From worship to battle cries, humans have always expressed their deepest emotions through song. And while melodies may fade away across the centuries, the feelings they gave voice to thousands of years ago are still evident through the surviving words, as Dr Matthew Gordley will explain.
Now interim Provost and Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Carlow University in Pittsburgh, Matthew is the author of three books and numerous scholarly articles on the role of hymns in the ancient world. His interest spans the psalms of Jewish and Christian tradition, as well as ancient Greek and Roman songs of praise, drawing parallels of imagery and intent.
Following his undergraduate studies at Wheaton College, Illinois, Matthew’s interest in song was sparked by his postgraduate research at Princeton Theological Seminary.
“It was a course on early Christianity in its Greco Roman settings, and we read a lot of primary texts from the Greco Roman world, and we were reading a hymn to Isis, the Egyptian goddess. And I was reading these hymns talking about Isis as a saviour and the giver of all good things, and the language of deliverance. And I thought, wait a second, that sounds a lot like the language I grew up with, the language of the New Testament about Jesus as a saviour and deliverer.”
Struck by the similarities, Matthew became increasingly fascinated by the consistency with which ancient communities echoed each other in their hymns to the divine. He completed a PhD in Christianity and Judaism in Antiquity at the University of Notre Dame , which evolved into his first book, The Colossian Hymn in Context.
“I focused on a passage in the New Testament which many scholars think is a hymn. It’s certainly very poetic, and its language really resonates with a lot of hymnic texts in the ancient world. It’s clear that there are poetic texts embedded in the New Testament, but the question is, is Paul quoting an earlier poem, or hymn, or psalm, or is he just writing it as he’s writing the letter? Is he just going on a little poetic digression?”
In addressing his audience at Darwin, Matthew plans to introduce the function played by song in communities in the ancient word, situating them in their wider context.
“Religious songs take elements of a tradition that existed before them, and engage those elements in different ways, sometimes repurposing them or reimagining them in ways that connect with their new circumstances,” he explains.
“My approach will be to pick a selection of hymnic texts from a variety of different cultures and periods, starting in ancient Egypt and into the Greco Roman world, looking at some Jewish hymns, early Christian hymns, and even hymns in praise of the Roman Emperor, to see how those dynamics work in different contexts.”
This use of hymns to honour the mortal, as well as the divine, is another strand which Matthew will unpick.
“The whole spectrum of ancient hymns isn’t just religious. There are also hymns to virtues – there’s a whole philosophical element. And then you have people writing hymns in praise of Jesus, so what does it mean that you would sing a hymn in honour of Jesus when there’s a whole spectrum of people who get hymns and songs written about them in the ancient world?”
It’s not all devotional, however. Matthew will also draw on the timeless use of song as resistance, exploring the early Jewish psalms in the context of a people living under Roman rule.
“There are some really powerful and emotional descriptions of what the people were experiencing at the hands of the Romans. It’s bloodshed, and exile, and you feel the terror as they describe how this happened. But at the same time, they’re articulating that God is in control, and that there is an optimism and hope for the future. When you look at what resistance poetry does, and how it works today – it focuses on remembering the past in a certain way, including remembering trauma, or really painful experiences. It also focuses on identity – what are the things that we value and who are we – and on a vision for the future when there’s a better time coming. So it’s interesting to bring that lens to looking at some of these ancient texts. Those dynamics are there too.”
Join us for Matthew’s lecture, Song in the Ancient World: Echoes of Religion and Resistance, at 5.30pm on Friday 13th February.
