Between the sixth and tenth centuries there was much confusion as to the placing of these modes, but they finally stood as given above.  The Greek names were definitely accepted in the eleventh century, or thereabouts; previously, they were known also as the first, second, third, etc., up to the twelfth, church tones or Gregorian modes.

At this point it is necessary to refer again to Ambrose.  Apart from having brought the first four authentic modes into church music, he composed many hymns which had this peculiarity, namely, that they were modelled more on the actual declamation of the words to be sung than had hitherto been the case.  We are told that his chants—­to use the phrase of his contemporary, Francis of Cologne—­were “all for sweetness and melodious sound”; and St. Augustine (354-430 A.D.), speaks of them with ecstasy.  The words in these hymns were used in connection with small groups of notes; consequently they could be understood as they were sung, thus returning in a measure to the character of the music of the ancients, in which the word and declamation were of greater importance than the actual sounds which accompanied them.  But now a strange thing was to happen that was to give us a new art.  Now, at last, music was to be separated from language and dance rhythms, and stand alone for the first time in the history of civilization as pure music.

To appreciate the change made by Gregory (540-604 A.D.), it is necessary to bear in mind the state of the church just before his time.  As the Ambrosian chant had brought something of the old declamation and sweetness back into the church ceremonial, so also in the church itself there was a tendency to sink back into the golden shimmer that had surrounded the ancient pagan rites.  Already Paul of Samosata, Bishop of Antioch (260 A.D.), had striven to bring a certain Oriental magnificence into the church ceremonials.  He had a canopied throne erected for himself, from which he would address his congregation; he introduced applause into the church, after the fashion of the Roman theatres; he also had a chorus of women singers, who, as Eusebius tells us, sang not the Christian hymns, but pagan tunes.  Later, in Constantinople, even this luxury and pomp increased; the churches had domes of burnished gold, and had become gigantic palaces, lit by thousands of lamps.  The choir, dressed in glittering robes, was placed in the middle of the church, and these singers began to show the same fatal sign of decadence that we saw before in Rome and Greece.  According to St. Chrysostom (347-407 A.D.), they used unguents on their throats in order to make the voice flexible, for by this time the singing had become a mere vehicle for virtuosity; when they sang their tours de force, the people applauded and waved their handkerchiefs, as they did also when the preaching pleased them.  The pagans pointed the finger of scorn at the Christians, as being mere renegades from the old religion, and said, plausibly enough, that their worship was merely another form of the Dionysus tragedy.  There was the same altar, the same chorus, the priest who sang and was answered by the chorus; and the resemblance had grown to such an extent that St. Chrysostom (350 A.D.) complained that the church chorus accompanied its singing with theatrical gestures, which, as we know, is simply the first step towards the dance.