Jacob Probst’s Unhappy Story (1522)

Translator’s Preface

Jacob Probst was born in 1486 in Ypres, Flanders. By the early 1500s he had joined the Reformed Augustinian cloister in Haarlem. In 1505 he enrolled at the University of Wittenberg (where the Vicar General of the Reformed Augustinians, Johann von Staupitz, was Professor of the Bible) and received his Master of Arts degree in 1509. He served as prior of the Reformed Augustinian monastery in Wittenberg (Luther’s eventual home) from 1515–1518, a critical time in Luther’s theological development and his launching of what would become known as the Reformation. (Luther would affectionately refer to him as “the fat little Flem”—a Flem being a native of Flanders.) Probst then succeeded Johann van Mechelen as prior of the Reformed Augustinian monastery in Antwerp in Brabant, which had been founded in 1513 and given official standing within the Augustinian Order in 1514. In Antwerp he even made an impression on Erasmus of Rotterdam, who wrote to Luther from Louvain on May 30, 1519:

There is in Antwerp a prior of its monastery, a genuinely Christian man, who has a strong and singular affection for you. He was once your pupil, according to his preaching. He is almost the only one who preaches Christ out of all the preachers. The others generally preach either the fictions of men or their own gain.¹

After Emperor Charles V, whose titles included Lord of the Netherlands, issued the Edict of Worms against Luther and his sympathizers in May 1521, he established a state-run inquisition, installing Francis van der Hulst as its head. Francis, a jurist, had studied theology and law at the University of Louvain and was a member of the Council of Brabant in Brussels. While Luther was in hiding at the Wartburg, Probst returned to Wittenberg to continue his education and to discuss with friends there how to proceed in the increasingly unsafe atmosphere in the Low Countries. He returned to Antwerp by the beginning of September and took a more moderate approach, no longer mentioning Luther in his sermons. But the papal nuncio Girolamo Aleandro (or Jerome Aleander) and those helping van der Hulst with his inquisition weren’t buying it. Margaret of Austria, governor of the Low Countries and the emperor’s aunt, sent Nicolaas Baechem of Egmond (also known simply as Nicolaas Egmond or Egmondanus) to spy on Probst’s sermons and to report back, which he did in early November. Not long thereafter Francis van der Hulst set out from Brussels for Antwerp to initiate proceedings against Probst.

On July 1, 1523, two monks from the Antwerp monastery where Probst had been prior were burned at the stake in Brussels by Roman Catholic authorities. The 500th anniversary of this event, the first Lutheran martyrdom, is fast approaching. We will better understand the context in which they were burned if we understand Jacob Probst’s two imprisonments, interrogation, and recantation. What follows is the account of Probst’s “unhappy story” that he himself published after escaping from his second imprisonment and returning to Wittenberg. God willing, tomorrow I will post the “exhortatory epistle to his hearers, and especially to the people of Antwerp” that he appended to this account. If his account and epistle made it into the hands of his fellow monks, which is not at all unlikely, then it would be impossible to overstate its impact on the first Lutheran martyrs. It would have prepared, fortified, and equipped them for what they were about to undergo.

May the triune God use his account to prepare, fortify, and equip us to boldly witness to his grace and his saving name in our own day and age.

Jacob Probst’s Unhappy Story

In the name of Jesus.

Brother Jacob Probst, Augustinian, formerly a preacher in Antwerp, wishes the Christian reader grace and peace in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Until now I have been ashamed to occupy pious ears, ears more happily occupied in the Lord, with my unhappy history. But I see that the enemies of the gospel are taking endless pride in rejoicing over my most miserable ruin, and that they are daily becoming more and more insolent against the glory of the gospel (which is once again resurfacing throughout the world), boasting about my sacrilegious recantation, and publishing it in both languages in every corner in the most hateful manner.² I myself am therefore compelled, in defense of the truth I have preached, to make the history of my unhappiness public and to bring their efforts to light. I am telling the truth with God as my witness, who knows my conscience, that I was not overcome by the Scriptures or by any reasoning, but solely by the fear of being burned and of Antwerp being destroyed on my account (as they were threatening).

And permit me to start there. When Luther’s pamphlets were being spread throughout the world and were sowing everywhere that sword and fire which Christ came to send upon the earth [Matt. 10:34; Luke 12:49], and the priests, monks, and our teachers [magistri nostri] in Louvain³ were in an incredible uproar and fury over them, I was teaching in Antwerp for my own part as moderately as I could, refuting their various and manifest lies against the Christian doctor.⁴ Yet the people, eager for the word of God, were flocking together to hear it. This is where that envy came from; this is the fountainhead of this tragedy. For when they could not withstand the truth and were lamenting their diminished glory, after many attempts to silence me (which envy usually makes in vain), they finally incited the emperor’s power against me.

At this time the councilor Francis van der Hulst, a man both eager for and worthy of the proceedings to be carried out, eagerly set out for Antwerp, armed with imperial letters, to break everything up and to subvert the gospel. But he was rebuked for his madness on the way when that dumb animal, the horse, shook his rider and dragged the injured man for a good distance of the journey, endangering his life. In short, the horse told him to return reluctantly to Brussels. But there, having paid no attention to this divine warning, he renews his resolve and decides to execute his plans at another time. And so he arrived in Antwerp, still lame, on the vigil of St. Nicholas [Dec. 5]. As for me, when I was summoned, I went to meet the man, perhaps overly confident in myself and fancying myself prepared to face death and imprisonment for Christ. He handed the letters to me; I took them and read them. While I was deliberating how to respond, he preempted me—the good man who speaks peacefully with his neighbor while harboring evil in his heart [Psalm 28:3]. He deceitfully said, “You have nothing to fear or suspect. No harm is waiting for you. You are being summoned for your own good. Besides, if you want, you will be entertained in my house and treated like a brother.” This voice was truly in a persistent mouth. I gave my consent to the fraudulent man, being naïve and ignorant of what was happening. My friends, who knew the man inside and out, dissuaded and opposed me in vain, since it was the Lord’s will to crush me.

The next day, the Feast of St. Nicholas [Dec. 6], after first giving a sermon, while the people were crying and working hard to get me released, I did not give my assent to the man’s lying words as a prisoner, but was driven away and arrived in Brussels.⁵ There, after holding many meetings, they finally see to it that I am kept in custody, with me protesting in vain that it was dishonorable to hold a man in prison who had come voluntarily. But this was Francis’s deceptive assurance and promise: These were the emperor’s orders, and they didn’t want my fate to be in my own hands but in his. My mind quickly began to sense that something bad was going to happen. And here I acknowledge my misery, timidity, and weakness of faith, and as the psalm says, even my pillar of strength was terror [Psalm 89:40]. For the fear of death fell upon me, and darkness covered me [Psalm 55:5].

My brotherly Francis, instead of his assurance that I would be returned to Antwerp, was now occasionally comforting me by saying, “You will not be burned unless you are stubborn.” This consolation from my faithful friend stuck so firmly in my sick guts (by now I had fallen internally from my rock) that I was even dreaming about fire and could think of nothing else. These indeed were the scriptures, these the arguments, by which I was miserably conquered. These are the only things in which those men are skilled, and this is all they offer for disputing, for they zealously strive to destroy with fire. But I am vainly holding out hope, since they are unable to prove any wrongdoing by reasoning or from Scripture. Added to this was the rumor and fable that people were crying out everywhere, “That heretic who led Antwerp astray with his perverted doctrine has come here to be burned.” This made me even more agitated and overwhelmed, since the delay was lending strength to my fear and timidity.

Then came the royal father confessor, [Jean] Glapion the Minorite,⁶ carrying six articles he said I was being accused of before the emperor, scarcely one of which was mine. But whether they had deceived the emperor this way or dealt with me on their own in the emperor’s name unbeknownst to the emperor, they themselves knew and God will be the judge. What is certain is that so many illustrious men came to testify against me in defense of the Church (that is what they boast) armed with lies.

At the same time another gentleman also came, the Spaniard Louis Coronel. And so we conferred for several hours, mainly about human regulations. I said that the distinction of foods was not suited to such strict regulation, and that it contributed nothing to Christian piety, although I had never taught that this distinction should not be observed. I simply preferred those things that are the chief matters of our Christian religion, namely faith and love. I was lamenting, “On account of these human regulations, these things that are the sum and substance have been neglected and obliterated, and the people of God have been completely led away from divine things to human things, from the yoke of Christ to pontifical decrees.” In opposition to this, both the Confessor and the Spaniard were contending for the regulations of men, judging it a crime and the worst sin to go against pontifical regulations. The argument of Joshua pronouncing anathema was cited [Josh. 6:17], which proves absolutely nothing. For who does not know that Joshua did not dare to command anything under threat of mortal sin if he had not received it from the Lord? Not even Paul dares to speak of anything if it is not being effected through him by Christ.

But when I as a prisoner saw that I was not being dealt with honestly, I tried to overcome them with kindness by refraining from a lot of arguing, mindful of the advice of friends, who wanted me to try everything to get back out of their custody. The least of my fears was that this, my indulgence and downfall, would produce so much talk, influence, or scandal.

But Glapion, returning to Ghent puffed up by my gentleness, was spreading among those who had not heard me that I was ignorant and that he was victorious. How is that for the holy humility of the Minorites? For when he was with me, he was saying that the case was not a difficult one, but was going to have a quick and happy ending, and that humble despiser of glory was telling me to be of good cheer and was falsely getting my hopes up. And so I returned to my confinement amazed at these things, that so many men were getting so very bent out of shape over nothing, but it is no wonder that men make little of divine matters when they make much of human matters. Then, in a joint council, they undertook to wear me out with questions, so as to snatch from my mouth something they could misinterpret and pass along to the emperor. For this purpose two Spanish doctors of theology from the school in Paris were summoned, Juan Quintana and Louis Coronel, instigated by Glapion. To these were added two men from Louvain, [Jacob] Latomus and that Carmelite [Nicolaas Baechem] of Egmond, whose fame, or rather madness, has long since preceded him above the sky.⁷ The monks are priding themselves in their man Glapion; through him they can do as they wish with the emperor. The Louvainians are priding themselves in Francis van der Hulst. For since they were being oppressed by the Scriptures and the arguments of the truth, they needed to boast in and be puffed up by these patrons. They were meeting together in the monastery of the Franciscans, who were diligently insisting and most humbly begging more than the others (though they were all pursuing it) that I not somehow be allowed to escape unharmed, since they were quite zealous for their devotion to the gospel.

Now while these scribes and Pharisees were sitting in this house of Caiaphas and consulting with their man Francis about the false testimonies against me, I was standing outside in the midst of the servants as if already about to be condemned to death. Then I was summoned and entered with my accompanying brother monk, the steward of the monastery in Antwerp. They soon drove him out of the room, so that there would not be any witness taking part in the proceedings, which they wanted to be so secret that they ordered me under threat of anathema not to speak a word of them to anyone, and indeed they did not want my companion to know anything about them either. But whether they did this by fraud, in order that I might more freely pour out what I thought for certain should be kept secret, or out of the fear of having a witness to their ignorance and tyranny, God knows and so do their own hearts. For who can believe that this was done with honest intentions and a desire for the truth, when it is written, “Whoever does what is evil hates the light” [John 3:20]?

