This is a sad account of the decline of Psalms in the western liturgy taken from the 1913 edition of the Catholic Encyclopedia under the entry for “Gradual”. I have taken the liberty of breaking it up into paragraphs and deleting the source citations for easier reading.
Gradual, in English often called Grail, is the oldest and most important of the four chants that make up the choir’s part of the Proper of the Mass. Whereas the three others (Introit, Offertory, and Communion) were introduced later, [to] fill up the time while something was being done, the Gradual (with its supplement, the Tract or Alleluia) represents the singing of psalms alternating with readings from the Bible, a custom that is as old as these readings themselves. Like them, the psalms at this place are an inheritance from the service of the Synagogue. Copied from that service, alternate readings and psalms filled up a great part of the first half of the Liturgy in every part of the Christian world from the beginning.
Originally whole psalms were sung. In the “Apostolic Constitutions” they are chanted after the lessons from the Old Testament: “The readings by the two (lectors) being finished, let another one sing the hymns of David and the people sing the last words after him.” This use of whole psalms went on till the fifth century. St. Augustine says: “We have heard first the lesson from the Apostle. Then we sang a psalm. After that the lesson of the gospel showed us the ten lepers healed.”
These psalms were an essential part of the Liturgy, quite as much as the lessons. “They are sung for their own sake; meanwhile the celebrants and assistants have nothing to do but to listen to them.” They were sung in the form of a psalmus responsorius, that is to say, the whole text was chanted by one person — a reader appointed for this purpose. (For some time before St. Gregory I, to sing these psalms was a privilege of deacons at Rome. It was suppressed by him in 595.) The people answered each clause or verse by some acclamation. In the “Apostolic Constitutions” they repeat his last modulations.
Another way was to sing some ejaculation each time. An obvious model of this was Ps. cxxxv [Hebrew: 136] with its refrain: “quoniam in æternum misericordia eius” ["for his mercy endures for ever"]; from which we conclude that the Jews too knew the principle of the responsory psalm. . . . It appears that originally, while the number of biblical lessons was still indefinite, one psalm was sung after each.
When three lessons became the normal custom (a Prophecy, Epistle, and Gospel) they were separated by two psalms. During the fifth century the lessons at Rome were reduced to two; but the psalms still remain two, although both are now joined together between the Epistle and Gospel, as we shall see. Meanwhile, as in the case of many parts of the Liturgy, the psalms were curtailed, till only fragments of them were left. This process, applied to the first of the two, produced our Gradual; the second became the Alleluia or Tract. . . .
It is difficult to say exactly when the Gradual got its present form. We have seen that in St. Augustine’s time, in Africa, a whole psalm was still sung. So also St. John Chrysostom alludes to whole psalms sung after the lessons. . . . In Rome the psalm seems not yet to have been curtailed: “Wherefore we have sung the psalm of David with united voices, not for our honour, but for the glory of Christ the Lord.” Between this time and the early Middle Ages the process of curtailing brought about our present [1913] arrangement.
One of the things the 16th-century Reformers wished to do was to restore the Psalms to worship, an effort that appears to need renewal every generation, even in churches that are heirs to the Reformation. My own website, dedicated to the Genevan Psalter, is intended to be part of this effort.
February 5th, 2010 | 10:29 am | #1
I commend you on your own efforts to restore the psalms to worship, David. I have looked at your website, and it appears to be a testament to your love of and faith in God. If I had any musical ability at all, I would love to be able to chant or sing the psalms. After converting to Orthodoxy, I came to understand the beautiful role that the psalms can play in worship. And it has only been recently that I have started to pray and read them more frequently. I have only been a Christian for about six years, and I wonder why it took me so long to understand the beauty of the psalms.
February 5th, 2010 | 10:44 am | #2
Alison, what a wonderful testimony to your own love of God! I love to read this sort of thing from others who have made similar use of the psalms in their own prayers.
February 5th, 2010 | 12:39 pm | #3
Lord willing we will read the Psalm responsively after the OT lesson this Lord’s Day, but I wish we were closer to singing more!
Interesting history.
February 5th, 2010 | 2:05 pm | #4
Amen brother- though I confess to being more a fan of the Scots Metrical Psalter than the Genevan one ;)
Great work on the website!
February 5th, 2010 | 2:17 pm | #5
The Psalms are wonderful!
