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On the question of psalmody in the ancient synagogue

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 December 2008

James W. McKinnon
James W. McKinnon
Affiliation:
State University of New York at Buffalo
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Extract

Music historians are virtually unanimous in attributing the source of early Christian psalmody to the synagogue. In this they follow the vast majority of liturgical scholars, Protestant and Catholic alike. There is, after all, considerable plausibility to the view: nascent Christianity was a Jewish sect and its first liturgical gatherings shared with the synagogue its most revolutionary characteristic – the coming together of co-religionists in a meeting room rather than the witnessing of sacrifice in a temple court. Moreover, the liturgical practices of these gatherings resembled those of the synagogue; in particular the so-called ‘liturgy of the Word’ that preceded the Eucharist appears to have been modelled after the scripture-centred order of synagogue worship. And when one observes that the principal vehicle of early Christian chant was the Old Testament Book of Psalms it seems a natural assumption that the singing of those psalms was a practice borrowed from the synagogue. The present author shared this assumption until coming to question it when pursuing a related topic. The study that follows is a fulfilment of the intention stated then to explore the subject more thoroughly. In doing so it is necessary to begin with a general examination of Jewish liturgy in the time of Jesus, both the liturgy of the Temple and that of the synagogue.

Type
Research Article
Information
Early Music History , Volume 6 , October 1986 , pp. 159 - 191
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986

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References

1 McKinnon, J., ‘The Exclusion of Musical Instruments from the Ancient Synagogue’, Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association, 106 (1979–1980), pp. 84–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Ibid., n. 43. The article in progress mentioned there, ‘The Myth of Psalmody in Early Synagogue and Church’ was presented as a paper in December 1980 at Duke University; the present article is a revision of the portion of that paper dealing with the synagogue. In the meantime John A. Smith, who was present at the Royal Musical Association meeting where the paper on the exclusion of musical instruments was read, decided to pursue the subject of synagogue psalmody on his own and published his findings in an article, ‘The Ancient Synagogue, the Early Church and Singing’, Music and Letters, 65 (1984), pp. 1–16.Google Scholar I agree with virtually all Mr Smith's conclusions and shall try to avoid duplication here of his argument.

3 For a summary of ancient references to Herod's Temple, see Safrai, S., ‘The Temple and the Divine Service’, The World History of the Jewish People, III, The Herodian Period (New Brunswick, N.J., 1975), pp. 282–4.Google Scholar

4 Ibid., p. 282. But see also Neusner, J., ‘Dating Mishnah-Tractates: The Case of Tamid’, Method and Meaning in Ancient Judaism, iii, ed. Neusner, J., Brown Judaic Studies 16 (Chico. Ca., 1981), pp. 103–16.Google Scholar

5 On the Ma'amadot, see especially M. Ta'anit 4, 2–3. (Thus the standard method of citing passages from the Mishnah indicating in this case Mishnah, tractate Ta'anit, chapter 4, paragraphs 2 and 3.) There is a convenient edition of the Mishnah with Hebrew and English translation in adjoining columns: Mishnajoth, ed. Blackman, P., 6 vols. (3rd edn, Gateshead, 1973).Google Scholar The Hebrew Mishnah, redacted in about a.d. 200, was followed by two extended Aramaic commentaries, one compiled in Palestine and one in Babylonia, each referred to as Gemara. The Mishnah together with Palestinian Gemara, redacted in the fourth century, is called the Jerusalem Talmud, and the Mishnah with Babylonian Gemara, redacted in the fifth century, is called the Babylonian Talmud. The more often cited Babylonian Talmud exists in an English translation published in London by the Soncino Press from 1936 to 1960. All translations in the present article will be taken from this work unless otherwise indicated. There is no complete translation of Jerusalem Talmud, but a monumental edition of both Talmuds with translation and commentary has been undertaken by Ehrman, A., ed., Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmud (Jerusalem and New York, 1965–).Google Scholar

6 The Temple offices and the individuals who held them in the last years of the Temple are given in M. Shekalim 5.

7 The description of the daily service given here is selective, emphasising those elements of relevance to the subject at hand. It follows the Mishnah Tamid and will give citations for individual events only if derived from other tractates. Of the many secondary works consulted the most helpful was that of S. Safrai cited above.