Thus they now attack the lonely man, the man depressed in spirit and pleading with them obsequiously, and do so in a domineering and authoritative manner. They began by asking what I thought about the sacraments. I responded more from Augustine than from Luther that three sacraments are found in the Scriptures, and that the rest were ordained by the church. They noted this down, then asked about indulgences. I responded that they should not be trusted in any way, and that the treasury of the church was not in the pope’s control in such a way that he could distribute it for the sake of money (that is, a very cheap thing), and could deny it to those who had none, but that it was faith which, without money, made each of the faithful a partaker of all Christ’s blessings. They noted this down too, and this is how they proceeded to the remaining questions. For they had in their hands those distinguished condemnations (and worthy of men like themselves) of the three universities,⁸ and they proceeded point by point from these articles, decreeing what was heretical and writing down whatever was contrary to them. At the same time they all had good laugh together whenever I said something that their school did not have, omitting nothing that could serve to confuse me and oppress the gospel truth, although I really did not perceive that at the time, for I believed that simplicity was needed in diligently searching for the truth.

But when I refused to answer, or said that I did not know, they would rebuke me with a stern face and menacing eyes quite domineeringly and fraternally, saying, “Don’t you want to be taught? Don’t you want to be informed?” So many plots and schemes for my death those virtuous and pious defenders of the Church were calling “teaching” and “informing.” After a while Egmond, in order to show his expertise, learning, and refinement above the others, after I said “lots [plerumque]” instead of “often [sepe]” several times, wrinkled his nose and creased his eyebrows and pompously inquired, “What is ‘lots [plerumque]’?” To which our teacher [magister noster] Latomus says, “‘Lots’ is ‘frequently’ or ‘often’ [plerumque est frequenter vel sepe].” The former then exclaimed with a twisted mouth, “Why doesn’t he say ‘frequently’ or ‘often’? What are we supposed to do with his ‘lots’?” With comforts like these those magnificent teachers were encouraging me to be ridiculed and despised, secure and puffed up by the emperor’s power and majesty.

In the meantime the Minorite monks were also not lacking in their duty. Indeed, among other things, when a certain merchant of Antwerp had sent a letter for me and a naïve messenger was looking for me among the Franciscans, the doorkeeper named Angelus took the letter, promising that he would bring it to me himself. Instead he happily brought it to his guardian,⁹ who was such an impudent enemy of the truth that he had declaimed on a public platform that if he had killed Luther with his own hands, he would not on that account be deterred from eating the spotless Lamb,¹⁰ but would rather be rendering him obedience.

This holy man therefore sends his man Angelus to Francis van der Hulst with the letter, in the meantime having my guards forbidden under threat of anathema from saying anything to the messenger, for he was afraid that the evil of his fraud might reach me. Angelus calls Francis out of the room and eagerly hands him the letter, as if he had brought the most certain grounds for my death and could say, “He is guilty of death.” Francis, returning to the room and swelling with authority, said, “Brother, since you are a prisoner of the emperor, you are not allowed either to send a letter or to receive this letter that was sent to you without our knowledge. Therefore you yourself will read this letter in our hearing.” I was afraid and unable to get out of it, being at the same time all jumbled up inside. So I was forced to read the letter to that venerable assembly, which they then snatched from my hands as a testimony and pledge by which, after subduing me, they could also harass my friends, which is exactly what they did later in their eager desire for their salvation, that is, their money. There were many things like this that took place, which I will pass over in silence for the sake of brevity and to relieve the tedium, for I think this will be enough to show the intentions those lying men acted with in this affair.

At the end they were asking me if I had any Scripture passages or arguments; the subject was fasting and the distinction of foods. I quoted Paul in Romans 14, where he says that the strong eat whatever they like, but the weak eat vegetables. Here they were saying that it is those who are weak in body who should eat vegetables so that their physical weakness will not be aggravated by food. Secondly, they were saying that this should be understood of Jewish foods. In this way they were mocking and spitting on Christ in the house of Caiaphas, that is, by mocking and disdaining his clear word in these passages: “Let no one judge you in food and drink” [Col. 2:16]. Again, “the kingdom of God is not food and drink” [Rom. 14:17]. Also, “eat whatever is available in the meat market” [1 Cor. 10:25]. They wanted all these Scripture passages and many others to be understood with regard to Jewish foods, which neither satisfied me nor quieted my mind. Then there are the passages besides those I cited: “See that you do all I command you. Do not add to it or take away from it” [Deut. 12:32]. And that passage: “They worship me in vain by teaching the doctrines and commandments of men” [Matt. 15:9; Mark 7:7]. How they would have responded to these I still do not know.

But seeing that I was contending in vain and could not escape by any Scripture passages, but was being exhausted and oppressed by force alone, I said that I was satisfied¹¹—I call upon God as my witness, to whom all things are known—and then I fell down in misery and surrendered, but with no change having taken place in my heart. But they were seriously delighted when I said I was satisfied, and after several days those who had gotten what they wanted were requiring me to sign the articles which they had organized and embellished to their liking without my knowledge. I signed them naïvely and ignorantly, holding out the unrealistic hope that they might have to be retracted, especially since they had previously commanded under threat of anathema that all these things should remain most secret. Soon those eager to report the glorious triumph they had with me send two men to the emperor (that’s what they told me) to show him the articles which they had snatched from me, and to request a judgment.¹² But when I was afraid of what was going to happen and asked to be given an audience with the emperor, they asserted that the emperor could speak neither Latin nor German, nor understand anyone speaking in either language. But they said that because they did not want the emperor to become acquainted with the other party. In the meantime they were strengthening my custody, prohibiting anyone from speaking or writing to me, and prohibiting me from sending letters to any one—all under threat of severe penalties. Since I was suspicious of my case and was subject to the same judges as witnesses, I was requesting different judges to examine my case. I was also expressing the desire to freely debate on my sermons in Louvain before the entire university. But all of this was denied. I added that this was the not the way to do anything except oppress the truth. But Francis, to whom these tactics were most agreeable, said, “On the contrary, there is no other way to discover it.”

They returned after the Feast of the Nativity, having obtained the victory and gotten from the emperor what they wanted, earnestly demanding a recantation. But I wanted to see what I would be recanting. “The articles you signed,” they say. Although many words were exchanged back and forth and I resisted as much as I could, I made no headway, since they were asserting that there could be no disputing with a heretic, that I had led Antwerp astray, and that I had endorsed the man whom the church had condemned.¹³

But they were arranging the form of recantation as they desired, and with such polished language opposed to good education and Luther that I was completely terrified when I heard it, for they did not permit me to read any copy for myself. Instead, using only fraud and force, they were misusing the emperor’s power to bring disgrace upon the truth and to oppress Christian liberty. For my part, I humbled myself before them on bended knees, with tears welling up and with folded hands, and begged them to have mercy on me. I told them that I was in the hands of Almighty God and the emperor, that they could do with me as they pleased, that I could not furnish a recantation like that, that in committing this crime I would be acting against conscience, provoking God, and detracting from the truth of the gospel. Soon there was talk of the dark prison, except that the chancellor,¹⁴ an otherwise mild man, yet too attached to men, pursued a milder course of action and consented to have me kept at his house under the watch of four guards.

On the day before the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul,¹⁵ prison cells were being prepared for me and my companion the steward, in order that they might use threats and terror to break those whom they could see were already fainthearted. Midday came; I was called to lunch and had tears as my bread [see Ps. 42:3; 80:5]. After giving thanks and dismissing the servants, the chancellor began to discuss the recantation with me alone, affirming that the ultimate danger was about to befall me. But I was citing my feeble conscience, which I could not go against, as well as the absurdity of the things they were ordering me to recant, some of which had never entered my mind, and none of which I had preached the way they had attributed them to me. But he says, “Unless you recant, you will put yourself and the city you have led astray in the utmost danger.” When I heard this, I said with excessive humility that I preferred to be imprisoned eternally, yes, I preferred to face the sword, as though I were already most humbly resigned to death. But I asked in vain, for it was either recant or perish in the fire. This was the consolation they were giving me. But having been ordered to my place of confinement, I went up to it groaning.

Meanwhile, those who call themselves spiritual meet together in order to finally hand over the degraded man to the emperor to be burned. On hearing this, some friends, moved by a cruel compassion, approached this council of the elders, asking to be admitted to converse with me. But those men, with a well-feigned reluctance, were unwilling to admit anyone, unless they agreed to subvert me and persuade me to recant. Upon being admitted, they began arguing with me with tears and groans, adding that I did not need to understand more than was necessary or rely on my own wisdom, that those holy men delegated by the emperor were representing the Church and eagerly desired my salvation, that they were more learned than I, having been raised in the world of theology, and also that they were men of such piety that they would never for the whole world even think about inviting me to recant unless they knew with absolute certainty that I was in error. With these words and many others I was assailed by this faction.

And indeed Satan was not content for me to be variously wearied internally by weakness of faith, and externally by terrors and flatteries, and for the solitary man to be subdued by these tactics. He also stretched out his hand and touched the inner parts of my life and the secrets of my conscience, and was tormenting me with these most dangerous scruples: “What if because of your sermons, either misunderstood or imprudently delivered, some have gone backwards, and have turned Christian liberty into an occasion for the flesh?” So I was afraid where there was nothing to fear, since I was not aware of any perverse doctrine. One thing I do know: I taught less than the truth of the gospel requires. At the same time, that intolerable temptation about my predestination rushed in, and since I did not possess sufficient strength to overcome death, sin, and hell, I was overcome and fell down and lay on the floor in misery. And while there was no one to raise up the fallen man, I yielded to the counsel of others, and I said that I was willing to listen and to be quiet, consoling myself with the false hope that I did not believe that they could not make that great of a triumph from this.

My friends, rejoicing and making excited gestures as if they were looking for an omen, give thanks to God because they believed I had changed. Then the chancellor and many others also came to hear what I had decided to do. I said that I would recant those things by which the people had been offended, or by which Antwerp had been misled (as they were telling me).

But since they saw that my resolution was lacking, they urged me more eagerly to recant everything, though I was pleading in vain that they not force me to recant what I had neither thought nor taught. I told them I had poured out too much in the secret examination out of desperation, and never from the will of my heart. But they wanted everything to be recanted, or else that I should die. Thus, since I saw there was no room for appeals or anywhere I could escape now that I had already begun to fall, I now despaired and fell all the way down. I consented to this most impious recantation, with my mouth alone and not at all with my heart. Everyone is joyful; they rejoice over the sheep that has been found, and over St. Paul, whose conversion is celebrated on that day. My repentance is accepted and reported, but I was silently deploring my wretched state.

And so while some officials are meeting with a certain bishop who was once my friend, but is now strenuously working to suppress the truth,¹⁶ I privately recant and am forced to take an oath before them, after first protesting that I was recanting on the basis of their conscience rather than of my own will. But those men who were swallowing this camel [Matt. 23:24] were not moved at all; I should just recant. Soon the rumor of my recantation is spread to the people of Antwerp, but it did not move them at all (for they knew well of the force that was used). Afterwards they devise another plan and translate the articles into Dutch [in germanicam linguam], adding an atrocious explanation, abusing me as an instrument of their wickedness.

