Pericles and Instrumental Music

Tom Burgess, Pastor, Crossroads Church of Portland Oregon with CHRIST removed. Divided over MUSIC. If you look at their web page you will find that there is a TRADITIONAL SECT and a CONTEMPORARY MUSIC SECT. Click to see

I need to review this material by Tom Burgess because I was sent a copy of his book and asked to refute it.

Sorry if you find my URGE for silence in the assembly to be: cacophony: 1. Jarring, discordant sound; dissonance: heard a cacophony of horns during the traffic jam. 2. The use of harsh or discordant sounds in literary composition, as for poetic effect. blare, blaring, clamor, din

I think the advice meant that the COLOR and STYLE was a loud, jaring, noise. So, you see words CAN be transferred from one sense to another.

We do not extend our judgment beyond reviewing Tom's book because it is seen as AUTHORITY by those who have not been able to find anything but condemnation of external rituals which detract from the "school of the Bible" which Jesus died to found to give us REST from the "spiritual anxiety created by religious rituals." Nothing good done by anyone can alter the nature of TRUTH of Scripture.

A. Ralph Johnson in Instrumental Music, Sacred or Sinful.

1. Tom Burgess in Documents on Instrumental Music reviewed. Psallo and Instrumental Music: Proofs do not prove anything but the "music-homosexuality" connection.

See more on Strabo's definition of the worship of Apollo or Abaddon or Apollyon: his MUSES are the locusts or musical performers in the book of revelation.

2. Tom Burgess More Review of Plutarch: if Psallo authorizes "church music" it authorizes a homosexual gathering.

3. Tom Burgess on Moralia confirms the "Music-Heresy-Perversion" connection which has no historical exception. 10/20/04

4. Tom Burgess on John Chrysostom: are the anti-instrumentalists ignorant rurals? 10/21/04 What about Paul and Martin Luther and John Calvin and Zwingli and--everyone who believed the Bible as authority.

5. Tom Burgess on Kurfees versus Thayer and Grimm: Quotes from: G. C. Brewer, A Medley on the Music Question, Gospel Advocate, Nashville 1948. Burgess uses the same Krewson arguments. LATEST 11/06/05

Charles Daily Northwest College of the Bible Part One ..... Part One A .....Part Two .... THRESKIA or CHARISMATIC

See the Stone Campbell Movement to understand that there was never any historical unity between the Stoneites or Christian churches which accepted the HIGH CHURCH right to make changes, and the "Campbellites" who returned to the Bible.

For proof Click Here

If early churches of Christ were DISCORDED when the 'pastor' forcefully brought an organ into a church so that the offended said: YOU have made it impossible for ME to worship with YOU in MY church building. Because I am not a brittle RED NECK, I will LEAVE and you can have my CLOAK also if you wish. So, the Pastor being a Pastor just took it.

The Northwest Church of Christ undoubtedly sowed some DISCORD when they decided to flow with the flock and remove CHRIST from their sight. Then, with the idea of worship with CONTEMPORARY MUSIC many were DISCORDED and OFFENDED so they DIVIDED into two SECTARIAN CHURCHES. I suspect there was deliberate discord sowed when they joined the Purpose Driven Cult.

Much of the SOWED DISCORD has used the book by Tom Burgess as their anti-Biblical authority: I know that for a fact.

After 18 years in Seattle and watching from afar as the 'Chritian church' infiltrated and diverted the church into using instruments, I vaguely remembered a book written in the Northwest claiming that the ANTI-instrumental view of churches of Christ was something like the product of an ignorant, Southern, red-necked mentality. I wasn't too far off the track. Someone sent me Tom Burgess's Documents on Instrumental Music and I flipped to Appendix I and sure enough there it was. However, this is a BLUFF which works very well among lambs which have not been taught the Word as it has been taught. The fact is that 100% of the information from every field repudiates the latter-day "prophesiers" who lust to be entertained by brother and sister singers.

You will notice that Northwest Church has followed the leader and CAST Christ off its name.

First, I want to tell you that the USE of instrumental music AS worship was pronounced by those who legally stole the New Bern church of Christ (means no machines) to be SINFUL. However, the ploy to the judge was that WE won't worship WITH instruments; we will use them for AIDS. Therefore, those who USE music or outward rituals to worship a HOLY SPIRIT God are proven to be sinners by their spiritual ancestors. Tom Burgess will find NO history prior to 1878 by the Christian church to use PSALLO as authority for MUSIC in worship.

Secondly, the BIBLE 100% of the time associates musical instruments with telling god: We will NOT listen to your Words in our hearts or spirits.

Thirdly, I can tell you without any fear of contradiction that Tom Burgess radically sows discord and is a false accuser 100% of the time when he quotes the Bible, Greek resources or church history.

Review of Documents on Instrumental Music page 99

Tom Burgess: Even though J. W. McGarvey opposed the instrument he undoubtedly saw the folly and the outcome of

adding the anti-instrument opinion as a disfellowshipping law and so stated his position:

"I have never proposed to withdraw fellowship from brethren simply because of their use of instrumental music in worship." (The Search for the Ancient Order by West, P. 441.)

Neither did he propose to FELLOWSHIP them in his own church: preaching for them does not mean that he fellowshipped their sectarianism. He did say and did withdraw his BODY from their "musical worship."

It is a fact that J. W. McGarvey tried to compromize with what he clearly saw as an evil practice and the worse evil of deliberaly sowing discording by adding something which WENT BEYOND WHAT WAS WRITTEN and for the Bible readers, violently contracts both the LETTER and the SPIRIT which associates musical "worship" as introduced by Satan or Lucifer to bleed off worship due only to Jehovah God. It needs no proving: when you sing and dance and play and DRAMATIZE in what is called the "holy place" you intend to divert the gaze of people from Christ and His Word to the THEATRICAL PERFORMERS.

