De vana aurium voluptate.
The Corruption of Sacred Song
The author laments how those who profess religious life have replaced the wholesome typological worship of the ancient fathers with theatrical vocal excesses — organs, cymbals, grotesque vocal contortions, and absurd imitations of death and ecstasy — all under the guise of devotion.
But because we have thought it best to set aside openly wicked people from this discussion, let the present discourse concern those who, under the appearance of religious life, cloak the business of pleasure — who appropriate for their own vanity what the ancient fathers practiced in types and figures of things to come, wholesomely and to good purpose. Tell me — I ask — now that types and figures have passed away, where do all these organs come from in the Church? Where do all these cymbals come from? What's the point, I ask, of that terrible blast from the bellows — expressing the crash of thunder rather than the sweetness of the voice? What's the purpose of that tightening and breaking of the voice? One singer accompanies underneath, another sings off-key; a third splits and carves up certain middle notes. Now the voice is drawn tight, now it's broken apart, now it's forced and pushed, now it's spread out with a fuller, more diffuse sound. Sometimes — and it shames me to say it — the voice is forced into horse-like whinnies; sometimes, with all manly vigor set aside, it's sharpened into the thin delicacy of a woman's voice; sometimes it's twisted and turned back on itself by a certain artful winding. You might sometimes see a man with mouth wide open, breath seemingly cut off, gasping out rather than singing, and by a certain absurd interruption of the voice threatening silence itself; now imitating the death throes of the dying, or the ecstasy of those in rapture.
The Theater Replaces the Altar
The author extends his critique to bodily theatrics in worship, showing how gesticulation and spectacle turn the congregation into a theater audience, obscuring the awesome majesty of the Eucharist; he then offers the corrective principle that sound must serve sense, not overwhelm it, and introduces Augustine's authority on the matter.
Meanwhile, with certain theatrical gestures the whole body is set in motion, the lips are contorted, the shoulders roll and play, and the bending of the fingers responds to each and every note. And this ridiculous dissipation is called religious observance; and wherever these things are performed more frequently, there people proclaim that God is served more honorably. The common crowd stands by, trembling and thunderstruck, marveling at the sound of tambourines, the crash of cymbals, and the melody of pipes; but it watches the lascivious gesticulations of the singers, the meretricious alternations and modulations of their voices, not without laughter and derision — so that you would judge them to have gathered not for a place of prayer but for a theater, not to pray but to watch a show.12 That awesome majesty is not feared, the One before whom we stand; nor is deference paid to that mystical manger at which we minister — where Christ is mystically wrapped in swaddling clothes, where his most sacred blood is poured from the chalice, where the heavens are opened and angels stand by, where earthly things are joined to heavenly, where men are united with angels. So what the holy Fathers established to stir up the weak to the affection of piety is taken up into the service of illicit pleasure.3 For sound should not be preferred to sense; but sound together with sense should generally be admitted as a stimulus to greater feeling. And so the sound ought to be of such a kind — so moderate, so grave — that it does not carry the whole mind away toward its own entertainment, but leaves the greater share to the sense. The most blessed Augustine says — namely (book4
Augustine's Witness and the Yoke of Love
The author cites Augustine's Confessions on the danger of delighting in musical sound over sacred meaning, then warns that those who reject the grave moderation of the Gregorian tradition for theatrical novelties reveal — by their restless longing to return to vanity — that they labor under the burden of worldly desire rather than the sweet yoke of Christ's love.