8 M. Sukkah 5, 5.

9 Tefillah will be the term used in this study; synonyms used with comparable frequency are 'Amidah, literally ‘standing’, the traditional posture for the prayer, and Shemoneh 'Esreh, literally ‘eighteen’. The modern syngaogue follows Babylonian usage with its nineteen benedictions.

10 There is a musical curiosity involved here: the magrefah came eventually to be confused with a monstrous pipe organ and was considered to be such by musicologists as late as Idelsohn, A. Z., Jewish Music in its Historical Development (New York, 1929), p. 14.Google Scholar The confusion was finally unravelled by Yasser, J., ‘The Magrepha of the Herodian Temple: a Five-Fold Hypothesis’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 13 (1960), pp. 24–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 Luke 1: 10.

12 They are given in M. Tamid 7, 4 (actually a baraita– an item from the mishnaic period but not included in the Mishnah – appended to Tamid): Sunday, Ps. 24; Monday, Ps. 48; Tuesday, Ps. 82; Wednesday, Ps. 94; Thursday, Ps. 81; Friday, Ps. 93; Sabbath, Ps. 92. See also Rosh ha-Shanah 30b–31a (thus the standard manner of reference to a passage from the Gemara of the Babylonian Talmud; 30b–31a indicates folios of the standard Venetian edition of 1548).

13 M. eArakin 2, 3–6.

14 M. Sukkah 5, 1; Sukkah 50b–51a. On the question of a Sabbath prohibition of instruments, see McKinnon, ‘Exclusion’, p. 82.

15 The credit for making the phenomenon known goes to Quasten, J., Musik und Gesang in den Kulten der heidnischen Antike und christlichen Frühzeit, Liturgiewissenchaftliche Quellen und Forschungen 25 (Münster, Westphalia, 1930), pp. 36–44.Google Scholar Although his explanation of the phenomenon as apotropaic magic is widely accepted, the present author finds it unsatisfactory; see ‘The Church Fathers and Musical Instruments’ (Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1965), pp. 11–17.Google Scholar

16 There are minor discrepancies among the numerous talmudic references; here 'Arakin 10a especially is followed.

17 M. Pesahim 5, 7.

18 M. eArakin 2, 3; eArakin 10a.

19 Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era, 3 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., 1927–1930), ii, p. 13.Google Scholar See also Rowley, H., Worship in Ancient Israel (London, 1967), p. 241.Google Scholar

20 Berakhot 33b.

21 ‘The Origin of the Synagogue’, Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research, 2 (1930–1931), pp. 69–81.Google Scholar

22 See especially M. Taeanit 4, 2–3.

23 ‘Ben Sira and the Nonexistence of the Synagogue: a Study in Historical Method’, In Time of Harvest: Essays in Honor of Abba Hillel Silver, ed. Silver, D. (New York and London, 1963), pp. 320–54.Google Scholar Rivkin, moreover, is convincing in arguing that the Jewish proseuchē (prayer-site), referred to in a frequently mentioned third-century B.C. Egyptian inscription, was not a synagogue but a dedicatory shrine. He acknowledges his debt to Zeitlin, in ‘Solomon Zeitlin's Contribution to the Historiography of the Inter-testamental Period’, Judaism, 14 (1965), pp. 354–67.Google Scholar

24 See Gutmann, J., ‘The Origin of the Synagogue: the Current State of Research’, The Synagogue: Studies in Origins, Archaeology and Architecture, ed. Gutmann, J. (New York, 1975), pp. 72–6;Google Scholar and ‘Synagogue Origins: Theories and Facts’, Ancient Synagogues: the State of Research, ed. Gutmann, J. (Chico, Ca., 1981), pp. 1–6.Google Scholar

25 References to the relevant secondary literature appear below.

26 On the significance of the date for Christianity, see Brandon, S., The Fall of Jerusalem and the Christian Church (2nd edn, London, 1975).Google Scholar

27 Quod omnis probus liber sit 81–2; see also Philo, , Hypothetica 7, 12–13Google Scholar, and Josephus, , Contra Apionem 2, 175.Google Scholar

28 M. Megillah 3, 4–6; 4, 2–6.

29 Liksidran; ibid., 3, 4.

30 Ibid., 3, 6.

31 The classic work on synagogue homiletics is Zunz, L., Die gottesdienstlichen Vorträge der Juden (Frankfurt am Main, 1892).Google Scholar For a more recent attempt to describe the character of early synagogue sermons, see Bettan, I., Studies in Jewish Preaching (Cincinnati, 1939), pp. 3–48.Google Scholar

32 A good example is Billerbeck, P., ‘Ein Synagogengottesdienst in Jesu Tagen’, Zeitschrift für neutestamentliche Wissenschaft, 55 (1964), pp. 143–61.Google Scholar He does not, however, mention psalmody; for several advocates of the conventional view who do, see below.