J. W. McGarvey was not allowed to teach the truth in the church he served faithfully. Therefore, as is always the case, those who IMPOSE instruments withdraw any fellowship which would allow the STOLEN FROM to teach against the morality of the STEALEES.

You should understand that this view of J. W. McGarvey is quite distorted for a purpose.

"But he who makes peace with an evil because it is likely to prevail appears to me to love peace more than he loves truth and to be deficient in the courage proper to a soldier of the cross,

while he who refrains from speaking on a subject which to him appears important because others regard it with indifference or with contempt seems to me to esteem the applause of men more highly than the approval of his own conscience. As I do not wish to come under condemnation in any of these particulars, I will speak my mind freely to you and to all who shall take the trouble to read what I write.

That a vast amount of evil has been occasioned by the introduction of instrumental music into Christian worship is undeniable.

Beginning with the first instance of it among us which I can remember that which caused a schism in the church in St. Louis in the year 1869 (Our Note:1851 Midway KY by a liberal over the physical objections of the elder),

its progress has been attended by strife, alienation, and division,
with all their
attendant evils, in hundreds of congregations.

Before this it had bred similar evils among Methodist societies and Baptist and Presbyterian churches; for all these bodies in their early days knowing that the practice originated in the Roman Catholic Church, regarded it as a Romish corruption and refused to tolerate it until it was forced upon them by the spirit of innovation which characterized the present century.

And even so, the Catholics never did "worship" with congregational singing and instrumental accompaniment.  The organ, played by professionals, were used for preludes, interludes and recessionals: not more than an ANNOUNCER.
In a similar misused understanding of the Lunenberg letters, Alexander Campbell acknowledged that there were Christians in the SECTS but that they should "come out of Babylon."

Melody is not related to music or to harmony: psallo relates to PLUCKING but only with your fingers because you don't pluck a BOW with a plectrum. A bow string "sings" and one "shoots out hymns" and that is the only similarity. That is why Paul outlawed EXTERNAL melody which has its roots in GRINDING the enemy into bits OR sowing discord.

Both understanding the bible and all contemporaneous literature proves that when you violate Paul's law to SPEAK "that which is written" in either singing or performance preaching you radically slip off into the effeminate practice.

All of Tom Burgess' references to the word PSALLO do not grasp that whatever the period the word is NOT a musical word but a WARFARE word. It is the "device" of Apollo who is the father (a Jubal type) of Twanging bow strings to send a singing arrow into the literal heart. He is the father of musical harmony (which is not melod), of thieves and liars. He is the Abaddon or Apollyon of the book of Revelation. The musicians or MUSES are his team known to John on Patmos as LOCUSTS or musical performers.

It is not possible to find a historical reference to PSALLO or plucking which does not fit into plucking bowstrings or plucking harp strings in the SYMPOSIA where men's festivals (as in Amos and Isaiah 5) were gatherings for entertainment by musicians who were almost by definition male or female prostitutes.

Tom Burgess: I would like to plead with the members of the Church of Christ (non-instrument) to stop making the body of Christ a haven for factions and splits by maintaining the spirit which puts every issue on an either / or, heaven or hell, fellowship and disfellowship basis.

The church of Christ was defined by Thomas Campbell in his Declaration and Address before he got off the ship in America.  That group was never part of the SECTARIAN group which began to develop shortly before the civil war and matured shortly afterward.  There was an organized efffort to "take the churches in Tennessee for the society and organ within five years." While they made an effort almost no churches joined the society.  For the first time in recorded history 19 1878 they used the word PSALLO to justify their SECTARIAN split from the American Restoration movement.  In 1906 they tried to COUNT churches of Christ but the census counter knew better.  Therefore, the only MOVE churches of Christ made was to DENY that they could be claimed by the Disciples Denomination.  At that time the Christian church was part of the SECTARIAN movement.  A full decade later they split from the disciples. 

Tom uses the word heaven / hell: the RIGHT SPIRIT is to look for the truth and the truth is that music is a MARK from Genesis to Revelation of those who tell God and His Word to "get lost."

It is a fact that Tom Burgess will never find a church father or founder of a Protestant group which agreed with him. They all tossed out the pipe organs and the choirs which were of the a cappella or the pope's castrated choir.

It is a fact that none of the groups which found their way into the Restoration Movement used instruments and the thought COULD NOT even enter into their sphear of thinking: not even the worst of them.

It is a fact that the STONEITES derived from Cane Ridge which depended on charismatic or instrumental (organum) form of singing which they knew would bring on hysteria and MANUFACTURE a convert. The Shouting Methodists were more powerful than instruments and were promoted by the Christian church groups as an ACT OF WORSHIP. Churches of Christ WERE NOT part of the Cane Ridge, Stoneite movement and never fell into the "musical" or "charismatic" or performance-based so-called "worship" system which has its roots in the THRESKIA form of worship originated by Orpheus and the Lesbos women.

The "singing" promoted by the NorthWest "team"

Therefore the redeemed of the Lord shall return, and come with singing unto Zion; and everlasting joy shall be upon their head: they shall obtain gladness and joy; and sorrow and mourning shall flee away. Isaiah 51:11

Rinnah (h7440) rin-naw'; from 7442; prop. a creaking (or shrill sound), i. e. shout (of joy or grief): - cry, gladness, joy, proclamation, rejoicing, shouting, sing (-ing), triumph.

Rinnan (h7442) raw-nan'; a prim. root; prop. to creak (or emit a stridulous sound), i. e. to shout (usually for joy): - aloud for joy, cry out, be joyful, (greatly, make to) rejoice, (cause to) shout (for joy), (cause to) sing (aloud, for joy, out), triumph.

This loud music and shouting was usually a confession of people who were lying: they did not intend to obey the Word of God. When Israel sinned beyond redemption by musical idolatry at Mount Sinai, God (Acts 7) turned them over to worship the STARRY HOST. The priesthood was added and the Levitical "musicians" were to SEND SIGNALS, create panic in war or celebrate the TRIUMPH over the enemies. However, there would be times when God wanted the major leaders to GATHER or ASSEMBLE. He never asked them to gather unless He wanted them to hear instructions from Him.

