This Page Last Updated August 25th, 2009 (new style reckoning)
Mesmerizing Music
and the trap of theater
The musical idolatry at Sinai was not a good thing. Uzzah was killed while transporting the Ark on wheels accompanied by the use of musical instruments. Job’s first children were killed while having a party, no doubt using musical instruments. God forbade musical instruments inside the camp of Israel, specifically commanding musical instruments to only be outside the gates in the area of the pagans. The holy prophet Ezekiel attributes the beginning of the devil with the mark of the beast and musical instruments. The minor prophet Amos repeatedly condemned different sorts of instrumental music. In the liturgical New Testament there is no emphasis showing that Christians continued using musical instruments therein.
St. Clement of Alexandria mentions, “Leave the pipe to the shepherd, the flute to the men who are in fear of gods and intent on their idol worshipping. Such musical instruments must be excluded from our wingless feasts, for they arc more suited for beasts and for the class of men that is least capable of reason than for men. The Spirit, to purify the divine liturgy from any such unrestrained revelry chants: ‘Praise Him with sound of trumpet,’ for, in fact, at the sound of the trumpet the dead will rise again; ‘Praise Him with harp,’ for the tongue is a harp of the Lord; ‘and with the lute, praise Him.’ understanding the mouth as a lute moved by the Spirit as the lute is by the plectrum; ‘Praise Him with timbal and choir,’ that is, the Church awaiting the resurrection of the body in the flesh which is its echo; ‘Praise Him with strings and organ,’ calling our bodies an organ and its sinews strings, for front them the body derives its Coordinated movement, and when touched by the Spirit, gives forth human sounds; ‘Praise Him on high-sounding cymbals,’ which mean the tongue of the mouth which with the movement of the lips, produces words. Then to all mankind He calls out, ‘Let every spirit praise the Lord,’ because He rules over every spirit He has made. In reality, man is an instrument arc for peace, but these other things, if anyone concerns himself overmuch with them, become instruments of conflict, for inflame the passions. The Etruscans, for example, use the trumpet for war; the Arcadians, the horn; the Sicels, the flute; the Cretans, the lyre; the Lacedemonians, the pipe; the Thracians, the bugle; the Egyptians, the drum; and the Arabs, the cymbal. But as for us, we make use of one instrument alone: only the Word of peace by whom we a homage to God, no longer with ancient harp or trumpet or drum or flute which those trained for war employ.” (lement of Alexandria, 190AD The instructor, Fathers of the church, p. 130)
Again from St. Clement, “Moreover, King David the harpist, whom we mentioned just above, urged us toward the truth and away from idols. So far was he from singing the praises of daemons that they were put to flight by him with the true music; and when Saul was Possessed, David healed him merely by playing the harp. The Lord fashioned man a beautiful, breathing instrument, after His own imaged and assuredly He Himself is an all-harmonious instrument of God, melodious and holy, the wisdom that is above this world, the heavenly Word.”...“He who sprang from David and yet was before him, the Word of God, scorned those lifeless instruments of lyre and cithara. By the power of the Holy Spirit He arranged in harmonious order this great world, yes, and the little world of man too, body and soul together; and on this many-voiced instruments of the universe He makes music to God, and sings to the human instrument. ‘For thou art my harp and my pipe and my temple’,”(Clement of Alexandria, 185AD, Readings p. 62)
St. Basil once asked and said, “Whence is it that we are Christians? Through our faith, would be the universal answer. And in what way are we saved? Plainly because we were regenerate through the grace given in our baptism. No one ever forced their way ‘into the presence of God’ with music and no one is ever was said to have been improved by the use of music.”
St. John Chrysostom says, “David formerly sang songs, also today we sing hymns. He had a lyre with lifeless strings, the church has a lyre with living strings. Our tongues are the strings of the lyre with a different tone indeed but much more in accordance with piety. Here there is no need for the cithara, or for stretched strings, or for the plectrum, or for art, or for any instrument; but, if you like, you may yourself become a cithara, mortifying the members of the flesh and making a full harmony of mind and body. For when the flesh no longer lusts against the Spirit, but has submitted to its orders and has been led at length into the best and most admirable path, then will you create a spiritual melody.” (Chrysostom, 347-407, Exposition of Psalms 41, (381-398 A.D.) Source Readings in Music History, ed. O. Strunk, W. W. Norton and Co.: New York, 1950, pg. 70.)
The Stoglav Council, which is very important to Old Believers, forbids trumpet playing.
