Chrześcijańska symbolika instrumentów muzycznych
Christian symbolism of musical instruments

Summary/Abstract: The Christian symbolism of musical instruments presented in this article belongs to one of the most beautiful and the deepest layers of theology of church writers and it is based primarily on the so-called evolution of the divisions of music: musica mundana, musica humana and musica instrumentalis (Boecius; cf. Casiodoro). They directed their attention and allegorical theology primarily to the string instruments already known in the Bible (harp, lyre, zither, psalterium). And so, the harp was to signify the spiritual, whereas the zither – the corporal; sometimes also the two natures of Christ (harp – Divine nature; zither – the human nature). In many authors we encounter a comparison of zither to a suffering body of Christ and His passion, during which the tendons were strained to its limits, and the bones were numbered, and He himself sounded as a spiritual song of virtues due to his patience(Tertullian, Casiodoro, Venantius Fortunatus). Hence, there was born in the theology of the patristic period and the Middle Ages an allegory of the so-called „harp of the Cross” on which theSon of God hanged (Paulinus of Nola, Nicetas of Remesiana, Honorius of Autun, Bernard of Clairvaux, Bonaventura), who is a Logos Singing and playing a new song on this instrument. The Father God was compared to the Ultimate Violin-Maker who built Universum in a shape of a giant zither where the spirit and the matter, celestial choruses, heaven and hell, elements and all that the senses experience were the strings (Honorius of Autun, Clemens of Alexandria, Athanasius of Alexandria, Rupert of Deutz).

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