I am accordingly summoned by the chancellor at a late hour on a certain Saturday, completely ignorant of what was to become of me. But when I asked the reason for being summoned, they are all quiet. The chancellor pretends not to know anything else. The aforementioned bishop, who was present, also refused to disclose what was about to happen to me. And behold, when the hour of rest arrives,¹⁷ they notify me that I am to preach and then read the document of recantation the following day by order of the emperor. I would then be restored to liberty. I was eager for this and, unable to see into the future, I consented. The next day, at the very moment when the people assembled in the church¹⁸ were expecting me, they write an explanation, adding to it nothing but the worst words that seemed best for extinguishing the truth.

Now the people had been summoned to that place in huge numbers by means of pecuniary injunctions¹⁹ announced from each of the city’s pulpits. I stood there as a spectacle, surrounded by a very large crowd of Pharisees,²⁰ and I began the sermon this way: “You turned your face away from me, and I became troubled” [Psalm 30:7], hinting that I, who had once said in my prosperity, “I will never be shaken” [30:6], was now recanting the truth as a troubled and afflicted man, since the Lord had left me alone and was not providing the light of his presence that was necessary for a steadfast confession of the truth.²¹

But since they were extremely worried that the people would be moved by my sermon, they interrupted me and put those sacrilegious documents in my hands as if I were a child. I was compelled to read them, preserving the truth in my heart and thinking the opposite there, while lying to myself with my mouth out of the fear of death. But the people were making a commotion and keeping little silence, so that what was expressed in the recantation reached few people.

But the chief enemies of the gospel were present, the mendicant brothers. They had showed up there most eagerly and in procession (as they say). Thus I unhappily delighted all the accomplices of the papal bulls and grieved the spirits of those who support the gospel. May Christ mercifully forgive me for this and grant that I may make amends for it by confessing the contrary. Amen.

After consulting about me for a week, I am sent to Ypres, and behold, the abominable recantation soon follows, printed in both languages. Whenever a sinner accused me, I was speechless and humiliated, and I backed off from what was good. Nevertheless, I once again began to preach the word of God to the people of Christ, who were exceedingly desirous of it and thirsty for it. I made absolutely no mention of human regulations or of the pontiff. I only said that Christ was our true pontiff or high priest, and that he should be approached with confidence, that he could sympathize with our weaknesses, that he himself was tempted in every way, etc. [Heb. 4:15–16].

Here the mendicants once again went mad and were shouting, slandering, and revealing my case to everyone. But when the people, with the gospel shining in their hearts, began to loathe the excrements of men, they were not very affected by their detractions.

Therefore the guardian of Ypres, an extraordinarily uneducated man, went to the provost of that city, who presides over spiritual matters there (as they call them), and asked for an interdict against me. He said that my sermons were suspect, since I once had to recant; I did not preach that people needed to fast under threat of mortal sin; I did not preach the distinction of foods; I did not preach that Christians should be clothed in dark garments [ceruleis vestibus], at least in death; I did not preach that generous alms should be given to the mendicants. (For these are the tokens of the sermons preached by this scum of humanity.) But the provost was unmoved by this and responded, “Unless he has taught contrary to the gospel or Holy Scripture, I will not prohibit him.” A short report is therefore written to that courteous and brotherly man, Francis van der Hulst, deserving of and most greedy for fraternal poison and falsehood, a man who singularly thirsts for my salvation, that is, my death for the sake of the gospel.

I also preached in a certain village near the Dominicasters²² or Preachers (as they boastfully call themselves). They, too, when they heard the rumor that the word of God was being preached, began filling the air with frantic cries, fearing that some of their business or reputation might be ruined. They did not let up until, by the agency of my friend Francis, I was once again arrested on account of the gospel and led away to Bruges to be burned (which was their hope).

Here I went to Glapion, who washed his hands and told me he was ignorant as to why I was arrested this second time. But Francis was not satisfied with having opened a blasphemous mouth and having assaulted Christians in Brabant;²³ he had accepted the commission to do the same in Flanders.²⁴ Having entered the Franciscan monastery, with contempt, threats, and letters he bombastically asserted that I had been accused a second time before the emperor, namely of having relapsed. And when I asked him for witnesses, he told me that it would be shown from letters I had written. But they were unable to produce them as he was hoping; so they had people they could assault and eviscerate with fines, since the people I had written were rich. And so I am guarded among the Franciscans with a kindness consistent with their brotherliness. After the emperor set out for Spain, I am dragged back to Brussels, the butcher’s block for Christians, and am fed for four days in Francis’s house. There I am guarded with an extremely watchful eye; he had ordered each of his servants to guard the doors with the utmost diligence. Here I will be silent about how fraudulently my friend Francis dealt with me, using cunning speech in an effort to obtain anything he could interpret to my disadvantage. He himself knows what I mean and how he conducted himself with me when talking about my accompanying brother monk, the steward.

Our teachers [magistri nostri] from Louvain finally arrive, Latomus and Egmond, the madman. They begin to deal harshly with me after supper is finished. The Carmelite Egmond was saying that I deserved the stake because I had described the force used against me. Such people could only be converted by fire, he was thundering domineeringly and fraternally. But I replied, “So why are you all delaying? You have the power to do away with my body; I am prepared to endure what you inflict.” Francis, as if pitying me, says, “Our teacher [Magister noster], you are attacking too harshly.” But he replies, “This is how it must be done. You cannot deal with wounds of this kind with a gentle hand. If he were fully converted, he would love me, since open correction is better than hidden love. For indeed he is still a heretic and not fully converted. The people of Antwerp are hoping for his return, but that is not going to happen. He supports the heretics and his friend Erasmus of Rotterdam, who is a heretic, an arch-heretic, and a Lutheran. If he were here, I would tell him so, for how can his translation of 1 Corinthians 15 be anything but heresy—‘We will not all sleep in death’?²⁵ Woe, woe to such men! Such great heresy can only be destroyed by fire.” I replied that that was also what Stapulensis²⁶ held, as did all who knew Greek, and they say that is how the Greek text reads. But the ferocious man laid into me, saying, “This is why you fall into various errors, because you have abandoned our teachers and have been seduced by innovations.” I was forced to listen to these and similar lectures.

The next day, the Tuesday before the Ascension of the Lord,²⁷ I am summoned to appear before those three aforementioned men in a council they had formed. They have many papal bulls in front of them. I am then handed over to three attendants or guards, who lead me through the middle of the city like a notorious robber. After taking away even my little food knives, they deliver me to an extremely narrow prison cell, having not even been convicted. The basis for all their actions was their own pleasure and tyranny. I gave thanks to the divine majesty and was waiting for death. I was still troubled by my sins, yet by the grace of God was not concerned about escaping, even though, if I had wanted, I could have escaped and been free on the third night. But afterwards some friends of the truth of the gospel were advising me to escape. They felt that I would not help the gospel’s cause as much by my death in this second imprisonment as I would have if I had steadfastly persevered in the first. Therefore, while the commissaries were harassing the pious in Holland,²⁸ by divine providence and with the help of a certain brother, I left the prison unharmed and thus escaped their hands in the name of the Lord, though the monks were hoping for and expecting a different outcome.

Now, pious reader, you have the history of my unhappiness and ruin, which I have somehow managed to put down accurately and in order.²⁹ You can use this to oppose those boasting Thrasonians,³⁰ who say, do, and twist everything in a childish and womanly manner. And pray for me, that in place of this grievous downfall I may be able to exhibit a happy resurrection, and to confirm the sermons I preached in Antwerp with my blood and death in the strength of Christ, who is blessed forever. Amen.

Source

Probst, Jacob. Fratris Iacobi Praepositi Augustiniani quondam Prioris Antvverpiensis historia utriusque captivitatis propter verbum Dei. Eiusdem etiam Epistola ad Auditores suos Antvverpienses. Wittenberg: Johann Rhau-Grunenberg, 1522.

I also consulted the anonymous German translation published the following year: Ein schone und clegliche history bruder Jacobs probst Augustiner ordens vor zeiten Prior zu Antdorff / an gemeine fromme Christenheit / von beiden gefencknissen / so er von wegen des worts gottes / und umb des heyligen Euangeliumß willen erlitten hatt. Colmar: Amandus Farckall, 1523.

Endnotes

¹ Percy Stafford Allen, ed., Opus Epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterodami, vol. 3 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1913), 606–7, no. 980. Eramus was later suspected of Lutheranism due partially to this letter.

² Probst’s recantation had been published in Flemish (a dialect of Dutch) in Antwerp and in Latin in Cologne, Leipzig, and Strasbourg.

³ “Our teachers [magistri nostri, abbreviated M. N.]” appears to have originated as a term of respect for the professors of theology at the University of Louvain, who were considered theological experts and rendered judgments on theological debates. But by this point Lutherans were using the familiar term ironically.

⁴ Namely, Martin Luther, who was a doctor of theology.

⁵ The 1523 German translation reads: “On St. Nicholas Day I preached and made the people aware of this affair afterwards. They cried and worked to get me released, but I followed Francis’s lying words rather than the faithful advice of the pious. So I was driven away to Brussels.”

⁶ Minorites (sing., Minorite; Latin: minorita, sing., minoritae, pl.) was a nickname for members of both the conventual and observant branches of the Franciscan Order (Order of Friars Minor).

⁷ This expression is borrowed from Vergil’s Aeneid, 1.379.

⁸ Namely Paris, Louvain, and Cologne

⁹ The guardian (Gardianus) of a Franciscan monastery was that monastery’s superior.

¹⁰ That is, partaking of the Lord’s Supper.

¹¹ Namely, with their answers and explanations.

¹² There seems to be one or more typographical or grammatical errors in this sentence, which begins: Mox ille gloriosum de me relaturi triumphum mittunt ad Caesarem duos. I have read illi for ille and taken the future participle relaturi as expressing readiness or eagerness.

¹³ Namely Luther

¹⁴ Hieronymus van der Noot was chancellor of the Duchy of Brabant from 1514–1531.

¹⁵ The Conversion of St. Paul is observed on January 25, which fell on a Saturday in 1522.

¹⁶ This seems to have been Adrien (or Adriaan) Aernoult of Bruges, auxiliary bishop of Cambrai (Antwerp and Brussels belonged to the diocese of Cambrai), whose name is mentioned in the preamble of Probst’s published recantation, and who would preside at the degradation of the Augustinians Hendrik Voes and Jan van den Esschen the following year.

¹⁷ Latin: instante quietis hora. Hora quietis might be the Latin equivalent of die Schlafglocke, a bell that rang at a certain evening hour (probably the final bell of the day) and marked the close of business, after which it was forbidden to conduct business. The 1523 German translation reads: “But when other people were going to sleep…”

¹⁸ St. Gudula’s Church in Brussels

¹⁹ Latin: mandatis pecuniariis. Some scholars interpret this phrase to mean that the people were bribed, but the 1523 German translation captures it better with the translation: bei einer summ geltz, “under threat of a fine.” (Bei was used like the Latin sub in the sense of “under threat of” or “on pain of.” This usage is still evident in the legal phrase bei Todesstrafe, “on pain of death.”)