It was for this reason that the QAHAL or synagogue or "church in the wilderness" was PROHIBITED from this music and loud shouting. To their credit, the Jews ALWAYS met in a form of the synagogue for "a holy convocation" which meant to REST and to READ or rehearse the Word. There was never "a praise service in the synagogue." That was not a produce of malicious southern people but COMMON SENSE: you cannot hold EKKLESIA or school of the Bible or synagogue by singing, playing and shouting.

But when the congregation is to be gathered together, ye shall blow, but ye shall not sound an alarm. Num 10:7

The "congregaton" is the Hebrew QAHAL and has the meaning of synagogue. The people's congregation--as opposed to the military-civil temple--never violated this direct command even when the synagogue was more organized after the Return from Captivity. "There was never a praise service in the synagogue." Legalism? No. Just common, minimal consideration: you don't MAKE MUSIC when the preacher preaches or the professor lectures. Why would anyone WANT to make noise when Christ the Spirit promises to be with the twos and threes who ASSEMBLY to "come learn of me?"

This ALARM which would be the attempted TRIUMPH OVER by Judas and the clergy with INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC is defined quite identical to the singing which in the proof text is SHOUTING.

Ruwa (h7321) roo-ah'; a prim. root; to mar (espec. by breaking); fig. to split the ears (with sound), i. e. shout (for alarm or joy): - blow an alarm, cry (alarm, aloud, out), destroy, make a joyful noise, smart, shout (for joy), sound an alarm, triumph.

Therefore, it has always been Tom and the INSTRUMENTALIST who need to "stop making the body of Christ a haven for factions and splits." You know: split the ears with sound.

Tom Burgess: We have a glorious task in preaching the New Testament Church in all it's purity. It is worthy of our most consecrated efforts.

Strange: there is no such GIFTED role of PREACHER in the entire Bible. Those who preached the gospel were heralds. You know, like Paul Revere. There is no definition of a LOCATED MISSIONARY: he does not perform a liturgical ACT of worship for which he gets paid without, in Paul's definition, being a robber. Here is the word used when people POLLUTE the Sabbath:

Chalal (h2490) khaw-lal'; a prim. root [comp. 2470]; prop. to bore, i. e. (by impl.) to wound, to dissolve; fig. to profane (a person, place or thing), to break (one's word), to begin (as if by an "opening wedge"); denom. (from 2485) to play (the flute): - begin (* men began), defile, * break, defile, * eat (as common things), * first, * gather the grape thereof, * take inheritance, pipe, player on instruments, pollute, (cast as) profane (self), prostitute, slay (slain), sorrow, stain, wound.

Which has much the same meaning as David's "praise" word:

Halal (h1984) haw-lal'; a prim. root; to be clear (orig. of sound, but usually of color); to shine; hence to make a show, to boast; and thus to be (clamorously) foolish; to rave; causat. to celebrate; also to stultify: - (make) boast (self), celebrate, commend, (deal, make), fool (- ish, -ly), glory, give [light], be (make, feign self) mad (against), give in marriage, [sing, be worthy of] praise, rage, renowned, shine.

Which is the source for the concept of LUCIFER who used music even in the garden of Eden to bleed off worship due only to God who IS Spirit and not a prostitute:

Heylel (h1966) hay-lale'; from 1984 (in the sense of brightness); the morning-star: - lucifer.

Part of the GOSPEL is that Christ died to free us from the "doctors of the Law" because "they take away the key to knowledge." The BURDEN is defined as "spiritual anxiety created by religious ritual." Without that ANXIETY which makes everyone uncertain of their free salvation, the collection plates will dry up. The use of MUSIC and CULT TYPE organizations like the Purpose Driven Cult are ways to regulate and BURDEN people which "goes beyond what is written."

The REST Jesus promised CANNOT be gained in a modern church cult named after CIRCE the "holy whore" of Paul's Revelation. REST will come only when--

And the voice of harpers, and musicians, and of pipers, and trumpeters, shall be heard no more at all in thee; and no craftsman, of whatsoever craft he be, shall be found any more in thee; and the sound of a millstone shall be heard no more at all in thee; Rev 18:22

The word REST in the Greek Resources SPECIFICIALLY SAYS to stop the preaching, stop the singing, stop the instrument players: just stop the ceremonial legalism which was wholly invented by Tom and his sect.

Furthermore, Revelation 18 speaks directly to the Tom Burgess' next PROOF that PSALLO gives him authority to ADD machines to worship God when he knows fully well that instruments in protest worship dates to about the time his group was founded after the Civil War and the carpet baggers had all of that wealth from peddling paper shoes and, in the name of one preacher, "rifled guns" where he declared that he had rather send ONE rifled gun against the South than 100 Bibles. And he did.

Tom Burgess: Let us not handicap it by raising unnecessary barriers. Let us learn "not to go beyond the things which are written; that no one of us be puffed up the one against the other. "

From the word nachash or serpent to the destiny of the Babylonian Whore's MUSICAL TEAM in Revelation 18:22 God HAS WRITTEN loud and clear against instrumental music from cover to cover. When you lose your eyes and ears God in Christ no longer speaks the mysteries so that you can hear (Matthew 13). See Psalm 41 translated at the Dead Sea to see how the clerg musical mockers place stumbling blocks.

Tom used the writings of Plutarch to prove his point. For this paper I will just quote some BEFORE Tom and AFTER Tom to show that he is still intending to malign what he calls ANTI-instrumentalists by GOING BEYOND what Plutarch said of Pericles and others.

