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| The Arians and the Supporters of the 'Homoousion' hold Nocturnal Assemblies and sing Antiphonal Hymns, a Species of Composition ascribed to Ignatius, surnamed Theophorus. Conflict between the Two Parties.
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Chapter VIII.—The
Arians and the Supporters of the ‘Homoousion’ hold
Nocturnal Assemblies and sing Antiphonal Hymns, a Species of
Composition ascribed to Ignatius, surnamed Theophorus.855
| 855Θεόφορος =
‘borne by God,’ used in the sense of being ‘possessed
by a god,’ ‘inspired,’ by Æsch. Agam.
1150; but here ‘borne in the arms of God’ or ‘carried
by God,’ and applied to Ignatius because tradition made him the
very child whom the Saviour ‘took up in his arms,’ and set
in the midst of his disciples. Cf. Mark ix. 36; to be distinguished therefore from
Θεοφόρος,
‘bearing’ or ‘carrying a god.’
|
Conflict between the Two Parties.
The Arians, as we have said,
held their meetings without the city. As often therefore as the festal
days occurred—I mean Saturday856
and Lord’s day—in each week, on which assemblies are
usually held in the churches, they congregated within the city gates
about the public squares, and sang responsive verses adapted to the
Arian heresy. This they did during the greater part of the night: and
again in the morning, chanting the same songs which they called
responsive, they paraded through the midst of the city, and so passed
out of the gates to go to their places of assembly. But since they did
not desist from making use of insulting expressions in relation to the
Homoousians, often singing such words as these: ‘Where are they
that say three things are but one power?’—John fearing lest
any of the more simple should be drawn away from the church by such
kind of hymns, opposed to them some of his own people, that they also
employing themselves in chanting nocturnal hymns, might obscure the
effort of the Arians, and confirm his own party in the profession of
their faith. John’s design indeed seemed to be good, but it
issued in tumult and dangers. For as the Homoousians performed their
nocturnal hymns with greater display,—for there were invented by
John silver crosses for them on which lighted wax-tapers were carried,
provided at the expense of the empress Eudoxia,—the Arians who
were very numerous, and fired with envy, resolved to revenge themselves
by a desperate and riotous attack upon their rivals. For from the
remembrance of their own recent domination, they were full of
confidence in their ability to overcome, and of contempt for their
adversaries. Without delay therefore, on one of these nights, they
engaged in a conflict; and Briso, one of the eunuchs of the empress,
who was at that time leading the chanters of these hymns, was wounded
by a stone in the forehead, and also some of the people on both sides
were killed. Whereupon the emperor being angered, forbade the Arians to
chant their hymns any more in public. Such were the events of this
occasion.
We must now however make some allusion to the origin of
this custom in the church of responsive singing. Ignatius857
| 857There has been some difference of opinion as to
whether Socrates is correct in here ascribing the institution of
responsive chants to Ignatius. Valesius doubts Socrates’
accuracy, but other authorities are inclined to the view that Ignatius
did introduce these chants, and Flavian and Diodorus, during the reign
of Constantine, to whom Valesius ascribes their origin, simply
developed them. Cf. Bingham, Christ. Antiq. XIV. 1.
|
third bishop of Antioch in Syria from the apostle Peter, who also had
held intercourse with the apostles themselves, saw a vision of angels
hymning in alternate chants the Holy Trinity. Accordingly he introduced
the mode of singing he had observed in the vision into the Antiochian
church; whence it was transmitted by tradition to all the other
churches. Such is the account [we have received] in relation to these
responsive hymns.
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