St. Augustine and Chant

[Jim]

I was reading the book Making Choices: Practical Wisdom for Everyday Moral Decisions by Peter Kreeft, and I was pretty surprised when he mentioned that St. Augustine was actually suspicious of Chant (and I guess all forms of music, for that matter), because of its powerful emotional effects! Can anyone else confirm this, and give me the names of some specific writings of Augustine where I can further research this? Thanks!

 

[praise_Jesus_1]

I’m not extremely familiar with Augustine’s works. Does the author give a reference to this comment in a bibliography?

City of God is one of Augustine’s larger works and most things I have found attributed to him were from this writing.

Part of Augustine’s conversion came from him hearing a child in a ‘sing-song’ voice telling him to tolle, lege (“take up and read”). You can read more about that on Wikipedia and maybe this is in Augustine’s work “Confessions”. But if the voice he heard that led him to conversion was singing I don’t know why he would be opposed to it. But I guess it is possible that he wrote a warning that singing or song could be emotional and have other consequences.

I hope you can find what you’re looking for. And if you do let me know. I have a copy of City of God and would like to check this out.

 

[SC_Peach]

I was reading the book Making Choices: Practical Wisdom for Everyday Moral Decisions by Peter Kreeft, and I was pretty surprised when he mentioned that St. Augustine was actually suspicious of Chant (and I guess all forms of music, for that matter), because of its powerful emotional effects! Can anyone else confirm this, and give me the names of some specific writings of Augustine where I can further research this? Thanks!

Very interesting. I’m taking Philosophy at a local college and I’m just becoming familiar with St. Augustine.
I’m gonna look into this.
BTW, I love Chant:thumbsup:

God Bless!
Kathy

 

[Joannm]

Isn’t the phrase, “to sing is to pray twice” attributed to Augustine?

 

[SenorSalsa]

I recently skimmed a book called “Singing the Liturgy” which conveyed Augustine’s sentiment to be the same, although it clarified that he came to the conclusion that if the joy came from the praising of God, it could not be bad, I believe it gave quotes, which I can try to get tomorrow for you

 

[praise_Jesus_1]

Ok so I found some passages from City of God that would indicate Augustine was in favour of music. It would have been helpful had the author of your book posted a reference so we could verify his claim.

So in Book II of City of God Augustine states “And in several places in the Holy Scriptures we find both numbers and music mentioned with honor.”

This passage also includes some more references to music. I must apologize I’m pulling this off an online version and I can’t figure out what the exact part of City of God this is in (Book II Chapter 16 it looks like).

You can check out this passage at ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf102.v.v.xvi.html
if you want the exact reference please PM me and I’ll try to find it for you tonight when I get home.

I wasn’t able to find anything to support Augustine was against music/chant in any way.