ABSTRACT
The large amount of attention given by many earlier writers to questions about the relationship between Jewish and Christian chant has tended to obscure the fact that there were influences on Christian chant from quarters other than Judaism. According to earlier generations of scholars, by about the time of the Bar Kokhba revolt, antipathy between Jews and Christians had reached a point where mutual toleration was no longer possible, and an irrevocable breach occurred between Christianity and Judaism. Serious chronological and musical issues arise when the earliest extant items of Christian chant are considered in relation to the earliest extant items of Jewish chant. Idelsohn set great store by the tenacity of the oral tradition among the Near-Eastern peoples. Idelsohn's description of the Semitic-Oriental melodies to which he drew attention is in fact a description of the traditional vocal music of the Arab world, the style of which has been prevalent in the Near East for thousands of years.