When Paul outlawed the public PERFORMANCE by women he used the word AUTHENTIA meaning authority which was EROTIC and MURDEROUS. His word SILENCE includes primarily the idea of being SEDENTARY. When they rise up and play musical instruments they are PRESENTING themselves as sexual objects because males cannot help having sexual thoughts. That is why LEADERS use women or effeminate (musical, theatrical) males. Tom's example proves the point:

"Slaves provided 'dinner-theater' entertainment for the guests while they served: singing, playing musical instruments, reciting verse, dancing, acrobatics, and playing farce. Serving boys or girls dispensed the wine and offered sexually attractive appearances. While slaves were accepted as part of the banquet's course and (sometimes)

admired for their entertainment,
they were simultaneously segregated from the real camaraderie of the meal.

In a sense, they were performing puppets, subject to derision, degradation, abuse and punishment. See Full Details

PLUTARCH

Tom Burgess: Examples 60 and 61 have been obtained from the writings of Plutarch. Plutarch's use of the word psallo is of great value and worth because he lived and wrote during the same period as did the Apostles (46-120A. D. ). His books, Parallel Lives of Illustrious Greeks and Romans and Moralia, are a great credit to Greek literature. Plutarch's use of psallo shows, without a doubt, that he knew nothing of any drastic change in the word which extracted the musical instrument from it s definition.

Three times in example 60 he uses a form of psallo. These have been translated: "plucked the strings, " "to pluck the strings, " and" pluck the strings," In example 61another form is translated "harpplayer, "

Psallo is a dedicated word: it JUST MEANS TO PLUCK. It has no musical connotation. Now, one can pluck a harp string which was most often the warrior's MUSICAL BOW. He plucked and twanged to GRIND DOWN the enemy and turn them coward. One might pluck out the body hair to qualify as a male, musical prostitute but the PLUCKING is not music. One might pluck the HEART strings to SHOOT FORTH A HYMN. A songstress still BELTS OUT her songs but a BELT has nothing to do with music.

When Paul used the term LIFELESS INSTRUMENT it had much the same meaning as CARNAL WEAPON. The harp was PLUCKED with the finger and therefore was likened to a BOW because the warrior's bow created PANIC in the enemy to do mind control. The harpIST was also using the harp like a MIND CONTROL weapon. Therefore, PSALLO includes the FINGER but specificially EXCLUDES plucking with a plectrum because you don't pluck a warrior's carnal weapon with a plectrum. If Alexander had PLUCKED a bow to kill an enemy Plutarch would use the SAME PSALLO.

Augustine-Anti-Manichaean Again, if you prefer to test the presence of God by the agreeable effects on the hearing, and not sight, or smell, or taste, harps get their strings and pipes their bones from animals;

and these become musical by being dried, and rubbed, and twisted.
So the
pleasures of music, which you hold to have come from the divine kingdom,

are obtained from the refuse of dead animals, and that, too, when they are dried by time, and lessened by rubbing, and stretched by twisting.

Next, Plutarch would have written in the ATTIC language which was the "lisping, muttering" language of the elite who demanded effeminate speakers, writers and musicians. Only a BELIEVER or a merchant would have paid for a document in Koine Greek.

If you understand that PSALLO had meaning only as a WARFARE word or a word identifying homosexual musicians then you can grasp why Paul's NOT POSSIBLE TO MISUNDERSTAND command to SPEAK the inspired Biblical text one to another. You CANNOT speak (preach) and sing at the same time. Therefore, it was quite rational (spiritual) for Paul to restrict BOTH the singing and melody to the HEART and to God.

Here is the source.


Plutarch, Lives Pericles 1 [4] Such objects are to be found in virtuous deeds; these implant in those who search them out a great and zealous eagerness which leads to imitation. In other cases, admiration of the deed is not immediately accompanied by an impulse to do it. Nay, many times, on the contrary, while we delight in the work, we despise the workman


as, for instance, in the case of perfumes and dyes; we take a delight in them


but dyers and perfumers we regard as illiberal and vulgar folk.


[5] Therefore it was a fine saying of Antisthenes, when he heard that Ismenias was an excellent piper:
all' anthrōpos,’ ephē, ‘mokhthēros:[wicked, knavish, rascally, perverse]: ou gar an houtō spoudaios ēn aulētēs:


"But he's a worthless man," said he, "otherwise he wouldn't be so good a piper."


And so Philip [Philip of Macedon, to Alexander.] once said to his son, who, as the wine went round, plucked the strings charmingly and skilfully, "Art not ashamed to pluck the strings so well?" It is enough, surely, if a king have leisure to hear others pluck the strings, and he pays great deference to the Muses if he be but a spectator of such contests.
Most music spoke of warfar, seeking victory and at times deciding life and death. That is why the NACC has always waged WORSHIP WARS.

Dêmiourg-os , A.one who works for the people, skilled workman, handicraftsman, sculptors, the artisan class at Athens,  Plutarch Thes. 25. [2] To the noblemen he committed the care of religious rites, the supply of magistrates, the teaching of the laws, and the interpretation of the will of Heaven. A priestly title.

Agônizomenôn  A.contend for a prize, esp. in the public games, 2.fight, 3.contend for the prize on the stage, of the rhapsode, playwright, actor, choragus, contgend for victory, argue sophistically
Demosthenes 21:[66] These and all similar acts, Athenians, are partly excusable in a chorus-master who is carried away by emulation; but to harass a man with one's hostility, deliberately and on every occasion, and to boast one's own power as superior to the laws, that, by Heaven! is cruel and unjust and contrary to your interests. For if each man when he becomes chorus-master could foresee this result: “If So-and-so is my enemy--Meidias for example or anyone else equally rich and unscrupulous--first I shall be robbed of my victory, even if I make a better show than any of my competitors next I shall be worsted at every point and exposed to repeated insults:” who is so irrational or such a poor creature that he would voluntarily consent to spend a single drachma?
You will notice that there are three different modifiers to psallo: pselanta, psallon and psallonton: Psallonton scholazo speaks of having too much leasure, to loiter, linger, Mousikos

There more than a dozen words which virtually EQUATE plucking the Lyre and plucking the bow: all such words speak of warfare or moral pollution.  The word psallo is NEVER more than a metaphor meaning to shoot forth a hymn.  When you pluck something, we have noted from ALL of Tom Burgess' proof texts you only do it with your FINGERS and never with a PLECTRUM. Therefore, psallo would repudiate beating on cymbals, picking a guitar or play a piano.