33 Not until Amran Gaon's, in the ninth century.

34 Nehemiah 8: 1–8; see Oesterle, W., A History of Israel (London, 1934), n, p. 138.Google Scholar

35 Zeitlin mentions prayer, if only in passing, ‘The Origin of the Synagogue’, p. 76; as does Rivkin, , A Hidden Revolution (Nashville, 1978), p. 250;Google Scholar while Hoenig appears to exclude it, ‘The Supposititious Temple-Synagogue’, Jewish Quarterly Review [hereafter JQR], 54 (1963), p. 130, n. 71.Google Scholar For more on Hoenig's related views see ‘Historical Inquiries: i. Heber Ir ii. City-Square’, JQR, 48 (1957), pp. 123–39.Google Scholar

36 See also Luke 12:11; Acts 9: 1–2 and 12: 11.

37 Even by Smith, J., ‘The Ancient Synagogue, the Early Church and Singing’, p. 4.Google Scholar I differ from Smith only in that I believe he accepts too easily the common assumptions about prayer in the synagogue of the period.

38 See also Matthew 4: 23; Mark 1:21, 6:2; and Luke 4: 14,6:6.

39 See also Acts 9: 20, 13:5, 14: 1, 17: 1–3, 17:10–11, 18:4, 18: 19, 18: 16 and 19:8.

40 See also Acts 2:46.

41 See also Acts 4: 31.

42 In Flaccum 49; Rivkin's discussion of the meaning of proseuchē appears as an appendix to ‘Ben Sira and the Nonexistence of the Synagogue’, pp. 150–4.

43 Legatio ad Gaium 155–6; again I follow Rivkin's argument.

44 Text, translation and critical commentary in Rabbinowitz, J., Mishnah Megillah (London, 1931), pp. 114–21.Google Scholar

45 See Rabbinowitz, p. 117.

46 M. Megillah 4, 6; Rabbinowitz, p. 125.

47 Prayer in the Talmud, Studia Judaica 9 (Berlin and New York, 1977).Google Scholar

48 ‘The Liturgy of the Synagogue: History, Structure and Contents’, Approaches to Ancient Judaism, iii, ed. Green, W., Brown Judaic Studies 27 (Chico, Ca., 1983), pp. 1–64.Google Scholar

47 Berakhot 5a.

48 Berakhot 4b.

49 The best source for Johanan's activity is Neusner, J., A Life of Yohanan ben Zakkai, Ca. i–80 C.E. (Leiden, 1970).Google Scholar

50 On Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, see Neusner, J., Eliezer ben Hyrcanus: The Tradition and the Man, 2 vols. (Leiden, 1973).Google Scholar The issues discussed here have been summarised recently by Neusner in ‘The Formation of Rabbinicjudaism: Methodological Issues and Substantive Theses’, Formative Judaism: Religious Historical and Literary Studies, iii, ed. Neusner, J., Brown Judaic Studies 46 (Chico, Ca., 1983), pp. 99–146.Google Scholar The quotation is from the latter work, p. 139.

51 On opposition to Johanan, see Neusner, , Yohanan ben Zakkai, pp. 215–18.Google Scholar

52 Berakhot 28b and Megillah 17b.

53 He had a hand in other liturgical developments, for example the ordering of the Passover seder; see M. Pesahim 10, 5.

54 See Guttmann, A., ‘The End of the Jewish Sacrificial Cult’, Hebrew Union College Annual, 38 (1967), pp. 137–48.Google Scholar

55 Berakhot 26b.

56 Berakhot 32b.

57 Berakhot 5a.

58 Berakhot 4b.

59 M. Berakhot 4, 5.

60 Berakhot 26a.

61 Berakhot 21a.

62 Berakhot 8a; see also Berakhot 3a; Berakhot 6a, quoted below, and Berakhot 30b.

63 Berakhot 8a.

64 (Ps. 82: 1), Berakhot 6a; the immediately preceding passage has a reference to song that will be discussed below.