The Russian Patriarch Joasaph I, (or Joseph) in the year 1636 (perhaps we would call him an Old Believer) banned all foreign musical instruments. Patriarch Joasaph I (or Iosif) said that “only bells, drums and horns call the angels, all other musical instruments call the demons.” By going house to house he had all the devilish instruments loaded up and ceremoniously drug across the river where once there they were all destroyed.
The patriarch was not afraid of foreigners, as some suggest, but concerned merely about things that are contrary to Orthodoxy. Such musical instruments are simply unchristian. Sadly people do not even know what it means to be Christian these days. I began to learn about these things when I found this Russian History web page.
Above is a 19th century Lubok of Patriarch Joseph I
Above is another Russian Lubok (like a cartoon) showing the sad weeping, or crying angel. It shows the table of the righteous at the top, the table of the wicked on the bottom. On top an angel rejoices with the good gathering. Below and to the right we see the sorrowful angel, with its hand to its eye. This is because of the music being played next to it, while everyone is eating.
From the Domostroi (Rules for Russian Households) trans. by Pouncy, on pg 181, about women's responsibilities it reads: “She should not allow any Devil-inspired songs...or foul mouthed messages”
We are all lunatics if we believe that the inventions of men, like modern music, are godly. It is clear that mankind only gets worse and worse, that the days are more evil than ever. What kind of persons ought we to be? The Holy Gospel explains that only a few enter into eternal joy. If others want to preach a false gospel using instrumental music they have that choice. The Holy Gospel also makes it clear that if we are to follow Christ we must forsake everything else.
Gene Simmons with his makeup looks demonic. Modern music is nothing less than an idol. I noticed years ago that some protestants embraced the worldly music also. Young people like rock music so their church used the same instruments and sound but just gave them what they call Christian lyrics which they seem to think makes it ok. There are other no good styles too, like Christian Rap. Now they have Christian acid-rock, Christian punk rock, etc. What deception. For neoOrthodox to be inclined in the direction of worldly things (whether music or otherwise) is imagination rather than reality. Mechanical modern style instrumental music creates what has been called a dangerous tranquilizing effect. Very demonic, if you ask me we are all in a lot of trouble.
Here is something from St. Ephraim the Syrian that should make us think twice. “The one gifted with divine wisdom and understanding will easily notice when the Antichrist comes. But the one immersed in things of this world, the one who loves what is worldly, shall not be able to do so. Those who are married to the affairs of this life will hear the Word but not know the truth. If anyone preaches it, in fact, they will hate him.”
The Methodist, Nazarene and Amish, etc. all have almost lost any hint of real worship. I do not believe entirely like them. But everyone gets a few things right. That is why none of us will have any excuses in the end, for we already understand what is right or not. However, we each make our choices.
Instruments of music have, in their earliest history, the purpose of glorifying Satan. The angels are understood as worshipping God in heaven and since the devil had an exalted position before he fell many people suggest that Lucifer was in charge of worship. The invention of musical instruments for use as a weapon is attributed to the demons. In the book of Enoch, when it tells about the early history, it said that musical instruments attracted the demons. Some musical instruments are said to keep Satan at bay, Noah is understood as the first man of God to hit wood outside during the course of building the Ark. This kept the demons away and brought the angels close.
Cain’s son Jubal was said to have been the one who started using musical instruments. Some suggest that the daughters of men were Cainites who reveled, while the son’s of God were Shethites many of whom followed Enoch’s example of taking vows and living as anchorites on a holy mountain.
It is true that David attracted the demon from Saul with a musical instrument, but perhaps fasting and prayer would have been preferable and truly more helpful. Maybe the demon went into David and tempted and later tempted him to murder and commit adultery. I do not see the benefit of his musical instrument.
“Where kithara playing and dancing and hand clapping find place, there is the beguiling of men, the corruption of women, the sorrow of angels and a feast for the devil... Today, to all appearances, they sing psalms as God ordained, and tomorrow they will eagerly dance as taught by Satan. Today they contradict Satan and tomorrow they follow him... Let it be far from you that today, as one loving Christ, you listen attentively to the reading of the divine Scripture, and tomorrow as a criminal and a hater of Christ you listen to lyre playing.” - St. Ephraim the Syrian
In what are fragments from commentary on the Holy Gospel, Hippolytus says, “I made your ears that ye might hear the Scriptures; and ye prepared them for the songs of demons, and lyres, and jesting.”
In the book titled, A Treasury of American Folklore, it says that the devil was the inventor of the violin.
In a list of passions to be avoiding, we read in vol. 3 of the Philokalia, pg 206, “flute playing” along with many other similar passions, such as “...laughter, jokes, immodest dancing, clapping, improper songs...”
