Original scientific paper
Qui bene cantat, bis orat. The role of cantors in the early Christian church liturgy
Mirjana Sanader
orcid.org/0000-0002-9721-5491
Abstract
As today, in the past, performing and playing music, as well
as singing, were integral parts of everyday human life. Singing
and playing were regular on various occasions, both private
and official, and, of course, in religious (cult) rituals and ceremonies.
Singing and playing could be heard in all parts of the
globe, as directly confirmed by modern research of indigenous
peoples. Therefore, it is quite logical that the early Christians,
as an integral part of the ancient world, incorporated singing
from their very beginnings, i.e. from the first century, together
with their prayers and reading of sacred texts, which would
later enter the canon of Scripture, into this preliturgy. This is
evidenced by literary sources, as well as by some archaeological
facts. The great importance and appreciation of the act
of singing in the early Christian liturgy can be illustrated by
the famous dictum from our title, attributed to St. Augustine:
He who sings well, prays twice. Today, not enough is known about the manner of singing at the time, much less about the
repertoire of chants performed by Christians during preliturgical
cult rites, but let it not go unnoticed that the focus of
Augustine’s saying is on singing well. The extent of importance
of this in constituting the singing component of the later
development of the Christian liturgy will be shown below.
Notwithstanding, the original aim of our paper is to record the
previous results and knowledge of the role of singing in early
Christian rites, i.e. in the first decades of the development and
spread of Christianity, and, especially in this context, to verify
possible archaeological evidence of the cantors’ activities in
the early Christian Salonitan Church.
Keywords
Salona, liturgical music/singing, schola cantorum, early Christian period
Hrčak ID:
271200
URI
Publication date:
22.12.2021.
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