*2.10. Silence*

Silence enters this discussion not only as music's end, but as its beginning. Augustine can be understood to view the music we hear as coming from a spiritual model, from the music of silence [39]. Joseph Ratzinger, before he became Pope Benedict XVI, in a discussion relying on Philipp Harnoncourt [40], said this:

Faith comes from listening to God's word. But wherever God's word is translated into human words there remains a surplus of the unspoken and unspeakable which calls us to silence—into a silence that in the end lets the unspeakable become song and also calls on all the voices of the cosmos for help so that the unspoken may become audible. This means that church music, coming from the Word and the silence perceived in it, always presupposes a new listening to the whole richness of the Logos [41].