Tillô, pluck or pull outhair, 2. with acc. of that from which the hair or feathers are plucked, as a description of an idle fellow, also, pluck live sheep, instead of shearing, have one's hair plucked out as a punishment of adulterers

4. melê pluck the harp-strings, play harp-tunes, Cratin.256 (lyr.).

Melos , eos, to, B. esp. musical member, phrase: hence, song, strain,

3. melody of an instrument, phorminx [harp}; aulôn {flute}

II. since tearing the hair was a usual expression of sorrow, tillesthai tina tear one's hair in sorrow for any one III. metaph., pluck, vex, annoy, Similar to revello which is similar to Psallo

Phorm-inx

A. lyre, freq. in Hom., esp. as the instrument of Apollo [Abaddon, Apollyon], phormingos perikalleos hên ech' Apollôn , phrena terpomenon phorming; with seven strings (after Terpander's time), antipsallôn elephantodeton ph. Ar.Av.219 (anap.).

2. ph. achordos, metaphor for a bow, Arist.Rh.1413a1.

Apo-psallô ,

A. pluck off, a. pagên spring a trap that is set, Lyc.407; twang a string, Id.915; hêglôtta a. tên akran Atthida rings out the purest Attic, metaphor from the lyre

Achordos , on,

A. without strings, melos Poet. ap. Arist.Rh.1408a6: phorminx a., metaph. of a bow, Thgn.Trag.1 (= Lyr.Adesp.127). 

MUSES are the legendary locusts who are to be unleased by Apollo or Abbadon or Apollyon. However, a time will come--

And the voice of harpers, and musicians, and of pipers, and trumpeters, shall be heard no more at all in thee; and no craftsman, of whatsoever craft he be, shall be found any more in thee; and the sound of a millstone shall be heard no more at all in thee; Rev 18:22

Plucking the strings TECHNIKOS is the word for craftsman.

Technites (g5079) tekh-nee'-tace; from 5078; an artisan; fig. a founder (Creator): - builder, craftsman.

For a certain man named Demetrius, a silversmith, which made silver shrines for Diana, brought no small gain unto the craftsmen; Ac.19:24

The silversmith also make silver strings to give harps that sharp, twanging sound.

For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Heb.11:10

Craft includes all of the performance roles in pagan, perferted religion. In includes theater builders and stage managers:

Techne (g5078) tekh'-nay; from the base of 5088; art (as productive), i.e. (spec.) a trade, or (gen.) skill: - art, craft, occupation.

Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and mans device. Ac.17:29

A singer or musician or speaker was also a techne or craftsman.

Moralia: And he pays great deference to the Muses if he be but a spectator of such contests.

Plucking strings was left to the harpIST and piping to the flute-girls which meant prostitutes, male or female. Children were taught music for the harmony it taught to make them valuable as a warrior. However, respectable people would not themselves play instruments in public. The word AUTHENTIA Paul used to MARK and outlaw the loud and non-sedentary women in the assembly means EROTIC and MURDEROUS. Any advertiser in the public assembly would be suspect.

Agônizomenôn contending for a prize. The THEATER was the place where they performed their often perverted ritual: theat-ês , Ion. theêtês , ou, ho, ( [theaomai] ) one who sees or goes to see,. E. Ion301; in the theatre, spectator, Ar.Nu.575, al.; th. sophistôn Th. 3.38 ; one who contemplates, talêthous Arist.EN1098a31 .

Iôn 301 shows that the CHARMING pluckers performed musical prophesying and GRACE was not a "blue eyed blond" but is the basis for CHARISMATIC which, in these meetings, involved sodomy often in the form of pederasty. The SON might be very careful NOT to be a performing musician because a KING'S SON just doesn't do that.

See Euripides Ion for more definitions which prove that Tom Burgess probably does not want to do what he is clearly doing.

Charin is Charis 2. esp. in erotic sense, of favours granted (v. charizomai 1.3 ), charites aphrodisiôn erôtôn

A sOPHISts was a professional speaker who performed one of the ACTS rather than give free information. The OPHIS is the serpent in the book of Revelation. This is why rhetoricians, sOPHISts, singers and musicians were MANTI oracles or sorcerers and therefore EVERYONE Knew that they were PARASITES.

"The name of psaltery entered Christian literature in the 3rd century B.C. translation of the Old Testament called the Septuagint where, in the Psalms, nebel was translated psalterion. Thus, Nebuchadnezzar's idolatrous ensemble included the Aramic psantria. Notice, also, that the book of Psalms has also become known as the Psalter (or psalterium), from the hymns sung with this harp. Source

"The psaltery (psalterion, saltere, sauterie, Psalterium, Psalter, salterio) is an ancient intstrument seen in many forms. Early versions were simply a wooden board with gut strings stretched between pegs. The strings were plucked with fingers or by plectra (the name might have derived from the Greek psallein meaning plucked with fingers).

"Its (pipe = to love passionately) was apparently a secular instrument and is never listed in the temple orchestra;

only in Ps. 150:4 it is mentioned in a religious (but not ritual) function.
Its ethos was not blameless at all, ase we see from Genesis Rabbah 50: 'The angels said to Lot: 'There are players of the pipe (organ) in the country, hence it ought to be destroyed.'" Its rabbinical identification with the aboda, the
flute of the notorious Syrian bayaderes, emphasizes the erotic element which already the Hebrew name suggests." (Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible, p. 460, Abingdon).

Plutarch recounts the noble deeds and characters of Greek and Roman soldiers, legislators, orators, and statesmen. By definition, if he wrote anything on an intellectual level he would have written in Attic Greek or he would never have appealed to the elite able to buy his scribal works.