²⁰ The 1523 German translation reads: “and a large crowd of monks stood around me.” Probst was certainly being carefully watched by the officials and monks involved in his inquisition, but he seems to be referring here to the crowd as a whole, who was not there to be edified by God’s word, but because they had been threatened and were eager to see the spectacle of Probst’s recantation.

²¹ Probst is probably not so much blaming God here as he is being honest about how he felt at the time.

²² Dominicaster was a pejorative term for a Dominican monk. The Latin suffix -aster denotes something imitating, and usually inferior to, the real thing. (For example, oleaster is a wild olive tree, also called the Russian olive, an imitation version of the olea. Erasmus coined the name Ambrosiaster for the anonymous author of writings falsely attributed to, and sounding like, Ambrose.) In this case, those employing the term do not seem to have had the actual etymology in view; the Dominicans were called such after their founder St. Dominic. They seem rather to have been thinking of the adjective Dominicus, “of or belonging to the Lord” (doubtless the origin of Dominic’s name). The connotation of Dominicaster is therefore something like, “a would-be Lord’s man or would-be follower of the Lord.”

²³ It is unclear whether Probst is here using “blasphemous” with God as the implied object or the Christians in Brabant. The 1523 German translation understood it in the former sense. If the latter was intended, the clause would be better translated: “…with having opened a libelous mouth and assaulting Christians in Brabant.”

²⁴ The Duchy of Brabant included Louvain, Brussels, Antwerp, and ’s-Hertogenbosch. The Countship of Flanders included Ghent, Bruges, and Ypres. Today these territories comprise lands that belong to Belgium and parts of the Netherlands and France.

²⁵ The Vulgate of 1 Corinthians 15:51 read: “We will all rise again, but we will not all be changed.” Erasmus had translated the verse the way we are now familiar with it on the basis of better manuscript evidence.

²⁶ That is, Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples (c. 1455–c. 1536), Latinized as Jacobus Faber Stapulensis, a French theologian and humanist.

²⁷ In 1522, Ascension fell on Thursday, May 29.

²⁸ The Countship of Holland included Rotterdam, Delft, The Hague, Haarlem, Enkhuizen, and Amsterdam. Today the territory belongs to the Netherlands.

²⁹ Latin: vere a meipso utcunque digestam. The utcunque, which I have attempted to capture with “somehow managed,” seems to refer to the difficulties Probst had reliving all these events and exposing his conduct to the public.

³⁰ Thraso was a realistically portrayed, swaggering soldier in Terence’s (II cent. BC) comedy Eunuchus. Thraso’s reputation as a braggart lives on in the English adjective thrasonical.

Martin Luther’s Praise of Music (German)

Brief Introduction

First Page of Praetorius’s 1607 Reprint of Luther’s Preface, Entitled Encomion Musices

In 1607, the Lutheran composer and musician, Michael Praetorius (1571–1621), had Installments 1–4 of his Musae Sioniae (Muses of Zion) series published together in Wolfenbüttel. He had his woodcut portrait printed on the back of the special title page, and immediately opposite his portrait, a reprint of a work by Martin Luther under the title Encomion Musices (Praise of Music).

I will trace the origins and subsequent use and translation of this work, and the debates surrounding it, in greater detail in the Afterword below. For now, the reader should be aware that Luther originally composed this work in Latin in 1538, as a preface for a motet collection printed in Wittenberg by Georg Rhau. Praetorius used a 1564 German translation of this preface by the cantor Johann Walther (1496–1570) as his base text; Praetorius’s father had once been Walther’s colleague in Torgau. But Praetorius also consulted a version of the preface printed by Wolfgang Figulus (c. 1525–after 1588) in 1575, and he inserted text from Figulus’s version in four places in Walther’s text—additions which he felt contributed something that was missing in Walther’s version. Thus the Encomion Musices is a hybrid version of Luther’s preface.

I have distinguished Walther’s original translation from the Figulus interpolations by placing the latter in brackets [ ]. (No such distinction appeared in Praetorius’s reprint.) I also bolded the parts that Praetorius put in bold typeface, but the reader should be aware that neither Walther’s nor Figulus’s versions, as originally printed, contained any bold typeface.

I produced this original translation using Praetorius’s hybrid reprint, Walther’s original translation as printed in the Weimar Edition, and Figulus’s version. (The preface preceding the text in the Weimar Edition also lent much assistance to my Afterword.) As far as I am aware, this is the first complete, from-the-ground-up English translation of this particular version of Luther’s preface, though if any readers are aware of another, I invite you to inform me thereof, so that I can give proper credit. You can find my English translation of Luther’s original Latin preface in this separate post. I present these fresh translations today, on the occasion of the 400th anniversary of Praetorius’s death, to the glory of the triune God, with the prayer that they will renew and increase the reader’s appreciation for God’s gift of music.

Martin Luther’s Encomion Musices (Praise of Music)

First Page of Luther’s Preface in Johann Walther’s Lob und preis Der Himlischen Kunst Musica (1564)

A preface by the holy, cherished man of God,
Doctor Martin Luther, on the heavenly art of music,
never before printed in German.¹

To all admirers of the liberal art of music, I, Doctor Martin Luther, wish grace and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.

Though I would sincerely like to commend and highly praise this beautiful and precious gift of God, the liberal art of music, I find that it provides so much and such great benefit, and is so glorious and noble an art, that I do not know where to begin or end in praising it, or in what manner and form I might praise it as it deserves to be praised and to be cherished and appreciated by everyone. I am so overwhelmed by the rich abundance of praise for this art, that I cannot extol and praise it sufficiently. For who can say and point out everything that might be written and said about it? And even if a person really wanted to say and point out everything, he would still forget many points. In short, it is impossible for anyone to sufficiently praise or extol this noble art.

First of all, if you give the subject proper consideration, you will find that this art was given by God to each and every creature from the beginning of the world, and was created with all of them from the beginning. For there is absolutely nothing in the world that does not produce a noise and sound, so that even the air—though it is invisible and impalpable by itself, and it seems to possess the very least music, that is, beautiful tones and sound, and seems to be completely mute and inaudible—nevertheless, when it is moved and forced through something, it too produces its music and tones, and what was previously mute now begins to become audible and a form of music, so that it can now be heard and felt, though it was not heard or felt before. The Spirit is pointing out wonderful and great mysteries through this, which I won’t talk about right now.

Second, the music, tones, and singing of the animals, and especially of the birds, is much more wonderful still. [Ah, what a glorious music it is, with which the almighty Lord in heaven has endowed his singing instructor, the dear nightingale, along with its young pupils and so many countless thousands of birds in the air, since every single genus has its own style and melody, its sweet, glorious call and singular coloratura, which no one on earth can comprehend!] King David himself, the excellent musician who sings and plays purely divine songs on his lute and string-play, testifies to this, and he prophesies and sings with great amazement and passionate spirit about the wonderful singing of the birds in Psalm 104. There he says, “Upon them² sit the birds of the sky and sing amid the branches.”

But what should I say about the human voice, with which all other singing, tones, and sounds simply cannot compare? For God has endowed the human voice with so great a music that his super-abundant and incomprehensible kindness and wisdom neither can nor may be understood even in this one thing. For the philosophers and scholars have certainly pushed themselves hard and taken great pains to investigate and understand this wonderful work and art of the human voice—how it happens that the air can produce words, sounds, singing, and tones through such a small and slight movement of the tongue, and then, too, through an even slighter movement of the throat or neck, likewise in many different styles and ways, depending on how it is governed and directed by the mind, and can do all that so powerfully and forcefully that it is not only distinctly heard, but also perceived and understood so far and wide, in every direction. But they have only attempted to investigate it; they have not actually discovered the answers. Indeed, no one has yet come forward who could even say and show where human laughter comes from (to say nothing of crying), and how human laughter happens. They are amazed by it, but that’s all the further they get; they cannot discover it. But we should entrust the reflection on the immeasurable wisdom of God in this one creature to those who have more time than we. I just wanted to touch on it briefly.

Now I should also say something about the benefit of this noble art, which is so great that no one, no matter how eloquent he may be, can sufficiently relate it. I can point out this one thing for now, to which experience also testifies: After the holy word of God nothing whatsoever deserves to be glorified and praised as highly as music does, namely for this reason, that she is a ruler over every emotion of the human heart (to say nothing right now of the irrational animals). She masters and controls the very emotion that frequently rules and overpowers humans, as if it were their lord.

For nothing on earth is more capable of making the sorrowful glad, making the glad sorrowful, bracing up the despairing, enticing the proud to humility, calming and suppressing passionate and excessive love, curtailing envy and hate, and who can enumerate all the other emotions of the human heart that rule people, and entice and drive them either to virtue or vice? For ruling these emotions of the mind and keeping them in check, nothing, I say, is more powerful than music. Yes, the Holy Spirit himself praises and honors this noble art as an instrument of his own office by attesting in Holy Scripture that his gifts, that is, the incitement and inducement to every kind of virtue and all good works, are given to the prophets through music. We see this in the prophet Elisha who, when he is about prophesy, commands that an instrumentalist be brought to him, and while the instrumentalist is playing on the strings, the hand of the Lord came upon him, etc. [2 Kings 3:14–19]. On the other hand, Scripture testifies that Satan, who drives people to every vice and depravity, is driven away through music. This is shown in King Saul. When the spirit from God came upon him, David would take his lyre and play with his hand and Saul would be refreshed and would feel better, and the evil spirit would depart from him [1 Sam. 16:14–23]. It was therefore for good reason that the holy fathers and prophets brought the word of God into many different songs and string-play[, so that music would always remain in the church]. As a result, we have so many kinds of excellent songs and psalms from them, which move the hearts of mankind both with words and also with the singing and sound.³ But in the irrational animals, string-playing, and other instruments, we only hear the singing, sound, and tones, without speech and words. It is to humans alone, in preference to the other creatures, that the voice has been given with speech, so that they would be able and learn how to praise God with singing and words at the same time, namely with the clear and sonorous proclamation and praise of God’s kindness and grace, in which beautiful words and lovely tones are heard at the same time.

Moreover, if a person compares humans to each other and considers the voice of each one, he will discover how God is such a glorious and complex creator in what he distributes to the voices of humans, how there is such a great difference among humans with respect to voice and speech, and how one is so far superior to another in this. For they say that you cannot find two people who have exactly the same voice, speech, and articulation, even if one person devotes himself to another’s style with careful diligence and tries to be like him and imitate everything like the ape.

And when natural music is sharpened and polished by craft, there a person can finally see and recognize with great amazement just a bit of the great and perfect wisdom of God in his wonderful work of music (for it cannot be comprehended or understood completely). Within this craft, it is particularly special and deserving of amazement when one person sings a plain tune, or tenor (as the musicians call it),⁴ and three, four, or five other parts are also sung alongside it, which accompany this plain[, simple] tune or tenor on all sides with shouts of joy, as it were, playing and jumping around this tenor, wonderfully adorning and embellishing this tune with many different styles and tones, and leading a heavenly round dance, so to speak[—meeting each other in friendly fashion and embracing each other with congeniality and love]. Those who understand and are affected by it just a little cannot help but be overcome with amazement at it, and they must suppose that there is nothing more remarkable in the world than a song adorned with many parts like that. But whoever has neither inclination nor affection for it, and is not moved by such a lovely wonder, must truly be a thick blockhead who does not deserve to hear such lovely music, but the desolate, wild donkey-braying of the hymn-tune by itself, or the singing and music of dogs or sows.

