From The Whole psalmes in foure partes, published by John Day . . . The admirably drawn frontispiece to the book shows us the father of a family instructing his household in singing. He is using the device of the ‘Guidonian Hand’ (dating from about A.D. 1030, and long taught to every choir-boy throughout Europe). This, the invention of Guido d’Arezzo (c. 995-c. 1050), made use of the hand as a sort of Music Map. The present Sol-fa syllables are a relic of the Guidonian hexachordal system. The particular gesture the artist has represented indicates, as near as we can put it today, ‘G = Doh’.

Percy A. Scholes, The Puritans and Music in England and New England: A Contribution to the Cultural History of Two Nations, 272.

As late as the eighteen-eighties there was an organized anti-hymn party in the Presbyterian Church in the United States and elsewhere. It issued a monthly journal with eleven editions (!), these representing pure psalm-singing churches in the United States, the British Isles, and Holland, and also the Waldensian Church.

Perry A. Scholes, The Puritans and Music in England and New England: A contribution to the Cultural History of Two Nations, 253.

Calvin felt so strongly about psalm singing that early on he introduced it into his Geneva school. Students were required at the Academy of Geneva to “exercise themselves in singing psalms” every day after the noon meal. Calvin’s goal was to enable children to sing psalms at school, church, and home so that they could help their parents learn to sing them also. Calvin wrote, “If some children, whom someone has practiced beforehand in some modest church song, sing in a loud and distinct voice, the people listening with complete attention and following in their hearts what is sung by mouth, little by little each one will become accustomed to sing with the others.”

“PSALM SINGING IN CALVIN AND THE PURITANS” BY JOEL R. BEEKE IN SING A NEW SONG: RECOVERING PSALM SINGING FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY, LOC. 496.

Calvin believed that there was something unique about the Psalms. He observes, “The other parts of Scripture contain the commandments which God enjoined his servants to announce to us. But here [in the Psalms] the prophets themselves, seeing they are exhibited to us as speaking to God, and laying open all their inmost thoughts and affections, call, or rather draw, each of us to [participate]….” Calvin also believed that corporate singing subdued the fallen heart and restrained wayward affections in the way of piety. Like preaching and the sacraments, psalm singing disciplines the heart’s affections in the school of faith, lifting the believer to God. It also amplifies the effect of the Word on the heart, multiplying the church’s spiritual energy. “The Psalms can stimulate us to raise our hearts to God and arouse us to an ardor in invoking as well as in exalting with praises the glory of his name,” Calvin writes. In short, with the Spirit’s guidance, psalm singing tunes believers’ hearts for glory.

“PSALM SINGING IN CALVIN AND THE PURITANS” BY JOEL R. BEEKE IN SING A NEW SONG: RECOVERING PSALM SINGING FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY, LOC. 496.

Most of Calvin’s sermons preached on the Lord’s Day from the Old Testament were based on the Psalms. His New Testament commentaries abound with references to the Psalms. Calvin tells us in an autobiographical note prefaced to his Commentary on Psalms that the Psalter had comforted him in a major way during years of trial (1549–1554).

“Psalm Singing in Calvin and the Puritans” by Joel R. Beeke in Sing a New Song: Recovering Psalm Singing for the Twenty-First Century, Loc. 425.

Recovering the singing of psalms in Christian worship remains one of the highest hurdles to reestablishing authentic Protestant worship in the twenty-first century.

“From Cassian to Cranmer: Singing the Psalms from Ancient Times until the Dawning of the Reformation” by Hughes Oliphant Old and Robert Cathcart in Sing a New Song: Recovering Psalm Singing for the Twenty-First Century, Loc. 106.

Surviving census declarations show that individuals were recorded on a household by household (kat’ oikian in Greek) basis — a single census declaration related to all members of a given household. Luke uses the verb [ἀπογράφω] for the census and, in another place, the noun [ἀπογραφή]. [ἀπογράφω] does not mean “to count” however, but “to write down.” The census involved far more than simply counting the population: large quantities of personal data spanning a consideration range of categories were written down. The Roman Egyptian census declarations contain correspondingly detailed data on parameters including age, sex, occupation, place of residence, familial relationships, number of children, possessions [cf. Census return of five brothers residing together in the city of Arsinoe: SB 10. 10759 dated 35 CE]. Census declarations were archived by officials, compiled into lists by the administrators . . . and used in the computation of taxes. We currently have information on about 400 households in Roman Egypt and on the approximately 1,500 people who lived in those households, and, as excavations in Egypt proceed, new declarations are still being found, edited, and published every year.

Sabine R. Huebner, Papyri ad the Social World of the New Testament, 37.

Arrianus’ knowledge of the nomen sacrum notation [in Letter from Christian Arrianus to his brother Paulus, dated to the 230s CE. Ed.pr. P.Bas. I.16; new edition: P. Bas. 2.43.] can only be attributed to an independent reading of Holy Scriptures. The earliest examples with nomina sacra contractions are found in Christian literary papyri such as copies of the Gospel of John, which are dated tentatively to the late second century. Our author must therefore have had these Gospels to hand and read them, as just having heard them would not have imparted knowledge of the abbreviations.

Sabine R. Huebner, Papyri and the Social World of the New Testament, 22.