The Early Church’s Perspectives on Music
By Bruce Keisling January 18, 2008
I’m also reading Calvin Stapert’s book: A New Song for an Old World: Musical Thought in the Early Church (Eerdmans, 2007). You can read a review of it here. Here is a summary of what Stapert says about Clement of Alexandria’s perspective on music:
Clement affirms music that he describes as sober, pure, decorous, modest, temperate, grave, and soothing, over against music he describes as licentious, voluptuous, frenzied, frantic, inebriating, titillating, scurrilous, turbulent, immodest, and meretricious. p. 54