Now what more can I say? The subject and the benefit of this noble art is much greater and richer than may be related in a short space like this. Therefore I wish to have this art entrusted to everyone, and especially to the young people, and I hereby wish to admonish them to let this precious, beneficial, and joyous creature of God be cherished, loved, and esteemed by them. Through the knowledge and diligent use of this art, they can sometimes drive away evil thoughts, and can also avoid bad company and other vice. I then also admonish them to get in the habit of recognizing, lauding, and praising God the Creator in this creature, and to flee and avoid with all diligence those who are corrupted by sexual immorality and who misuse this beautiful element and art [Natur und Kunst]⁵ (just as the unchaste poets also do with their element and art) to serve shameful, frenzied, unchaste passion. You can know for certain that it is the devil who is driving them like that, contrary to nature. Since nature should and is meant to use such a noble gift only to honor and praise God, the Creator of all creatures, these depraved and unnatural children [ungeratene Kinder unnd Wechselbelge]⁶ are driven by Satan to take away and rob this gift from God the Lord, and to use it to honor and worship the devil, who is an enemy of God, nature, and this lovely art. With that, I wish to have you all entrusted to God the Lord. Written in Wittenberg, in 1538.

Afterword

Preliminary note: This Afterword is essentially the same as that printed in the companion post. If you already read that one, you can skip this one.

The history of the transmission of this preface through the ages is consistently marked by both admiration and errors. Since the admiration is fairly consistent, while the errors vary, I will categorize and trace the errors.

Error Category 1: Faulty Citation

Melanchthon’s Reprint of Luther’s Preface in Liber selectarum declamationum (1541)

The errors of faulty citation trace back to two facts: First, Rhau’s Symphoniae Iucundae did not enjoy particularly widespread distribution, which is the case with most printed musical collections. Second, Luther’s friend and colleague Philipp Melanchthon reprinted Luther’s preface on pages 768–71 of his Liber selectarum declamationum (Strasbourg: Crato Mylius, 1541). But he also reprinted a preface of his own immediately before it (pp. 766–68), also written in praise of music, also written for a musical collection published by Georg Rhau (Selectae Harmoniae Quatuor Vocum de Passione Domini [Select Four-Part Harmonies about the Lord’s Passion]), and also written in 1538. For his own preface in his 1541 collection, Melanchthon correctly cited the original source. But above Luther’s preface, he simply wrote, “Alia Martini Lutheri [Another Preface, by Martin Luther].” Since Melanchthon’s book experienced a wider distribution and went through reprintings, many understandably, though incorrectly, assumed that both Melanchthon’s and Luther’s prefaces had been printed back-to-back in the same work. (And since the Selectae Harmoniae also did not enjoy a wide distribution, there weren’t copies of the work handy against which to check that assumption.)

Thus the 1703 Buddeus reprinting⁷ and the 1873 reprinting in the Latin volumes of the Erlangen Edition⁸ (both Latin), Johann Jacob Greiff’s German translation (which appeared in Part 22 of the Leipzig Edition [1734]⁹ and Part 14 of the first Walch Edition [1744]¹⁰), and the 1898 German translation in the second Walch Edition (based on the Latin text of the Erlangen Edition)¹¹ all mistakenly connect Luther’s preface either to harmonies about the Lord’s Passion or, even more incorrectly, to a supposed harmony of the accounts of the Lord’s Passion.

Error Category 2: Textual Modification

Other errors originate with one or the other of the two earliest German translations.

Lady Music, woodcut printed in Walther’s Lob und preis Der Himlischen Kunst Musica (1564)

The Lutheran cantor Johann Walther was the first to translate Luther’s preface into German. He included his translation in his 1564 publication, Lob und preis Der Himlischen Kunst Musica (Laud and Praise for the Heavenly Art of Music), which was an enlarged, swan-song-reprint of his 1538 work, Lob und preis der löblichen Kunst Musica (Laud and Praise for the Laudable Art of Music). (It is important to note that Luther wrote a different, poetic German preface for Walther’s 1538 work.) The dead giveaway that the German preface is Walther’s translation and not original with Luther is how the German text in Walther’s work compares to the section about listening to “some crap-poet” in the Latin version: “But as for those who are not affected by [figural music], they indeed are truly without taste and deserve to spend their time listening to some crap-poet [aliquem Merdipoetam] or to the music of swine.”

As Martin Brecht details in the third volume of his Luther biography,¹² on Pentecost Sunday of 1538, Simon Lemnius, a talented but misguided University of Wittenberg student, offered some poems for sale outside of the Wittenberg parish church that he had secretly published through Nickel Schirlentz. In them, Lemnius made subtle insinuations about public figures in the town. He was subsequently placed under house arrest, but broke his fetter and escaped before he could be called up before the university rector (Melanchthon at the time). After his sermon on Sunday, June 16, Luther issued a pronouncement against Lemnius, in which he referred to him as a “dishonorable rogue” and a “shameful would-be poet.” After Lemnius’s escape, in September of that same year, he published an enlarged collection of poems which also took shots at Luther, among others. This led Luther to compose, apparently at least somewhat spontaneously, five elegiac Latin couplets at his table on Thursday, September 30, in which he referred to Lemnius as a Merdipoeta, “crap-poet”—no doubt a label he had already been using for him.¹³

This context not only explains Luther’s phrase, “some crap-poet,” in his Latin preface, as well as his reference to “the crude poets” in the final paragraph of that preface, but it also shows that the German preface in Walther’s edition was his own translation and not a Luther original. You can read the corresponding section in Walther’s 1564 work above. You will note there the disappearance of any reference to poets, because Luther’s original words would have been confusing in 1564 to people who knew little, if anything, about Simon Lemnius. But Walther also betrays himself in what he substitutes for Luther’s “crap-poet” reference—“the desolate, wild donkey-braying of the hymn-tune by itself.” For in his concluding remarks (Beschlus) in the back of his 1564 work, Walther not only verifies that Luther composed the preface twenty-six years earlier (1564 minus twenty-six equals 1538) but also makes it clear why he is publishing Luther’s preface in German now:

I see and experience that this art of music is being disparaged and despised by many who pride themselves in being evangelical and Lutheran. They think that it’s papistic [i.e. too Roman Catholic] when four- or five-part songs are used in Christian assembly and during divine services, and as if it would strengthen the papacy if music were promoted in figural singing.

Luther was not addressing any such problem in his own time. Thus it is clear twice-over from this one section that the Luther preface in Walther was translated and edited by Walther.

In spite of this, Johann Nicolaus Forkel in the second volume (1801) of his Allgemeine Geschichte der Musik (General History of Music)¹⁴ and Hugo Holstein in his 1883 article, “Eine unbekannte Schrift Luthers über die Musik [An Unknown Writing of Luther on Music]”¹⁵ push the German preface in Walther as Luther’s original. Forkel says that, “judging from the language, [the German version] must originate with Luther himself” (though I’ll show later that the German version at Forkel’s disposal was actually Praetorius’s hybrid), and that he had “read somewhere” (?) that Luther had nailed this preface to the church doors in Wittenberg in order to give church music the strongest possible promotion—the assumption being that, if he did so, he would have nailed up a German version. Holstein insisted that the German preface in Walther was Luther’s original and that the Latin version originated with Melanchthon, who translated it. But the idea of Melanchthon creating the concept of “some crap-poet” without it being in Luther’s original is unimaginable, not to mention that Melanchthon’s take on the Lemnius affair was different than Luther’s.

First Page of Figulus’s Version of Luther’s Preface (1575)

The second German version of Luther’s preface appeared in a musical collection published by Wolfgang Figulus (c. 1525–after 1588) in 1575. After carefully comparing this German version to both the 1538 Latin preface and Walther’s 1564 German translation, I don’t think Figulus’s version even merits being called a translation. It seems to be merely a reworking and compacting (with one glaring exception) of Walther’s translation, apparently simply for the purpose of boosting the sales of his work. (Beneath the title on the title page of the first tenor part-book, we find this “clickbait”: “With a German preface by the Reverend Father Dr. Martin Luther that has not been previously printed.”) This version would probably merit no further attention, except that the esteemed musicologist Walter Blankenburg (1903–1986) apparently went to great lengths to demonstrate “that the preface that Figulus published in 1575, rather than being an alternative German translation, was indeed Luther’s original draft that he then translated into Latin in 1538.”¹⁶ I am admittedly unfamiliar with Blankenburg’s work, but apart from the shorter length in Figulus and the first three words of his version of the preface more closely matching the Latin (Ich wolt warlich || Vellem certe), the evidence against such a conclusion is quite strong. Consider the following:

1. If anyone were to come into the possession of a supposed original draft in German, it would be Walther, not Figulus. Recall that Walther actually published a work in 1538, the same year Luther published a poetic preface for that work and wrote his Latin preface for Rhau’s collection. Walther was Luther’s friend and collaborator.
2. The idea of Luther possessing a draft for any preface he wrote at this time is problematic. In 1538 he dealt with the Lemnius affair and suffered from severe attacks of dysentery and gout, on top of his regular domestic duties and busy schedule of preaching, teaching, and letter writing. “Because of the great quantity of his business [at this time], his friends frequently had to be content with brief letters.”¹⁷ In reading the Latin preface, one gets the impression that Luther threw it out of his sleeve, as it were. His great genius is certainly still on display, but it does not possess the kind of organization and progression of thought that one finds in his more carefully crafted works, or that one would expect if he wrote it on the basis of a draft.
3. The preface in Figulus begins and ends the same way Walther’s translation does—word for word. (Beginning [Walther/Figulus]: Allen Liebhabern/liebhabern der freien Kunst Musica wündsch/wünsch Ich/ich Doctor Martinus Luther Gnad/Genad und Fried von Gott dem Vater und unserm HERrn/HERRN Jhesu Christ/[omit Jhesu] Christo etc. Ich wolt… Ending: Hiemit will/wil ich euch alle/allen Gott dem HERRN/HErrn befohlen/bevolen haben.) What are the odds of the beginning and ending of Walther’s translation—and I have already demonstrated that his version was indeed a translation—just so happening to match Luther’s supposed original German draft? Especially when Luther’s Latin simply begins, “Martin Luther to Devotees of Music. Salvation in Christ [to you all].”?
4. If what Figulus published was Luther’s original draft, Luther did a poor job following his draft when he converted it into Latin. In one place in particular the preface in Figulus has much more content than Luther’s Latin; in a number of other places it has less.
5. In the one place where Figulus has much more content, the word Coleratur (coloratura) occurs. Any Luther scholars reading this are invited to correct me if I’m wrong, but I did extensive searching and I am led to conclude that if Luther did use this word in his draft, it was the only time he ever used it.
6. One sentence in Figulus’s version doesn’t even make sense: “Indeed, no one has yet made it to the point that he could figure out the A-B-C of music, namely that, of all the visible creatures, humans alone can express the joy in their hearts by laughing, and conversely can cry when they are grieved.” How are laughter and crying the A-B-C of music? Luther’s Latin preface is much clearer when it identifies laughter as the alphabet and primary material of the human voice, not of music.
7. The progression from the art or craft of music in general to figural music in particular, clearly present in Luther’s Latin version, is completely missing in Figulus.
8. Both references to poets are completely missing in Figulus. Perhaps this is the best point under which to see Figulus’s method at work. Luther’s Latin reads: “To those who are even but modestly affected by this type of singing, it seems that nothing more wonderful can be found in this age. But as for those who are not affected by it, they indeed are truly without taste and deserve to spend their time listening to some crap-poet or to the music of swine.” Walther translates: “Those who understand and are affected by [figural singing] just a little cannot but be overcome with amazement at it, and they must suppose that there is nothing more remarkable in the world than a song adorned with many parts like that. But whoever has neither inclination nor affection for it, and is not moved by such a lovely wonder [Wunderwerck], must truly be a thick blockhead who does not deserve to hear such lovely music, but the desolate, wild donkey-braying [Eselgeschrey] of the hymn-tune by itself, or the singing and music of dogs or sows.” Figulus, imitating and compacting Walther, reads: “Whoever reflects on [figural singing] just a little and does not consider it an inexpressible wonder [Wunderwerck] of the Lord does not deserve to be called a human, and should get to hear nothing but the donkey braying [wie der Esel schreiet] and the sow grunting.”
9. At the end of the Latin version, Luther calls the devil “the adversary of nature and of this most delightful art.” Walther translates: “an enemy of God, nature, and this lovely art.” Figulus reads: “an enemy of God, nature, and all that God has made and calls good.” On the one hand, notice the greater similarity of Figulus’s version to Walther’s translation than to Luther’s Latin. On the other hand, notice Figulus’s omission of the reference to the devil as the enemy of the art of music—highly unlikely to be Luther’s original in a preface on music.

