Abstract
If pressed to date the beginnings of Western civilization, one could do worse than to suggest 750 bc; very close to that year the shepherd Amos of Tekoa, first of the recorded Old Testament prophets, denounced the ruling classes of Israel with inspired eloquence. He proclaimed a new ideal of social justice and a new conception of God; the latter was not yet the pure monotheism of Deutero-Isaiah, but already it portrayed a Jehovah who exercised power beyond national boundaries and who was more concerned with righteousness than tribal honour. These are clearly themes of the most basic importance to the ethical and religious thinking of the West; what relevance they or any other aspect of Amos’s teaching might have to music will be considered later, after we turn to Greece in search of some figure to share with Amos the role of Western civilization’s honorary founder.
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