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JAMES W. MCKINNONON THE QUESTION OF PSALMODY INTHE ANCIENT SYNAGOGUEMusic historians are virtually unanimous in attributing the source ofearly Christian psalmody to the synagogue. In this they follow thevast majority of liturgical scholars, Protestant and Catholic alike.There is, after all, considerable plausibility to the view: nascentChristianity was a Jewish sect and its first liturgical gatheringsshared with the synagogue its most revolutionary characteristic - thecoming together of co-religionists in a meeting room rather than thewitnessing of sacrifice in a temple court. Moreover, the liturgicalpractices of these gatherings resembled those of the synagogue; inparticular the so-called 'liturgy of the Word' that preceded theEucharist appears to have been modelled after the scripture-centredorder of synagogue worship. And when one observes that theprincipal vehicle of early Christian chant was the Old TestamentBook of Psalms it seems a natural assumption that the singing ofthose psalms was a practice borrowed from the synagogue. Thepresent author shared this assumption until coming to question itwhen pursuing a related topic. 1 The study that follows is a fulfilmentof the intention stated then to explore the subject more thoroughly. 2In doing so it is necessary to begin with a general examination of1 J. McKinnon, 'The Exclusion of Musical Instruments from the Ancient Synagogue',Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association, 106 (1979-80), pp. 84-5.2 Ibid., n. 43. The article in progress mentioned there, 'The Myth of Psalmody in EarlySynagogue 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. Inthe meantime John A. Smith, who was present at the Royal Musical Association meetingwhere the paper on the exclusion of musical instruments was read, decided to pursue thesubject of synagogue psalmody on his own and published his findings in an article, 'TheAncient Synagogue, the Early Church and Singing', Music and Letters, 65 (1984), pp. 1-16.I agree with virtually all Mr Smith's conclusions and shall try to avoid duplication here ofhis argument.159Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261127900000784Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Cambridge, on 25 Feb 2020 at 16:58:33, subject to the