More specifics could have been cited, but this should suffice to show that Figulus’s version, though important for its own reasons (which I’ll touch on shortly), is a reworking and compacting of Walther’s translation, and not a presentation of an original German draft by Luther or even an original translation of Luther’s Latin. One can go through Walther’s translation section by section, comparing each one to its counterpart in Figulus’s version, and one will consistently see Figulus borrowing vocabulary and phraseology from Walther, even as he reworks and condenses Walther’s material. (He even borrows language from Walther’s own concluding remarks [Beschlus] and incorporates it into his version of Luther’s preface, as I’ll touch on briefly further below.)

Error Category 3: Ignorance of Previous Versions

Another group of errors relates not so much to the preface itself, but to its presentation; these are simply errors of ignorance.

When Johann Jacob Greiff’s aforementioned translation was published in Part 22 of the Leipzig Edition of Luther’s works in 1734, it was accompanied by this byline: “Now translated into German for the first time.”¹⁸ Either he or the editor was completely unaware of both Walther’s and Figulus’s versions.

When Forkel published the second volume (1801) of his aforementioned history of music, he wrote: “It is noteworthy that this outstanding epistle is not found in any edition of Luther’s complete works”¹⁹—when in fact Greiff’s translation had been published in both the Leipzig and first Walch Editions. (Of course, Forkel wouldn’t have been looking for a potentially different German version, since he was operating under the assumption that the hybrid version at his disposal was Luther’s original.)

Hugo Holstein unfortunately put his ignorance on display right in the title of his aforementioned 1883 article, “Eine unbekannte Schrift Luthers über die Musik [An Unknown Writing of Luther on Music].” He went on to say in the article itself that this writing of Luther had “escaped all the editors of Luther’s works and [was] therefore not recorded in any edition of his works.”²⁰ (By that point, it had also been published in volume 7 [1873] of the Latin volumes of the Erlangen Edition, but Holstein, too, was convinced that Walther’s German translation was actually Luther’s original.)

Encomion Musices: The Hybrid Version

The reason that I am publishing these two posts today, on the 400th anniversary of the death of Michael Praetorius, is because Praetorius’s German reprinting of Luther’s preface became one of its most prominent versions. As I mentioned in the Brief Introduction above, though, what Praetorius reprinted was actually a third German version—a hybrid of Walther’s and Figulus’s versions.

In my translation of the hybrid version above, you can see for yourself the text that Praetorius added from Figulus’s version in four places (placed in brackets). Most notable of these additions is the extended exclamation of wonder over the birds, and the nightingale in particular. Though this exclamation was not in Luther’s original, it does, interestingly, reflect sentiments that Luther expressed in the poetic preface he wrote for Walther in 1538,²¹ and it also borrows from language Walther himself uses in the concluding remarks (Beschlus) of his 1564 work.²²

It was this hybrid version that Forkel reprinted, as did August Jakob Rambach and Karl Grell not long after Forkel (1813 and 1817, respectively).²³ All three men were of course unaware that the Encomion Musices was a hybrid.

Even though Walther’s translation and Praetorius’s hybrid are not pure Luther in content, in that Luther did not express in that particular work all the thoughts that those versions express, they are nevertheless thoroughly Lutheran. They also give us insights into the mind, life, and work of both Walther and Praetorius—prominent and important figures in their own right. As just one example, one can distinctly hear Walther’s rendering of “wild donkey-braying” and “the singing and music of dogs or sows” in Praetorius’s dedicatory epistle for Polyhymnia Caduceatrix & Panegyrica (1619).²⁴

Generally speaking, the very fact that this preface by Luther has been handled and mishandled, represented and misrepresented, so much and so often through the centuries, bespeaks all by itself the continuous, unflagging influence and impact of Luther’s musical thought, birthed from the Holy Scriptures.

Endnotes

¹ Praetorius did not include this heading in his reprinting.

² The Luther translation reads An denselben (“Along them”), not Auf denselben (“Upon them”), as Walther has it. The former makes much better sense, since the “them” refers to the streams formed by springs of water.

³ Because of the extra clause he inserted, Praetorius tweaks this sentence somewhat: “That is then why we have so many kinds of excellent songs and psalms, which move…”

⁴ Tenor in Luther’s day referred to the main voice-part or cantus firmus. Its usage implied at least three parts—a middle-range melody (tenor or “holding” or “enduring” part) accompanied by at least one alto (“high”) part and one bass (“low”) part. Incidentally, Luther’s original Latin preface was printed in the tenor part-book of Georg Rhau’s Symphoniae Iucundae collection.

⁵ Walther’s translation of the Latin et natura et arte. Luther is referring to the fact that music occurs both naturally in creation (element) and as something crafted and refined by humans (art), as already outlined.

⁶ Walther’s free translation of the Latin phrase adulterini filii. A Wechselbalg was a supposed demon-child swapped with a human child soon after childbirth—a superstitious explanation for major deformities in a newborn. In a transferred sense, the word could then be used for an illegitimate child or, as Walther uses it here, someone considered unworthy of being called human (usually for moral reasons).

⁷ Johann Franz Buddeus, ed., Supplementum Epistolarum Martini Lutheri (Halle, 1703), 327–30.

⁸ Heinrich Schmidt, ed., D. Martini Lutheri Opera Latina, vol. 7 (Frankfurt am Main: Heyder and Zimmer, 1873), 551–54.

⁹ Des Theuren Mannes Gottes, D. Martin Luthers Sämtliche…Schrifften und Wercke, part 22 (Leipzig: Johann Heinrich Zedler, 1734), appendix, 141–43.

¹⁰ Johann Georg Walch, ed., D. Martin Luthers…Sämtliche Schriften, part 14 (Halle: Johann Justinus Gebauer, 1744), cols. 407–412.

¹¹ Johann Georg Walch, ed., Dr. Martin Luthers Sämtliche Schriften, 2nd ed., vol. 14 (St. Louis: Concordia, 1898), cols. 428–31.

¹² Brecht, Martin Luther: The Preservation of the Church (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 87–89.

¹³ Weimar Edition 50:348–51; Tischreden 4:89–90, no. 4032.

¹⁴ Forkel, Allgemeine Geschichte der Musik, vol. 2 (Leipzig: E. B. Schwickert, 1801), 76–79.

¹⁵ Holstein, “Eine unbekannte Schrift Luthers über die Musik” in Die Grenzboten. Zeitschrift für Politik, Literatur und Kunst 42, no. 3 (Leipzig, Friedrich Ludwig Herbig, 1883) 77–83.

¹⁶ Robin A. Leaver, Luther’s Liturgical Music: Principles and Implications (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2017), 12; see also p. 313.

¹⁷ Brecht, op. cit., 230.

¹⁸ Des Theuren Mannes Gottes, D. Martin Luthers Sämtliche…Schrifften und Wercke, op. cit., appendix, 141.

¹⁹ Forkel, op. cit., 76.

²⁰ Holstein, op. cit., 78.

²¹ Weimar Edition 35:483–84; Luther’s Works (American Edition), 53:319–20; cf. 21:197; 54:351.

²² Desgleichen sihet vnd höret man von den Vogeln / wie sie mit jrem einigen Helslin vnd Rörlin / jren Gesang / so wunderbarlich vnd meisterlich / erstlich ausschlahen / vnd bald darauff jren Gesang / so künstlich Figuriren / coleriren / verdrehen vnd ritzen / das ein Mensch / der bey sinnen vnd nicht gar ein stein ist / sich darob hoch verwundern mus.

Likewise, one can see and hear from the birds how, with just the one little throat and pipe they have, they first knock out their song in such wonderful and masterful fashion, and then immediately figure, color, recast, and pick it apart so artfully, that a person in his right mind and who is not solid stone cannot help but be astounded by it.

Compare this language to the bracketed exclamation on birds, originating with Figulus, in the German version.

²³ Rambach, Über Dr. Martin Luther’s Verdienst um den Kirchengesang (Hamburg, 1813), appendix, 84–90; Grell, ed., D. M. Luthers geistliche Lieder (Berlin: Ferdinand Dümmler, 1817), 85–93.

²⁴ Gesamtausgabe der Musikalischen Werke von Michael Praetorius 17:viii.

Martin Luther’s Praise of Music (Latin)

Brief Introduction

Title Page for Georg Rhau’s Collection, Symphoniae Iucundae (Wittenberg, 1538)

Martin Luther composed the following preface in Latin in 1538 for a collection of fifty-two motets published by Georg Rhau (1488–1548), formerly the cantor at St. Thomas in Leipzig. The collection was titled Symphoniae Iucundae Atque Adeo Breves Quatuor Vocum (Delightful and Very Brief Four-Part Concertos¹), and it included pieces by Josquin des Prez, Ludwig Senfl, Heinrich Isaac, Pierre de la Rue, Georg Forster, Philippe Verdelot, and Johann Walther. I will trace the subsequent use and translation of this work, and the debates surrounding it, in greater detail in the Afterword below. You can find my English translation of Johann Walther’s (1496–1570) German translation in this separate post.

I produced the following original translation from the Weimar Edition. (The preface preceding the text there also lent much assistance to my Afterword.) I did not consult Ulrich Leupold’s translation in volume 53 of Luther’s Works until after I had finished, when I used it to check my translation for mistakes. A comparison of my translation to his will preclude any possible charge of plagiarism. I present these fresh translations today, on the occasion of the 400th anniversary of the death of the Lutheran composer and musician, Michael Praetorius (1571–1621), to the glory of the triune God, with the prayer that they will renew and increase the reader’s appreciation for God’s gift of music.