Secondly, there are forms of psallo which are NOT psallo. Just as people substitute different words in making their own copies there are many words to define one who SINGS and PLAYS an instrument at the same time

Thirdly, in any definition of Psallo, the ROOT meaning is to pluck, twang or shoot an arrow. ALL musical terms and names of instruments have evil, destructive or Satanic roots. Why would the Spirit give us a WARFARE word to UNITE the assembly with one MOUTH and one MIND?

"All things come into being by conflict of opposites, and the sum of things flows like a stream. This order, the same for all things, no one of gods or men has made, but it always was, and is, and ever shall be, an ever-living fire, kindling according to fixed measure, and extinguished according to fixed measure. Justice meant a balance of opposites, and hence could be defined as strife.

Heraclitus cited as an example the tension between the string and the frame in a bow or a musical instrument. 'Harmony lies in the bending back, as for instance of the bow or of the lyre... Opposition unites. From what draws apart results the most beautiful harmony. All things take place by strife'." (Parkes, Henry Bamford, Gods and Men The Origins of Western Culture, p. 188, Knopf)

> Psallô (psao or SOP)

I. to touch sharply, to pluck, pull, twitch, Aesch.; toxou neuran ps. to twang the bow-string, Eur.; belos ek keraos ps. to send a shaft twanging from the bow, Anth.;

The FUNDAMENTAL meaning of PSALLO is a warfare word: it never had ANY musical meaning.  IF you pluck a string WITH YOUR FINGERS and not with a GUITAR PICK you make a noise or sound.

The Secondary meaning does not relate to CARPENTERS but repudiates the MUSICAL connection:

so, schoinos miltophurês psallomenê a carpenter's red line, which is twitched and then suddenly let go, so as to leave a mark,

What false teachers do not know is that the SOCHOINOS or Papyrus rope was used by Jesus to DRIVE OUT the money changers from the Temple courts.  They had made it a den of thieves or a house of merchandise which was QUARANTINED to the Agora or marketplace.

Jesus also CAST OUT the musical minstrels LIKE DUNG because they belonged in the marketplace along with rhetoricians, singers, musicians, prostitutes, sodomites, sellers of young boys and radishes.

He marked THAT generation and consigned the pipers, singers and dancers to the MARKETPLACE.

This Psallo rope was used to CAST OUT the idlers from the marketplace and force them into the ekklesia to hear INSTRUCTIONS ONLY as Jesus organized the church.  With this PSALLO mark they would not be able to participate in "church."

Miltophurês

Miltoô 1 2 [miltos] to paint red:--Pass. to paint oneself red or be painted red, Hdt.; schoinion memiltômenon the rope covered with red chalk with which they swept loiterers out of the Agora to the Pnyx, Ar. 

Miltophurês 1 [phurô] daubed with red, Anth. Phurô  I. to mix something dry with something wet, mostly with a sense of mixing so as to soil or defile, to be doomed to have one's hair defiled with earth, II. metaph. to mingle together, confuse, thêriôdous from a confused and savage state,

Aristophanes, Acharnians

SCENE: The Athenian Ecclesia on the Pnyx; afterwards Dicaeopolis' house in the country.
On the other hand, what joy Dexitheus caused me at the musical competition, when he played a Boeotian melody on the lyre! But this year by contrast! Oh! what deadly torture to hear Chaeris perform the prelude in the Orthian mode!  --Never, however, since I began to bathe, has the dust hurt my eyes as it does to-day.

Still it is the day of assembly; all should be here at daybreak, and yet the Pnyx [ekklesia location] is still deserted.

They are gossiping in the marketplace, slipping hither and thither to avoid the vermilioned rope. The Prytanes even do not come; they will be late, but when they come they will push and fight each other for a seat in the front row.

9 Several means were used to force citizens to attend the assemblies; the shops were closed; circulation was only permitted in those streets which led to the Pnyx; finally, a rope covered with vermilion was drawn round those who dallied in the Agora (the market-place), and the late-comers, ear- marked by the imprint of the rope, were fined.
II. to play a stringed instrument with the fingers, NOT with the plectron

There is no text where PSALLO means PLAY an instrument: it simply means PLUCK.  If you pluck a bow it hurts, if you pluck a harp you must NAME what it is you want to pluck.

2. later, to sing to a harp,

Again, there is no literature to this effect: the lexicons tell us how a word is USED without making a definition.  In the literature you must define (1) sing, the (2) play and (3) WHAT to play.

3. SING NTest.

Burgess wants SING NTest NOT to be another category. Rather, he says that we should read "later to sing to a harp in the NTestament. However, we will note that Thayer makes the separation by the semicolon. And the Latin definition makes the differences to be:

In a warrior's sense, PLUCK meant to kill someone but in a general sense it meant to play an instrument or to SOOT OUT a hymn. This removes the PLUCKING from warfare to social making of music which had its greatest utility in the brothels which were pagan "worship centers."

In a general sense, to sing to a musical instrument.
In
ecclesiastical Latin, to sing the Psalms of David.

These are not so much TIME CHANGING meanings but meanings defined by the situation.
You don't SHOOT real or love arrows when you sing at the "places of watering" or social gathering places.

So, we HAVE to accept a REMOVAL in meaning from warfare to social or pagan religious settings.

For a Christian assembly or synagogue or school of the Bible we MUST accept another meaning which is to SHOOT OUT hymns.

If Burgess is correct and there was no SITUATIONAL DEFINITION of a word which just meant PLUCKING then how can he stop short of shooting literal or LOVE ARROWS from the mystical BOW or SERPENT STING SHOOTER of Apollyon?

He STILL does not have a hint of understanding when someone commands: PLUCK! He has to ask, "Pluck What?"