65 Megillah 28a–28b.

66 ‘There Was No Synagogue in the Temple‘, JQR, 53 (1962), pp. 168–9.Google Scholar

67 ‘The Supposititious Temple-Synagogue’.

68 For the philological aspect of the argument, which is too complex for brief summary, see especially Hoenig, op. cit,. pp. 118–23.

69 See Gutmann, Ancient Synagogues: The State of Research, especially Seager, A., ‘Ancient Synagogue Architecture: An Overview’, pp. 39–47.Google Scholar

70 Chiat, M., ‘First-Century Synagogue Architecture: Methodological Problems’, Ancient Synagogues, pp. 49–60.Google Scholar

71 See Petuchowski, , ‘The Liturgy of the Synagogue’, p. 20.Google Scholar

72 Christian Worship: Its Origin and Evolution (5th edn, London, 1919), p. 48.Google Scholar The first French edition appeared in 1903.

73 Introduction to the Gregorian Melodies (trans. Orme, A. and Wyatt, E., London, 1907), p. 7.Google Scholar The first German edition appeared in 1895.

74 The Jewish Background of the Christian Liturgy (London, 1925), p. 75.Google Scholar

75 The Influence of the Synagogue upon the Divine Office (London, 1944), pp. 8 and 80–1.Google Scholar

76 The Shape of the Liturgy (2nd edn, London, 1945), p. 45;Google Scholar and more recently, Jew and Greek (London, 1953), pp. 92–3.Google Scholar

77 Op. cit., p. 75.

78 These authors are too numerous to cite. The most recent is Cattin, G., Music of the Middle Ages, i (trans. Botterill, S., Cambridge, 1984), p. 5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For my own commitment to the view, see ‘The Church Fathers and Musical Instruments’, pp. 113–14.

79 Jewish Music in its Historical Development, p. 19.

80 Music in Ancient Israel, p. 180.

81 The Sacred Bridge (New York, 1959), pp. 7–10, 144–5.Google Scholar

82 Op. cit., pp. 184–7.

83 The standard history of Jewish liturgy is Elbogen, I., Der jüdische Gottesdienst in seiner geschichtlichen Entwicklung (3rd edn, Frankfurt am Main, 1931);Google Scholar see his brief remarks on pp. 249 and 252. Heinemann, Prayer in the Talmud, does not mention psalmody, while Petuchowski, ‘The Liturgy of the Synagogue’, p. 25, simply mentions the ‘Verses of Song’ as one among several practices not yet established in the talmudic period. The one scholar who deals with the issue at length, Rabinowitz, L., ‘The Psalms in Jewish Liturgy’, Historia Judaica, 6 (1944), pp. 109–22Google Scholar, takes a strongly negative position.

84 Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era, I, p. 296.

85 Sopherim 18, 1. What follows here on Sopherim owes much to the discussion of Rabinowitz, ‘The Psalms in Jewish Liturgy’. Sopherim is available in English translation as part of a supplement to the Soncino translation of the Babylonian Talmud.

86 Hertz, J., The Authorized Daily Prayer Book (revised edn, New York, 1948), p. 218.Google Scholar

87 Sopherim 17, 11.

88 Hertz, op. cit., 84–96.

89 Elbogen, , Der jüdische Gottesdienst, p. 82Google Scholar, determined that a phrase in Shabbath 118b refers to these six psalms, but Hoffman, L. casts serious doubt on the identification: The Canonization of the Synagogue Service (Notre Dame, Ind., and London, 1979), pp. 127–8.Google Scholar

90 That is, those sufficiently developed to appear in the indexes of the Soncino translation.

91 Especially: M. Pesahim 5, 7; M. Ta'anit 4, 4–5; M. Sukkah 4, 1 and 8; Sukkah 37b; 42b; 54b.

92 Especially: Berakhot 9a; M. Pesahim 9, 3; 10, 6–7; Pesahim 85b–86a; 115b; 117a.

93 For example, ‘Arakin 10a–10b and Ta'anit 28b.

94 For example, a reference to David's supposed recitation, Megillah 21b, and another on the question of kneeling during the recitation, Berakhot 34b.