All who would be like Christ are called to be ascetic, to practice virtue and to practice dispassion.
Papadopoulos wrote: “The execution of Byzantine church music by instruments, or even the accompaniment of sacred chanting by instruments, was ruled out by the Eastern Fathers as being incompatible with the pure, solemn, spiritual character of the religion of Christ. The Fathers of the church, in accordance with the example of psalmodizing of our Savior and the holy Apostles, established that only vocal music be used in the churches and severely forbade instrumental music as being secular and hedonic, and in general as evoking pleasure without spiritual value” (G. I. Papadopoulos, A Historical Survey of Byzantine Ecclesiastical Music (in Greek), Athens, 1904, pp. 10, II).
Theater and Movies are Closely Related to Devilish Music Performances.
In the early Christian Era the theater was banned by the church. Christian attitudes toward the stage led to the view of the actor as a social outcast. Until the 10th century theatrics could only be seen with things like the vagabonds. We can see the forthcoming of the ruin of the Latin church because by the 9th century theatrical performances returned. Sadly, they were usually stories from the Bible and such plays were first acted out by priests themselves.
The theatre is forbidden because it harms the genuine happiness and morality of man by exchanging the practice of faith for an impostor, thereby weakening Christian beliefs. Theater creates extraordinary excitement and abnormal joy. It takes the person away from home and is a part of the amusements (originally, the word “amuse” had the connotation of emptying your mind and replacing it with something foreign) of this temporary world. Lactantius and St. Cyprian both say that theater started outside the house of God and was inadmissible due to its objectionable nature.
St. John Chrysostom said, “Is the wedding a theater?” he told them in a sermon. “It is a sacrament, a mystery, and a model of the Church of Christ... They dance at pagan ceremonies; but at ours, silence and decorum should prevail, respect and modesty. Here a great mystery is accomplished.” In Chrysostom’s Baptismal Instructions he goes further calling theater’s “the devil’s festival.”
In the Baptismal Instructions of St. Cyril he mentions, in its Prologue, part seven, that heretical baptism is no baptism. In part ten of the Prologue it mentions that Christians have many heresies to contend with and to strike down or throw darts them. In Lecture 18:26 it mentions the Church of evil doers. In Lecture 19:6 it says the pomp of the devil is the theater, horse racing, dancing of effeminate men, meat for the belly, etc.
From Erasmus are the words, “We have brought into our churches certain operatic and theatrical music; such a confused, disorderly chattering of some words as I hardly think was ever in any of the Grecian or Roman theatres. The church rings with the noise of trumpets, pipes, and dulcimers; and human voices strive to bear their part with them. Men run to church as to a theatre, to have their ears tickled. And for this end organ makers are hired with great salaries, and a company of boys, who waste all their time learning these whining tones.” (Erasmus, Commentary on I Cor. 14:19)
Eusebiues says, “Of old at the time those of the circumcision were worshipping with symbols and types it was not inappropriate to send up hymns to God with the psalterion and cithara and to do this on Sabbath days... We render our hymn with a living psalterion and a living cithara with spiritual songs. The unison voices of Christians would be more acceptable to God than any musical instrument. Accordingly in all the churches of God, united in soul and attitude, with one mind and in agreement of faith and piety we send up a unison melody in the words of the Psalms.” (commentary on Psalms 91:2-3)
Rousseau condemns the stage upon the same principle. “It is the art of dissimulation, of assuming a foreign character, and of appearing differently from what a man really is, of flying into a passion without a cause, and of saying what he does not think, as naturally as if he really did, in a word of forgetting himself to personate others.”
“In our assemblies at plays in London,” wrote Stephen Gosson in 1579, “you shall see such heaving, and shoving, such itching and shouldering to sit by women... such masking in their ears... such giving them pippins to pass the time: such playing at foot-saunt without cards: such tickling, such toying, such smiling, such winking, and such manning them home” - that a Puritan preacher, Thomas White, was moved to reason how “The cause of plagues is sin, and the cause of sin are plays: therefore the cause of plagues are plays.”
A Christian Tract on the Theater makes these four points.
1. The Theater is a Sinful Waste of Time
2. The Theater is a school of vice and profligacy
3. Those who go to the theater support an impious harmful amusement and actors
4. Theatrical Entertainments Dissipate the Mind, Destroying all Taste for the Spiritual
The truth is that every type of modern style instrumental music, theater, television, radio, the Internet, telephone, etc., etc. are all hypnotizing and will captivate our souls to hellfire if we do not find a way to escape such delusion and confusion. So beware out there.
For further information see my Znammeny Chant web page
Also see my It’s All About Conduct web page