent souls, that beings of a sacred and august race should here practice singing and piping; that they should swell out their cheeks in blowing the flute; that they should take the lead in singing impure songs, and raising the loud din of the castanets, by which another crowd of souls should be led in their wantonness to abandon themselves to clumsy motions, to dance and sing, form rings of dancers, and finally, raising their haunches and hips, float along with a tremulous motion of the loins? Arnobius (A.D. 330) Ante-Nicene Fathers vol.6 pg.450

SEE ALSO: HYMNS, ENTERTAINMENT

Return to Index