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TEMPLE MUSIC AND PSALMODY.

intonation hurrying on to the following distinctive accent. Further, if we place Dechi (Tiphcha initiale) and Rebia gereshatum beside the remaining six servi among the notes, we may indeed produce a sarka-table of the metrical accentuation, although we cannot guarantee its exact agreement with the original manner of singing.
Following Gerbert (De musica sacra) and Martini (Storia della musica), the view is at present very general that in the eight Gregorian tones together with the extra tone (tonus peregrinus),[1] used only for Psa 113:1-9 (=Psa 114:1 in the Hebrew numeration), we have a remnant of the ancient Temple song; and this in itself is by no means improbable in connection with the Jewish nationality of the primitive church and its gradual severance at the first from the Temple and synagogue. In the convents of Bethlehem, which St. Paula founded, psalms were sung at six hours of prayer from early morn till midnight, and she herself was so well versed in Hebrew, ut Psalmos hebraice caneret et sermonem absque ulla Latinae linguae proprietate personaret (Ep. 108 ad Eustoch. c. 26). This points to a connection between the church and synagogue psalm-melodies in the mos orientalium partium, the oriental psalmody, which was introduced by Ambrose into the Milanese church. Nevertheless, at the same time the Jewish element has undergone scarcely any change; it has been developed under the influence of the Greek style, but is, notwithstanding, still recognizable.[2]
Pethachja of Ratisbon, the Jewish traveller in the 12th century, when in Bagdad, the ancient seat of the Geonim (גאונים), heard the Psalms sung in a manner altogether peculiar;[3] and Benjamin of Tudela, in the same century, became acquainted in Bagdad with a skilful singer of the Psalms used in divine worship. Saadia on Psa 6:1, infers

  1. Vid., Friedr. Hommel's Psalter nach der deutschen Uebersetzung D. M. Luthers für den Gesang eingerichtet, 1859. The Psalms are there arranged in stichs, rightly assuming it to be the original mode and the most appropriate, that antiphonal song ought to alternate not according to the verses, as at the present day in the Romish and English church, but according to the two members of the verse.
  2. Vid., Saalschütz, Geschichte und Würdigung der Musik bei den Hebräern, 1829, S. 121, and Otto Strauss, Geschichtliche Betrachtung über den Psalter als Gesang-und Gebetbuch, 1859.
  3. Vid., Literaturblatt des Orients, 4th years, col. 541.