Paul knew, because he was literate, that PLUCK or PSALLO was already a word which, in polite literature, almost always spoke of SHOOTING hymns as one projects forth. Psallo never meant "sing songregationally with instrumental accompaniment" but just meant PLUCK. If you plucked a bow string it meant death so that the enemy made HARMONY by kicking his heels. If you PLUCKED a young boy you shot out love arrows. If you plucked a harp string you made a musical tone. And, if you plucked your own voice you shot out a hymn. And the literature makes it clear that you can SHOOT OUT psalms "to yourself" while you are going to sleep.

In addition to Psallo NOT being a musical word but a warfare or perverted religious word, the CONTEXT out of which this proof text has been yanked by its roots (the meaning of Revello or Psallo in yanking hair), is 100% of the time a MARK of perverted "religion."

We will repeat some of this for those who don't appreciate taking things out of context which is the meaning of a SERMON whereas the Latin "sermon" means what Paul meant: to discuss, dialog or commune:

Pericles, Part I.

Caesar [Probably Augustus.] once, seeing some wealthy strangers at Rome, carrying up and down with them in their arms and bosoms young puppy - dogs and monkeys, embracing and making much of them, took occasion not unnaturally to ask whether the women in their country were not used to bear children; by that prince - like reprimand gravely reflecting upon persons who spend and lavish upon brute beasts that affection and kindness which nature has implanted in us to be bestowed on those of our own kind. With like reason may we blame those who misuse that love of inquiry and observation which nature has implanted in our souls,

by expending it on objects unworthy of the attention either of their eyes or their ears, while they disregard such as are excellent in themselves, and would do them good.

The mere outward sense, being passive in responding to the impression of the objects that come in its way and strike upon it, perhaps cannot help entertaining and taking notice of every thing that addresses it, be it will, useful;

but, in the exercise of his mental perception, every man, if he chooses, has a natural power to turn himself upon all occasions,

and to change and shift with the greatest ease to what he shall himself judge desirable.

Remember the context from Burgess: And so Philip2 once said to his son, who, as the wine went round, plucked the strings charmingly and skilfully, "Art not ashamed to pluck the strings so well?"

So that it becomes a man`s duty to pursue and make after the best and choicest of everything, that he may not only employ his contemplation, but may also be improved by it. For as that color is most suitable to the eye whose freshness and pleasantness [Tom Burgess' proof text again] stimulates and strengthens the sight, so a man ought to apply his intellectual perception to such objects as, with the sense of delight, are apt to call it forth, and allure it to its own proper good and advantage.

Remembering also that Paul commanded Timothy to "give attendance to the public reading" of whatever Scriptures he had. And we know that the early church obeyed the command to SPEAK the Biblical text. We also know that it was universal knowledge that when "performance rhetoric" or "singing" began to be added it produced a GENDER BLEED which led to sexual perversion.

Tom Burgess: Such objects we find in the acts of virtue, which also produce in the minds of mere readers about them, an emulation and eagerness that may lead them on to imitation.

In other things there does not immediately follow upon the admiration and liking of the thing done, any strong desire of doing the like.

Nay, many times, on the very contrary, when we are pleased with the work, we slight and set little by the workman or artist himself, as, for instance, in perfumes and purple dyes, we are taken with the things themselves well enough,
........... but do not think dyers and perfumers otherwise than low and sordid people.

It was not said amiss by Antisthenes, when people told him that one Ismenias was an excellent piper,

"It may be so," said he, "but he is but a wretched human being, otherwise he would not have been an excellent piper."

And king Philip, to the same purpose, told his son Alexander,
........... who once at a merry - meeting played a piece of music charmingly and skillfully,
........... "Are you not ashamed, son, to play so well?"

For it is enough for a king or prince to find leisure sometimes to hear others sing, and he does the muses quite honor enough when he pleases to be but present, [leaving Burgess}

[The context again] while others engage in such exercises and trials of skill.

He who busies himself in mean occupations produces, in the very pains he takes about things of little or no use,

an evidence against himself of his negligence and indisposition to what is really good.

Nor did any generous and ingenuous young man, at the sight of the statue of Jupiter at Pisa, ever desire to be a Phidias, or, on seeing that of Juno at Argos, long to be a Polycletus, or feel induced by his pleasure in their poems to wish to be an Anacreon or Philetas or Archilochus.

For it does not necessarily follow, that, if a piece of work please for its gracefulness, therefore he that wrought it deserves our admiration.

Whence it is that neither do such things really profit or advantage the beholders, upon the sight of which no zeal arises for the imitation of them, nor any impulse or inclination, which may prompt any desire or endeavor of doing the like.

But virtue, by the bare statement of its actions, can so affect men`s minds as to create at once both admiration of the things done and desire to imitate the doers of them. The goods of fortune we would possess and would enjoy; those of virtue we long to practice and exercise; we are content to receive the former from others, the latter we wish others to experience from us.

Moral good is a practical stimulus; it is no sooner seen, than it inspires an impulse to practise; and influences the mind and character not by a mere imitation which we look at, but, by the statement of the fact, creates a moral purpose which we form.

Speaking the Psalms written by the Spirit of Christ are intended to instill historical information which is that which God has given to us "for our learning." When you get pleasured by listening to a skilled singer or watch Twila twitch around the stage, JUST WHAT is it that you take home with you of a useful nature? Nothing. That is why EVERYONE understood them as sorcerers and therefore PARASITES.

Plutarch, Symposium, book 1 notes:

Antisthenes, Hermogenes, and the like,--we will permit them to philosohize, and to mix Bacchus with the Muses as well as with the Nymphs; for the latter make him wholesome and gentle to the body, and the other pleasant and agreeable to the soul. And if there are some few illiterate persons present, they, as consonants with vowels, in the midst of the other learned, will participate not altogether inarticulately and insignificantly.