Martin Luther to Devotees of Music

First Page of Luther’s Preface in Symphoniae Iucundae (1538)

Salvation in Christ to you all. I would certainly and sincerely like it if music, that divine and most excellent gift, were praised and made appealing to everyone, but I am so overwhelmed by the quantity and quality of its virtue and excellence, that I would not know where to start or finish, or a suitable manner of speech, and I would be forced to be a poor and helpless eulogizer with such an extreme abundance of merits to eulogize. For who could capture all of them? And if you tried to capture all of them, you would seem to have captured nothing.

First, if you should consider the thing itself, you will discover that music was imparted to all creatures, individually and collectively, from the beginning of world, or was created together with them. For nothing is without sound or sonorous rhythm, so that even the air itself—though by itself invisible and impalpable, and imperceptible to all the senses, and accounted as the least musical of all things, as completely mute and nothing, in fact—nevertheless becomes sonorous and audible when it is moved, and palpable too. The Holy Spirit means to draw attention to wonderful mysteries in this, but this is not the place to talk about them. But music is even more wonderful in the animals, especially the birds, just as that most musical king and divine lyre-player, David, prophesies [praedicit]² with tremendous amazement and exultant spirit about the wonderful skill of the birds and the serenity of their singing when he says in Psalm 104[:12]:³ “Above them⁴ nest the birds of the sky; from amid the branches they give their voices.”

But compared to the human voice, everything else is all but unmusical—so great is the super-extravagant and incomprehensible generosity and wisdom of the supreme Creator in this one thing. The philosophers have tired themselves out trying to understand this wonderful artistry of the human voice—how air pushed by such a slight movement of the tongue and an even gentler movement of the throat can produce that infinite variety and articulation of sound and words, at the will of the mind that governs it, and so powerfully and forcefully between locations separated by such great distances, that it can not only be distinctly heard, but also understood by everyone in the surrounding area. But the philosophers can only tire themselves out asking; they never find the answers and must give up in astonishment, amazed that no one has yet been found who could define and decide what laughter is (to say nothing of weeping), even though that is just a hissing of the human voice, yes, its alphabet, as it were, or primary material (materia prima). They can marvel at it, but they cannot wrap their minds around it. But we should leave these observations on the infinite wisdom of God in this one creature⁵ to better men with less work to occupy them; we are barely scratching the surface.

This would have been a good place to talk about the benefits of something so great. But this aspect of music, too, far exceeds the most eloquent eloquence of all the most eloquent speakers with its infinite variety and usefulness. We are able to cite this one thing for now, because experience testifies to it: Music is the one thing that justly ought to be honored, after the word of God, as the lord and ruler [domina et gubernatrix]⁶ of the emotions of mankind (the beasts must be disregarded for now), in spite of the fact that humans themselves are ruled and, more often, seized by their emotions, as if they were their lords. No higher praise of music can be conceived than this (not by us, at any rate). For if you should wish to cheer up those who are sad, or to terrify those who are happy, to revive the despairing, to break down the proud, to calm down those in love, to pacify those filled with hate—and who can number all those lords of the human heart, namely the emotions and impulses or inclinations, the instigators of all virtues and vices?—what more effective thing could you find than music herself? The Holy Spirit himself honors her as an instrument of his own particular office by testifying in his Holy Scriptures that his gifts, that is, the affection for all virtues, flow into the prophets through her, as can be seen in Elisha [2 Kings 3:14–19]. And he testifies, on the other hand, that Satan, that is, the instigator of all vices, is driven away through her, as is shown in Saul, king of Israel [1 Sam. 16:14–23].

It was therefore for good reason that the church fathers and prophets wanted nothing to be more connected to the word of God than music. For there are so many songs and psalms from them, in which both intelligible words and sound [et sermo et vox] are at work in the soul of the hearer, while in the other animals and bodies only music is mimicked, without any intelligible words [sine sermone]. So then, speech [sermo] has been given to humans in preference to others, coupled with the voice [voci], that they may know that they have an obligation to praise God with word and music, namely with sonorous preaching and with words united with pleasant melody. Now if you should compare humans to each other, you will see how manifold and diverse the glorious Creator is in his distribution of musical gifts, how much human differs from human in sound and speech [voce et verbo], so that one is amazingly superior to another. For they say it is impossible to find two humans who are exactly alike in voice and articulation, even if some people frequently seem to imitate others, like when some people try to ape others.

Finally, where diligence and the craft of music [Musica artificialis] are added—the craft that improves, develops, and refines natural music—here we are at last permitted to sample with amazement (though not to comprehend) the absolute and perfect wisdom of God in his wonderful work of music. In this kind of music, the best is when one and the same voice proceeds with the song’s theme [tenore],⁷ while more voices play all around in a wonderful way, adorning the main part with lively and most delightful figures [gestibus],⁸ leading, as it were, a sort of divine round dance alongside it. To those who are even but modestly affected by this type of singing, it seems that nothing more wonderful can be found in this age. But as for those who are not affected by it, they indeed are truly without taste and deserve to spend their time listening to some crap-poet [aliquem Merdipoetam]⁹ or to the music of swine.

But the thing is too great for its beneficial traits to be described in this short space. You, most virtuous of young people, should let this noble, wholesome, and joyous creature be entrusted to yourselves, so that you have something with which you may sometimes remedy your emotions, in your fight against foul desires and improper relationships.¹⁰ Then, too, you should get into the habit of recognizing and praising the Creator in this creature. And you must also watch out for and avoid the depraved souls who misuse this most beautiful element and art [et natura et arte]¹¹ to serve their own inordinate lusts, as the crude poets do. For you can be certain that the devil is carrying them away and inciting them against nature, since nature is meant to and ought to use this gift solely to praise God the creator. Those illegitimate sons, having turned the gift of God into plunder, use it to worship the enemy of God and the adversary of nature and of this most delightful art. Farewell in the Lord.

Afterword

The history of the transmission of this preface through the ages is consistently marked by both admiration and errors. Since the admiration is fairly consistent, while the errors vary, I will categorize and trace the errors.

Error Category 1: Faulty Citation

Melanchthon’s Reprint of Luther’s Preface in Liber selectarum declamationum (1541)

The errors of faulty citation trace back to two facts: First, Rhau’s Symphoniae Iucundae did not enjoy particularly widespread distribution, which is the case with most printed musical collections. Second, Luther’s friend and colleague Philipp Melanchthon reprinted Luther’s preface on pages 768–71 of his Liber selectarum declamationum (Strasbourg: Crato Mylius, 1541). But he also reprinted a preface of his own immediately before it (pp. 766–68), also written in praise of music, also written for a musical collection published by Georg Rhau (Selectae Harmoniae Quatuor Vocum de Passione Domini [Select Four-Part Harmonies about the Lord’s Passion]), and also written in 1538. For his own preface in his 1541 collection, Melanchthon correctly cited the original source. But above Luther’s preface, he simply wrote, “Alia Martini Lutheri [Another Preface, by Martin Luther].” Since Melanchthon’s book experienced a wider distribution and went through reprintings, many understandably, though incorrectly, assumed that both Melanchthon’s and Luther’s prefaces had been printed back-to-back in the same work. (And since the Selectae Harmoniae also did not enjoy a wide distribution, there weren’t copies of the work handy against which to check that assumption.)

Thus the 1703 Buddeus reprinting¹² and the 1873 reprinting in the Latin volumes of the Erlangen Edition¹³ (both Latin), Johann Jacob Greiff’s German translation (which appeared in Part 22 of the Leipzig Edition [1734]¹⁴ and Part 14 of the first Walch Edition [1744]¹⁵), and the 1898 German translation in the second Walch Edition (based on the Latin text of the Erlangen Edition)¹⁶ all mistakenly connect Luther’s preface either to harmonies about the Lord’s Passion or, even more incorrectly, to a supposed harmony of the accounts of the Lord’s Passion.

Error Category 2: Textual Modification

Other errors originate with one or the other of the two earliest German translations.

The Lutheran cantor Johann Walther was the first to translate Luther’s preface into German. He included his translation in his 1564 publication, Lob und preis Der Himlischen Kunst Musica (Laud and Praise for the Heavenly Art of Music), which was an enlarged, swan-song-reprint of his 1538 work, Lob und preis der löblichen Kunst Musica (Laud and Praise for the Laudable Art of Music). (It is important to note that Luther wrote a different, poetic German preface for Walther’s 1538 work.) The dead giveaway that the German preface is Walther’s translation and not original with Luther is how the German text in Walther’s work compares to the section about listening to “some crap-poet” in the Latin version.

As Martin Brecht details in the third volume of his Luther biography,¹⁷ on Pentecost Sunday of 1538, Simon Lemnius, a talented but misguided University of Wittenberg student, offered some poems for sale outside of the Wittenberg parish church that he had secretly published through Nickel Schirlentz. In them, Lemnius made subtle insinuations about public figures in the town. He was subsequently placed under house arrest, but broke his fetter and escaped before he could be called up before the university rector (Melanchthon at the time). After his sermon on Sunday, June 16, Luther issued a pronouncement against Lemnius, in which he referred to him as a “dishonorable rogue” and a “shameful would-be poet.” After Lemnius’s escape, in September of that same year, he published an enlarged collection of poems which also took shots at Luther, among others. This led Luther to compose, apparently at least somewhat spontaneously, five elegiac Latin couplets at his table on Thursday, September 30, in which he referred to Lemnius as a Merdipoeta, “crap-poet”—no doubt a label he had already been using for him.¹⁸

This context not only explains Luther’s phrase, “some crap-poet,” in his preface, as well as his reference to “the crude poets” in the final paragraph, but it also shows that the German preface in Walther’s edition was his own translation and not a Luther original. The corresponding section of the preface in Walther’s 1564 work reads: “But whoever has neither inclination nor affection for [multi-part harmonic music], and is not moved by such a lovely wonder, must truly be a thick blockhead who does not deserve to hear such lovely music, but the desolate, wild donkey-braying of the hymn-tune by itself, or the singing and music of dogs or sows.” Notice the disappearance of any reference to poets, because Luther’s original words would have been confusing in 1564 to people who knew little, if anything, about Simon Lemnius. But Walther also betrays himself in what he substitutes for Luther’s “crap-poet” reference—“the desolate, wild donkey-braying of the hymn-tune by itself.” For in his concluding remarks (Beschlus) in the back of his 1564 work, Walther not only verifies that Luther composed the preface twenty-six years earlier (1564 minus twenty-six equals 1538) but also makes it clear why he is publishing Luther’s preface in German now:

I see and experience that this art of music is being disparaged and despised by many who pride themselves in being evangelical and Lutheran. They think that it’s papistic [i.e. too Roman Catholic] when four- or five-part songs are used in Christian assembly and during divine services, and as if it would strengthen the papacy if music were promoted in figural singing.

Luther was not addressing any such problem in his own time. Thus it is clear twice-over from this one section that the Luther preface in Walther was translated and edited by Walther.