Book 10 of the Confessions, chapter (33): "The mind is moved to the affection of piety when it hears a divine song; but if the desire to hear longs more for the sound than for the meaning, it is disapproved." And elsewhere: "When song delights me more than the words, I confess that I have sinned grievously, and I would prefer not to hear singers at all." When, therefore, someone has set aside that ridiculous and ruinous vanity and devoted himself to the ancient moderation of the Fathers — if the recollection of theatrical frivolities brings an enormous disgust to ears that itch for such things, and a sense of what is grave and proper has taken hold; and if, on that account, he then despises and condemns the whole holiness of the Fathers as if it were mere rusticity — the very manner of singing that the Holy Spirit established through the most holy Fathers as through His own instruments, namely Augustine, Ambrose, and especially Gregory — while preferring, as the saying goes, the free dirges, or the most vain trifles of I-know-not-which scholars, If, therefore, he is tormented on this account, if he grieves on this account, if he pants anxiously back toward the things he has vomited forth — what, I ask, is the origin of this labor: is it the yoke of love, or the burden of worldly desire?✦
Read the original Latin
Sed quia aperte malos ab hac consideratione putavimus removendos, de his nunc sermo sit, qui sub specie religionis negotium voluptatis obpalliant: qui ea, quae antiqui patres in typis futurorum salubriter exercebant, in usum suae vanitatis usurpant. Unde, quaeso, cessantibus jam typis et figuris, unde in Ecclesia tot organa, tot cymbala? Ad quid, rogo, terribilis ille follium flatus, tonitrui potius fragorem, quam vocis exprimens suavitatem? Ad quid illa vocis contractio et infractio? Hic succinit, ille discinit; alter medias quasdam notas dividit et incidit. Nunc vox stringitur, nunc frangitur, nunc impingitur, nunc diffusiori sonitu dilatatur. Aliquando, quod pudet dicere, in equinos hinnitus cogitur; aliquando virili vigore deposito, in femineae vocis gracilitatem acuitur, nonnunquam artificiosa quadam circumvolutione torquetur et retorquetur. Videas aliquando hominem aperto ore quasi intercluso halitu exspirare, non cantare, ac ridiculosa quadam vocis interceptione quasi minitari silentium; nunc agones morientium, vel exstasim patientium imitari.
Interim histrionicis quibusdam gestibus totum corpus agitatur, torquentur labia, rotant, ludunt humeri; et ad singulas quasque notas digitorum flexus respondet. Et haec ridiculosa dissolutio vocatur religio; et ubi haec frequentius agitantur, ibi Deo honorabilius serviri clamatur. Stans interea vulgus sonitum follium, crepitum cymbalorum, harmoniam fistularum tremens attonitusque miratur; sed lascivas cantantium gesticulationes, meretricias vocum alternationes et infractiones non sine cachinno risuque intuetur, ut eos non ad oratorium, sed ad theatrum, nec ad orandum, sed ad spectandum aestimes convenisse. Nec timetur illa tremenda majestas, cui assistitur, nec defertur mystico illi praesepio, cui ministratur, ubi Christus mystice pannis involvitur, ubi sacratissimus ejus sanguis calice libatur, ubi aperiuntur coeli; assistunt angeli; ubi terrena coelestibus junguntur; ubi angelis homines sociantur. Sic quod sancti Patres instituerunt, ut infirmi excitarentur ad affectum pietatis, in usum assumitur illicitae voluptatis. Non enim sensui praeferendus est sonus: sed sonus cum sensu ad incitamentum majoris affectus plerumque admittendus. Ideoque talis debet esse sonus, tam moderatus, tam gravis, ut non totum animum ad sui rapiat oblectationem, sed sensui majorem relinquat portionem. Ait nempe beatissimus Augustinus (lib.
x Confess. c. 33): « Movetur animus ad affectum pietatis divino cantico audito: sed si magis sonum quam sensum libido audiendi desideret, improbatur. » Et alias: « Cum me, inquit, magis cantus quam verba delectant, poenaliter me peccasse confiteor, et mallem non audire cantantes. » Cum igitur aliquis, spreta ridiculosa illa et damnosa vanitate, antiquae Patrum moderationi sese contulerit, si ad memoriam nugarum theatricarum prurientibus auribus immane fastidium gravitas honesta intulerit; sicque totam Patrum sanctitatem quasi rusticitatem contemnat ac judicet; modum cantandi, quem Spiritus sanctus per sanctissimos Patres quasi per organa sua, Augustinum videlicet, Ambrosium, maximeque Gregorium, instituit: liberas, ut dicitur, naenias, vel nescio quorum scholasticorum nugas vanissimas anteponens. Si ergo hinc crucietur, hinc doleat, hinc ad ea quae evomuerat, anxius anhelet: quae rogo hujus laboris origo, jugum charitatis, an onus concupiscentiae mundialis?
Scripture echoes
- ↩Matt.11.30 — For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
Notes
- 1 ↩follium: lemma uncertain; possibly a type of percussion instrument, rendered here as 'tambourines' following the candidate gloss.
- 2 ↩infractiones: sense uncertain; rendered as 'modulations' following the candidate gloss's suggestion of vocal inflections or breaks.
- 3 ↩illicitae: lemma uncertain (possibly illicitus); rendered as 'illicit' following the candidate gloss.
- 4 ↩The Latin text is incomplete here: 'lib.' is an abbreviation for liber (book) with the book number or title missing. The sentence is cut off mid-quotation.
Speculum caritatis (The Mirror of Charity) companion
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