But if the greater part consists of such who can better endure the noise of any bird, fiddle-string, or piece of wood than the voice of a philosopher,

Just so, when philosophers midst their cups dive into minute and logical disputes, they are very troublesome to those that cannot follow them through the same depths; and those that bring in idle songs, trifling disquisitions, common talk, and mechanical discourse destroy the very end of conversation and merry entertainments, and abuse Bacchus.

Therefore, as when Phrynichus and Aeschylus brought tragedy to discourse of fictions and misfortunes, it was asked, What is this to Bacchus?--so methinks, when I hear some pedantically drawing a syllogism into table-talk, I have reason to cry out, Sir, what is this to Bacchus?

Perchance one, the great bowl standing in the midst, and the chaplets given round, which the god in token of the liberty he bestows sets on every head, sings one of those songs called [Skolios] (CROOKED OR OBSCURE); this is not fit nor agreeable to a feast.
See the connection to THIS CROOKED GENERATION:
Though some say these songs were not dark and intricate composures; but that the guests sang the first song all together, praising Bacchus and describing the power of the god; and the second each man sang singly in his turn, a myrtle bough being delivered to every one in order, which they call an because he that received it was obliged to sing;

and after this a harp being carried round the company, the skilful took it, and fitted the music to the song; this when the unskilful could not perform, the song was called [Greek omitted] because hard to them, and one in which they could not bear a part.

Further down in Pericles

And a third, Eupolis, in the comedy called the Demi, in a series of questions about each of the demagogues, whom he makes in the play to come up from hell, upon Pericles being named last, exclaims, -

"And here by way of summary, now we`ve done,
Behold, in brief, the heads of all in one."

The master that taught him music, most authors are agreed, was Damon (whose name, they say, ought to be pronounced with the first syllable short). Though Aristotle tells us that he was thoroughly practised in all accomplishments of this kind by Pythoclides.

Damon, it is not unlikely, being a sophist, out of policy, sheltered himself

under the profession of music to conceal from people in general his skill in other things, and under this pretence attended Pericles, the young athlete of politics, so to say, as his training - master in these exercises.

Damon`s lyre, however, did not prove altogether a successful blind; he was banished the country by ostracism for ten years, as a dangerous inter - meddler and a favorer of arbitrary power,
........... and, by this means, gave the stage occasion to play upon him.

As, for instance, Plato, the comic poet, introduces a character, who questions him -
........... "Tell me, if you please,
........... Since you`re the Chiron who taught Pericles."

Pericles, also, was a hearer of Zeno, the Eleatic, who treated of natural philosophy in the same manner as Parmenides did, but had also perfected himself in an art of his own for refuting and silencing opponents in argument; as Timon of Phlius describes it,

Also the two - edged tongue of mighty Zeno, who,
Say what one would,
could argue it untrue."

Since Thucydides describes the rule of Pericles as an aristocratical government, that went by the name of a democracy, but was, indeed, the supremacy of a single great man, while many others say, on the contrary,

that by him the common people were first encouraged and led on to such evils as appropriations of subject territory; allowances for attending theatres, payments for performing public duties, and by these bad habits were, under the influence of his public measures,

changed from a sober, thrifty people, that maintained themselves by their own labors, to lovers of expense, intemperance, and license, let us examine the cause of this change by the actual matters of fact.

2. For, indeed, there was from the beginning a sort of concealed split, or seam, as it might be in a piece of iron, marking the different popular and aristocratical tendencies;

but the open rivalry and contention of these two opponents made the gash deep, and severed the city into the two parties of the people and the few.

And so Pericles, at that time more than at any other, let loose the reins to the people, and made his policy subservient to their pleasure,

contriving continually to have some great public show or solemnity, some banquet, or some procession or other in the town to please them,

coaxing his countrymen like children, with such delights and pleasures as were not, however, unedifying. Besides that every year he sent out three - score galleys, on board of which there went numbers of the citizens, who were in pay eight months, learning at the same time and practising the art of seamanship.

I need to review this material by Tom Burgess because I was sent a copy of his book and asked to refute it. I would advise Tom like Philip advised Alexender the Great:

who once at a merry - meeting played a piece of music charmingly and skillfully,
........... "Are you not ashamed, son, to play so well?"

Well, Tom, I can tell you that people who are Biblically and spiritually aware get a cold chill up the back when people claim to "stand in the holy place" to lead people into the presence of God. People never quite understand why they feel polluted and flee from such churches: more than half of the Madison Church in Nashville fled. It was only later that they understood why they needed to WASH. It is not very spiritual to blame people for fleeing what clearly OFFENDS and DISCORDS mature people.

If everything Tom said was Biblically and historically accurate he would still be left with Paul INSISTING on us SPEAKING or READING "that which is written" and he makes a strong case to leave the SINGING which is an excitement and violates Paul's instructions in Romans 15 and the MELODY is defined as meaning GRACE and not a MUSICAL INSTRUMENT but a poetic term inherent in literal odes.

I will add more from Plutarch later but it will not get easier: music AS worship or theatrical preaching as opposed to RECITING or READING the words of men like Homer automatically meant that it flowed from a HOMOSEXUAL propensity and /or led to an effeminate and even perverted ritual. The originators of refusing to RECITE Homer by the males into singing and instruments were the women of LESBOS: the Lesbian women.

You CANNOT contradict Paul and make PSALLO mean externally MAKING MUSIC without implicating yourself in the WARFARE who gave His name to to the concept of plucking bowstrings and plucking harp strings to MAKE WAR or MAKE LOVE. Paul POINTS to a 100% polluted and polluting Greek practice to CONTRAST what a Christian MUST do unless he wants to be seen as making war on God's people or trying to MAKE LOVE which was a central ACT OF WORSHIP in the pagan worship.

You will never find PSALLO used in polite society and you will never find the word meaning anything more than to touch (i.e. sexually or to pluck) or play. If you want to PLAY or PLUCK the harp you must tell the reader whether you are PLUCKING a harp or PLUCKING unwanted hair of the musical performers which was to identify prostitutes or sodomites in a religious sense.

Kenneth Sublett

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