Singing in the Family as a Means of Education in St John Chrysostom's Pedagogy

Abstract

The author of this extensive article consisting of two parts tries to show, on the basis of copiously quoted sources, that singing together in the family is in St John Chrysostom's pedagogical thought one of the important means of education. In Part One that is devoted to St John Chrysostom's pedagogy, on the basis of the Bishop of Constantinople's statements the author shows that in the family, which he calls the Church of the home, mainly the father (pater familias) is responsible for this kind of educational activity: it is him who should bring the atmosphere of the church to the family and teach the children and all the members of the household to sing – first of all the psalms that are rich in manifold values and that bring numerous kinds of good as well as God's blessing to the family; he also should prevent them from singing lay songs, originating mainly from the theatre, grand feasts and wedding parties: he calls the songs devilish, as they bring a lot of evil and dissipation to the homes. The author also reminds that the eloquent bishop, being, like all the Fathers of the Church, a firm opponent of instrumental music in God's service, as the first one in Constantinople introduced antiphonic singing, opposing it to the Arians' analogous singing that propagated heresy. In Part Two of the article the author tries to answer the question whether John Chrysostom was original in his teaching that music and singing have a positive effect on shaping a child's soul; bymeans of quoting numerous statements (by the Pythagoreans, Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, the Skeptics and Christian authors: Clement of Alexandria, Athanasius, Basil, Theodoretus of Cyrus, and in the West – Ambrose and Augustine) he also reminds of the ancient theory ofthe musical ethos that took the same views; John Chrysostom just emphasized them more strongly.