In our church we have a psalm between the OT and NT lessons, sometimes said responsively and sometimes sung. During Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer (which we have as a separate short service every day, whether it’s right before a mass or not) we have a psalm, said responsively. (That is, the reader reads a verse, the congregation reads the next verse, and so back and forth.)
The only quibble I have is that on Sundays we often get only a portion of a psalm, rather than the whole thing. I suspect our rector would like to have complete psalms but perhaps doesn’t want to push people’s patience. One thing I that I think is great is that he does insist that we read the whole psalm. The lectionary sometimes puts a few verses in parentheses so people can skip them… these are generally the tougher verses about God hating sin and punishing the wicked. Our rector says, “It’s all God’s Word! Don’t leave anything out!” so we read those verses too.
In my own prayer life over the past four years that I’ve been a Christian, the psalms have played a significant role. I’ve gradually taken on the spiritual discipline of reading both morning and evening prayer daily, on my own. As a result, I typically read 2-3 psalms each day.
The psalms helped me learn how to pray — I didn’t have any idea, really, but I could read and pray through the Psalms, and discover there how to speak to God, with the Psalmist’s words when I didn’t know what to say on my own. They still help me to grow in prayer and I suspect they always will.
February 5th, 2010 | 2:31 pm | #6
The Psalms are soooo wonderful! In case anyone is interested, there is an excellent band that specifically records the psalms in English. The band, quite appropriately, is called “The Sons of Korah.” Several of their songs are on youtube.
Reading the Psalms makes me feel like a part of the living tradition of the God-human relationship (mostly from the human perspective).
February 5th, 2010 | 9:01 pm | #7
We confessional Lutherans chant the Psalms regularly in our liturgy. I don’t understand why the Reformed use metrical versions, which amount to a paraphrase not unlike a regular English hymn. Chanting them–singing several syllables on a single note with a fluid melodic line– is a way to sing the Psalms straight out of the Bible.
February 6th, 2010 | 9:14 am | #8
Gene, I agree with you: I wish Reformed Christians did indeed chant the psalms. In your churches does the entire congregation do this? or is it sung antiphonally with a cantor and congregation? I think the reason why the Reformed went for metrical psalmody is that it was deemed better suited to congregational singing.
February 6th, 2010 | 12:13 pm | #9
Dr. Veith,
One might argue that we of the slightly more Reformed persuasion exercise Believer’s Freedom rather than the regulative principle in turning Psalms into hymns ;)
Actually, that’s something that’s always kind of amused me- the super-Reformed types insist on using only Psalms in worship, but then, as you point out, put them in meter and have to paraphrase so much that they essentially end up being hymns.
February 6th, 2010 | 5:15 pm | #10
I should add here that the distinction between psalms and hymns does not necessarily run along the nonmetrical/metrical divide. The Te Deum is definitely a postbiblical hymn, yet in its original form it is nonmetrical. I might remind Prof. Veith that Luther himself wrote a metrical Te Deum, Herr Gott, Dich Loben Wir, which is no more a hymn than the original Latin version for being set in metre.
Similarly, the rendering of a psalm in metrical form makes it no less a psalm than if it were chanted directly in the original Hebrew or in nonmetrical translation. On the other hand, Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven is probably better understood as a hymn inspired by Psalm 103 than a metred version of the latter. But I would see the difference between the two as more of a continuum than an ironclad separation.
February 6th, 2010 | 5:21 pm | #11
I think Dr. Veith was not, in any way, suggesting that metrical settings are somehow “bad” or “wrong” but he was very rightly musing over the fact that Calvinism seems to have a penchant for metrical settings of the Psalms, in which, effectively, the original text is changed for the sake of music and singing. And, ironically, it would appear that while that is kosher, in some Calvinist circles there is a history of eschewing hymns.
I’m left scratching my head over this one as well, and would appreciate any light Calvinists here might be able to shed on this.
February 6th, 2010 | 8:44 pm | #12
I myself am not an exclusive psalm-singer, so I am not the one to shed light on this for you. However, it is true that, over the centuries, there has been a tendency for postbiblical hymns to squeeze out the psalms nearly altogether. That was the point of my post here.
As for changing the texts to fit the music, sometimes the texts are changed to fit one’s own subcultural norms. I am aware, for example, of one group that sings metrical psalms almost entirely but managed to leave out any reference to dancing in its versification of Psalm 150!
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