95 Rosh ha-Shanah 27a; see also 34b and M. Rosh ha-Shanah 4, 7.

96 Sotah 30b. I. Slotki discusses this and related passages at length: ‘Antiphony in Ancient Hebrew Poetry’, JQR, 26 (1936), pp. 199–219.Google Scholar

97 Confessions, x, 33, 50.

98 See especially Jeffery, P., ‘The Introduction of Psalmody into the Roman Mass by Pope Celestine i (422–32)’, Archiv für Liturgiewissenschaft, 26 (1984), p. 159.Google Scholar It is the central point of my paper, ‘The Fourth Century Origin of the Gradual’; see Abstracts of Papers Read at the First Joint Meeting of the American Musicological Society … (Vancouver, 1985), pp. 27–8.Google Scholar

99 The Gospel of John, which suggests to some that the Last Supper took place on the previous day, gives pause. Still there are liturgical historians who view the matter with certainty: for example, Jungmann., J.The Early Liturgy (trans. Brunner, F., Notre Dame, Ind., 1959), p. 12.Google Scholar

100 La tradition apostolique de Saint-Hippolyte, ed. Botte, B. (Münster, Westphalia, 1963), p. 6.Google Scholar

101 An important point for which one is indebted to Smith, op. cit., p. 16.

102 De vita contemplativa, 64–90.

103 Ecclesiastical History, ii, 17, 22. Compare the Philo passage with Tertullian, Apologeticum, 39, 16–18.

104 Hengel, M., ‘Proseuche und Synagogue’, Tradition und Glaube: Das frühe Christentum in seiner Umwelt: Festgabe für Karl Kuhn zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Jeremias, G. and others (Göttingen, 1971), p. 163.Google Scholar

105 In addition to the passages cited above from Tertullian and the Apostolic Tradition, see Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus 2,4 and Cyprian, Ad Donatum, 16.

106 Megillah 32a.

107 Berakhot 6a.

108 Ta'anit 16a.

109 The Sacred Bridge, ii (New York, 1984), pp. 73, 97–100.Google Scholar

110 ‘The Reading of the Law and Prophets in a Triennial Cycle’, JQR, 5 (1893), pp. 420–68;Google Scholar‘Reading of the Prophets in a Triennial Cycle’, JQR, 6 (1894), pp. 1–73.Google Scholar Both articles are reprinted in Petuchowski, J., Contributions to the Scientific Study of Jewish Liturgy (New York, 1970), pp. 181–229; 230–302.Google Scholar

111 The Bible as Read and Preached in the Old Synagogue, 2 vols. (Cincinnati, 1940–55; vol. ii completed by I. Stone).

112 The principal advocates of the theory are: King, E., ‘The Influence of the Triennial Cycle upon the Psalter’, The Journal of Theological Studies, 5 (1904), pp. 203–13;CrossRefGoogle ScholarSnaith, N., ‘The Triennial Cycle and the Psalter’, Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, 51 (1933), pp. 302–7;CrossRefGoogle ScholarRabinowitz, L., ‘Does Midrash Tillim Reflect the Triennial Cycle of Psalms’, JQR, 26 (1936), pp. 349–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The inclusion of this last scholar is surprising in view of his later opposition to the idea of psalmody in the early synagogue; see ‘The Psalms in Jewish Liturgy’, cited above.

113 Rabinowitz, ‘Does Midrash Tillim Reflect the Triennial Cycle’, p. 358.

114 Arens, A., Die Psalmen in Gottesdienst des Alten Bundes, Trierer Theologische Studien 11 (Trier, 1961), p. 202.Google Scholar

115 ‘The Triennial Lectionary Cycle’, The Journal of Jewish Studies, 19 (1968), pp. 41–8.Google Scholar

116 In the ‘Prolegomenon’ to the 2nd edn of Mann, op. cit., i (New York, 1971).

117 M. Megillah 4, 4. For another example, the passage from Mishnah Megillah (3,4) quoted above, which counts only Sabbath morning readings in the cycle, is directly contradicted by other rabbinic evidence; see Heinemann, op. cit., p. 45. For a summary of the issue, see Petuchowski, ‘The Liturgy of the Synagogue’, p. 29.

118 Op. cit., p. 46.

119 Apology, I, 67.

120 Op. cit., p. 7.

121 See Jeffery, ‘The Introduction of Psalmody into the Roman Mass’, and McKinnon, ‘The Fourth Century Origin of the Gradual’.