This survey of the interrelation of religion and music in Western antiquity from the Homeric age to the age of Justinian (c. 1000 BCE–500 CE) will examine the religious dimensions of the music of Greece and Rome, the music of the early church, and the liturgical music of Byzantium.

Greek Music

The word music (mousikē) originated in the Greek language. However, to the Greeks it meant more than the art of tones sung or played on instruments. It encompassed education, science, and proper behavior, as well as singing and the playing of instruments. To modern man this ancient music—the very little that has come down to us—sounds simple, unmelodious, and occasionally even dull, but in the broader conception of mousikē we may recognize the basis for the magical, ritual, and ethical dimensions that...