ANTIPHONARY
580
ANTIPHONARY
illeliiia; Glon- be to The vSon and to The Holy Spirit,
Alleluia, Alleluia. Alleluia."
" Tybi the .')th (2(5 Dec). Great is Saint John the Baptist, who preached penance in the whole world, for remission of our sins. "
These anti|)hons were, probably, connected with the liturgj' of the Mass; the longer one, for the Feast of the Epipliany, which carried with it the commem- oration of the baptism of Clirist by St. Jolm the Bap- tist, was divided into three parts, serving the pur- pose, successively, of refrains to sections of psalms. The shorter one was a simple acrostic and was re- peated after each \erse.
The document just transcribed is now the sole contemporary manuscript of the ancient liturgy. For a somewhat less remote period we possess, fortunately, one of very different importance, namely, the antiphonary known as the Gregorian.
The attribution to Pope Gregory I (590-604) of an official codification of the collection of antiphons occurring in the Divine Office has at frequent in- tervals, exercised the wit of the learned. At the end of the ninth century John the Deacon (d. c. 882) ascribed to Gregory I the compilation of the books of music used by the schola cantorutn established at Rome by that pope. The statement, formal as it was, left room for discussion. GoussainviUe was the first to express (1685) a doubt as to the authenticity of the Gregorian antiphonary. He was followed by EUies du Pin, by Dom Denys de Sainte Marthe, and by Casimir Oudin, who added nothing noteworthy to the arguments of GoussainviUe. In 1729, J. Georges d'Eckhart suggested Pope Gregory II (715-731) as the author of a work which tradition had for centuries ascribed to Gregory I; his argu- ments were more or less tri\'ial. In 1749, Dominic Georgi took up the defence of the traditional opinion; among other arguments he brought forward a text whose full bearing on the point at issue he hardly seems to have grasped. This was a text of Egbert of York which Georgi transferred to the end of his book, in the form of a note, so that it was neither seen nor made use of. When, three years later, Vezzozi again took up the question, he also over- looked this particular text, and voluntarily deprived himself of an important argument in favour of the authorship of Gregory I. In 1772 Gallicioli followed in the footsteps of Vezzozi, but renewed the latter's concessions to the adversaries of Gregory I, nor did he make any secret of his surprise at the silence of Gregory of Tours, Isidore of Seville, and Bede, con- cerning that pope's Uturgical and musical labours. Being only partially con\'inced, he refrained from any oonclusion, and left the matter undecided.
It was reopened by Gerbort in 1774, and by Zaccaria in 1781, the latter of whom at last lit upon the text of Egbert. Between 1781 and 1890 no one seems to have discussed, critically, the ascription of the antiphonary to any particular pope. Indeed, the question was supposed to have been settled by the discovery of the antiphonary itself, which was said to be none other than the St. Gall MS. 359 of the ninth or tenth century, containing an antiphonary between pages 24 and 158. This illusion passed through various phases from 1837 to 1848, when Daiijou, in his turn, discovered the Gregorian antiphonary in a MontpcUier manuscript of the tenth or eleventh century. In 1851 the Jesuit Lambillotte published a facsimile of the St. Gall manuscript, but the Gregorian question made no real progress.
The discussion concerning the antiphonary was suddenly revived, in 1890, by a public lecture de- livered before the Belgian Academy on 27 Octo- ber, 1899, by Monsieur F. A. Gevaert. The argu- ment of the famous savant has been thus sum- marized by Horn Morin: "The productive period of
church musical art extends from the pontificate of
St. Celestine (422-432) to about the year 700, anH
is divided into two epoclis. That of simple chant,
the latest development of Gripco-Roman music, in-
cludes the last years of the Western Empire, and the
whole duration of the Gothic kingilom (425-563).
The second, that of ornate chant, coincitles with the
preponderance at Rome of Byzantine policy and art.
VVe meet with only one name, throughout the latter
epoch, with which the creation of the Roman an-
tiphonary seems to be connected; it is to Sergius I
(687-701) that the honour belongs not only of having
Cut the last touch to the Roman Uturgical collections, ut also of having recast all the ancient chants in accordance with a uniform melodic style, in harmony with the tendencies and tastes of the Byzantine influence. Finally, it was most probably the Syrian, Gregory III (731-741). the last but one of the Greek popes, who co-ordinated and united all the chants of the Mass in a collection similar to that which his predecessor, Agatho, had caused to be compiled for the anthems of the Day-Hours. As to the first Gregory, no e\-idence prior to that of John the Deacon alludes to the part ascribed to him. But there is evidence for the popes of Greek origin who lived at the end of the eiglith century, notably for Agatho and Leo II. Indeed, in respect of the chant of the Church, it is very probable that the great pope took no immediate interest in this part of divine worship; much less do the antiphonary and the sacramentary which bear his name agree in any way with the ecclesiastical calendar of St. Greg- ory's time; if they are at all rightly called Gregorian, it must be in reference either to Gregory II (715-731) or, more probably, to his successor, Gregory III, who died in 741."
This theory called forth many refutations. Dom G. Morin set himself to prove that the traditional ascription was well founded. To this end he drew up, in clironological order, a kind of catena of the Iiistorical texts on which the tradition rested. In addition to the statement of John the Deacon, he brought forward that of Walafrid Strabo (d. 840), whose meaning is perfectly clear. These texts, however, are of a late date. The pre- viously mentioned text of Egbert, Bishop of York (732-766), is nearly a hundred years earlier. In his dialogue entitled "De institutione ecclesias- ticA", and in a sermon for the second fast of the fourth month, Egbert formally ascribes the com- position of both the antiphonary and the sacra- mentary to Saint Gregory, the author of the conversion of England: "noster didascalus beatus Gregorius". At a somewhat earlier period, Aldhehn of Sherburne (d. 709) also bore witness to St. Greg- ory's authorsliip of the sacramentary, but said noth- ing concerning the antiphonary. In another essay Dom Morin re\'iewed critically all the texts relating to the antiphonary known as Gregorian. Though mostly of a late date, they owe to their mutual agreement an appreciable historical value. There are, however, other and more ancient texts, which, it would seem, ought to close the controversy. Dom Morin's catena seems to end w-ith Egbert, between whom and St. Gregory I there was an interval of at least one hundred and ten years. This, whatever an optimistic writer might bo led to say, was no in- considerable space of time; for an liistorian more concerned witti truth than with fancy it was im- possible to regard it as of no importance. Monsieur Gevaert laid stress (1895) on the silence of those writers who might be expected to supply the most direct e\ndence. The silence, as it proved, was less complete than had been supposecl. In the very year (732) that Egbert was raised to the See of York another prelate, Acca of Hexham, was forced to resign the olhce which he hail held since 709. Bede