In spite of this, Johann Nicolaus Forkel in the second volume (1801) of his Allgemeine Geschichte der Musik (General History of Music)¹⁹ and Hugo Holstein in his 1883 article, “Eine unbekannte Schrift Luthers über die Musik [An Unknown Writing of Luther on Music]”²⁰ push the German preface in Walther as Luther’s original. Forkel says that, “judging from the language, [the German version] must originate with Luther himself” (though I’ll show later that the German version at Forkel’s disposal was actually a hybrid), and that he had “read somewhere” (?) that Luther had nailed this preface to the church doors in Wittenberg in order to give church music the strongest possible promotion—the assumption being that, if he did so, he would have nailed up a German version. Holstein insisted that the German preface in Walther was Luther’s original and that the Latin version originated with Melanchthon, who translated it. But the idea of Melanchthon creating the concept of “some crap-poet” without it being in Luther’s original is unimaginable, not to mention that Melanchthon’s take on the Lemnius affair was different than Luther’s.

First Page of Figulus’s Version of Luther’s Preface (1575)

The second German version of Luther’s preface appeared in a musical collection published by Wolfgang Figulus (c. 1525–after 1588) in 1575. After carefully comparing this German version to both the 1538 Latin preface and Walther’s 1564 German translation, I don’t think Figulus’s version even merits being called a translation. It seems to be merely a reworking and compacting (with one glaring exception) of Walther’s translation, apparently simply for the purpose of boosting the sales of his work. (Beneath the title on the title page of the first tenor part-book, we find this “clickbait”: “With a German preface by the Reverend Father Dr. Martin Luther that has not been previously printed.”) This version would probably merit no further attention, except that the esteemed musicologist Walter Blankenburg (1903–1986) apparently went to great lengths to demonstrate “that the preface that Figulus published in 1575, rather than being an alternative German translation, was indeed Luther’s original draft that he then translated into Latin in 1538.”²¹ I am admittedly unfamiliar with Blankenburg’s work, but apart from the shorter length in Figulus and the first three words of his version of the preface more closely matching the Latin (Ich wolt warlich || Vellem certe), the evidence against such a conclusion is quite strong. Consider the following:

1. If anyone were to come into the possession of a supposed original draft in German, it would be Walther, not Figulus. Recall that Walther actually published a work in 1538, the same year Luther published a poetic preface for that work and wrote his Latin preface for Rhau’s collection. Walther was Luther’s friend and collaborator.
2. The idea of Luther possessing a draft for any preface he wrote at this time is problematic. In 1538 he dealt with the Lemnius affair and suffered from severe attacks of dysentery and gout, on top of his regular domestic duties and busy schedule of preaching, teaching, and letter writing. “Because of the great quantity of his business [at this time], his friends frequently had to be content with brief letters.”²² In reading the Latin preface, one gets the impression that Luther threw it out of his sleeve, as it were. His great genius is certainly still on display, but it does not possess the kind of organization and progression of thought that one finds in his more carefully crafted works, or that one would expect if he wrote it on the basis of a draft.
3. The preface in Figulus begins and ends the same way Walther’s translation does—word for word. (Beginning [Walther/Figulus]: Allen Liebhabern/liebhabern der freien Kunst Musica wündsch/wünsch Ich/ich Doctor Martinus Luther Gnad/Genad und Fried von Gott dem Vater und unserm HERrn/HERRN Jhesu Christ/[omit Jhesu] Christo etc. Ich wolt… Ending: Hiemit will/wil ich euch alle/allen Gott dem HERRN/HErrn befohlen/bevolen haben.) What are the odds of the beginning and ending of Walther’s translation—and I have already demonstrated that his version was indeed a translation—just so happening to match Luther’s supposed original German draft? Especially when Luther’s Latin simply begins, “Martin Luther to Devotees of Music. Salvation in Christ [to you all].”?
4. If what Figulus published was Luther’s original draft, Luther did a poor job following his draft when he converted it into Latin. In one place in particular the preface in Figulus has much more content than Luther’s Latin; in a number of other places it has less.
5. In the one place where Figulus has much more content, the word Coleratur (coloratura) occurs. Any Luther scholars reading this are invited to correct me if I’m wrong, but I did extensive searching and I am led to conclude that if Luther did use this word in his draft, it was the only time he ever used it.
6. One sentence in Figulus’s version doesn’t even make sense: “Indeed, no one has yet made it to the point that he could figure out the A-B-C of music, namely that, of all the visible creatures, humans alone can express the joy in their hearts by laughing, and conversely can cry when they are grieved.” How are laughter and crying the A-B-C of music? Luther’s Latin preface is much clearer when it identifies laughter as the alphabet and primary material of the human voice, not of music.
7. The progression from the art or craft of music in general to figural music in particular, clearly present in Luther’s Latin version, is completely missing in Figulus.
8. Both references to poets are completely missing in Figulus. Perhaps this is the best point under which to see Figulus’s method at work. Luther’s Latin reads: “To those who are even but modestly affected by this type of singing, it seems that nothing more wonderful can be found in this age. But as for those who are not affected by it, they indeed are truly without taste and deserve to spend their time listening to some crap-poet or to the music of swine.” Walther translates: “Those who understand and are affected by [figural singing] just a little cannot but be overcome with amazement at it, and they must suppose that there is nothing more remarkable in the world than a song adorned with many parts like that. But whoever has neither inclination nor affection for it, and is not moved by such a lovely wonder [Wunderwerck], must truly be a thick blockhead who does not deserve to hear such lovely music, but the desolate, wild donkey-braying [Eselgeschrey] of the hymn-tune by itself, or the singing and music of dogs or sows.” Figulus, imitating and compacting Walther, reads: “Whoever reflects on [figural singing] just a little and does not consider it an inexpressible wonder [Wunderwerck] of the Lord does not deserve to be called a human, and should get to hear nothing but the donkey braying [wie der Esel schreiet] and the sow grunting.”
9. At the end of the Latin version, Luther calls the devil “the adversary of nature and of this most delightful art.” Walther translates: “an enemy of God, nature, and this lovely art.” Figulus reads: “an enemy of God, nature, and all that God has made and calls good.” On the one hand, notice the greater similarity of Figulus’s version to Walther’s translation than to Luther’s Latin. On the other hand, notice Figulus’s omission of the reference to the devil as the enemy of the art of music—highly unlikely to be Luther’s original in a preface on music.

More specifics could have been cited, but this should suffice to show that Figulus’s version, though important for its own reasons (which I’ll touch on shortly), is a reworking and compacting of Walther’s translation, and not a presentation of an original German draft by Luther or even an original translation of Luther’s Latin. One can go through Walther’s translation section by section, comparing each one to its counterpart in Figulus’s version, and one will consistently see Figulus borrowing vocabulary and phraseology from Walther, even as he reworks and condenses Walther’s material. (He even borrows language from Walther’s own concluding remarks [Beschlus] and incorporates it into his version of Luther’s preface, as I’ll touch on briefly further below.)

Error Category 3: Ignorance of Previous Versions

Another group of errors relates not so much to the preface itself, but to its presentation; these are simply errors of ignorance.

When Johann Jacob Greiff’s aforementioned translation was published in Part 22 of the Leipzig Edition of Luther’s works in 1734, it was accompanied by this byline: “Now translated into German for the first time.”²³ Either he or the editor was completely unaware of both Walther’s and Figulus’s versions.

When Forkel published the second volume (1801) of his aforementioned history of music, he wrote: “It is noteworthy that this outstanding epistle is not found in any edition of Luther’s complete works”²⁴—when in fact Greiff’s translation had been published in both the Leipzig and first Walch Editions. (Of course, Forkel wouldn’t have been looking for a potentially different German version, since he was operating under the assumption that the hybrid version at his disposal was Luther’s original.)

Hugo Holstein unfortunately put his ignorance on display right in the title of his aforementioned 1883 article, “Eine unbekannte Schrift Luthers über die Musik [An Unknown Writing of Luther on Music].” He went on to say in the article itself that this writing of Luther had “escaped all the editors of Luther’s works and [was] therefore not recorded in any edition of his works.”²⁵ (By that point, it had also been published in volume 7 [1873] of the Latin volumes of the Erlangen Edition, but Holstein, too, was convinced that Walther’s German translation was actually Luther’s original.)

Encomion Musices: The Hybrid Version

The reason that I am publishing these two posts today, on the 400th anniversary of the death of Michael Praetorius, is because Praetorius’s German reprinting of Luther’s preface became one of its most prominent versions. What Praetorius reprinted, though, was actually a third German version—a hybrid of Walther’s and Figulus’s versions.

First Page of Praetorius’s 1607 Reprint of Luther’s Preface, Entitled Encomion Musices

In 1607, Praetorius had Installments 1–4 of his Musae Sioniae (Muses of Zion) series published together in Wolfenbüttel. He had his woodcut portrait printed on the back of the special title page, and immediately opposite his portrait was Luther’s Encomion Musices (Praise of Music)—the title Praetorius gave to Luther’s preface—printed on four pages. Praetorius used Walther’s translation as his base text, but he also added text from Figulus’s version in four places—additions which he felt contributed something that was missing in Walther’s version. Most notable of these additions is the extended exclamation of wonder over the birds, and the nightingale in particular. Though this exclamation was not in Luther’s original, it does, interestingly, reflect sentiments that Luther expressed in the poetic preface he wrote for Walther in 1538,²⁶ and it also borrows from language Walther himself uses in the concluding remarks (Beschlus) of his 1564 work.²⁷ I document all four of Praetorius’s additions from Figulus, and the parts Praetorius put in bold typeface, in the companion post.

It was this hybrid version that Forkel reprinted, as did August Jakob Rambach and Karl Grell not long after Forkel (1813 and 1817, respectively).²⁸ All three men were of course unaware that the Encomion Musices was a hybrid.

Even though Walther’s translation and Praetorius’s hybrid are not pure Luther in content, in that Luther did not express in that particular work all the thoughts that those versions express, they are nevertheless thoroughly Lutheran. They also give us insights into the mind, life, and work of both Walther and Praetorius—prominent and important figures in their own right. As just one example, one can distinctly hear Walther’s rendering of “wild donkey-braying” and “the singing and music of dogs or sows” in Praetorius’s dedicatory epistle for Polyhymnia Caduceatrix & Panegyrica (1619).²⁹

Generally speaking, the very fact that this preface by Luther has been handled and mishandled, represented and misrepresented, so much and so often through the centuries, bespeaks all by itself the continuous, unflagging influence and impact of Luther’s musical thought, birthed from the Holy Scriptures.

Endnotes

¹ Symphony did not have the more technical definition it does today. It was used as a synonym for harmony, and it also denoted any composition in which multiple vocal parts were harmonized, which was also the original definition of concerto (thus my translation). It was also the name given to various instruments, especially to stringed instruments equipped with a keyboard.

² Here Luther uses praedico not in its technical sense of foretelling the future, but in its more general sense of the speaking done by the prophets.

³ Luther cites Psalm 103, the numbering in the Vulgate.

⁴ In the context, “them” refers to the streams formed by springs of water.

⁵ Namely the voice

⁶ Luther uses the feminine forms of “lord” and “governor,” which could yield a translation such as, “mistress and governess,” but he appears to do so simply because in Latin and German music is a feminine word and concept. Since he is here comparing the regulating influence of music to that of God’s word, it seemed best to use words that would apply equally well to both.

⁷ Tenor in Luther’s day referred to the main voice-part or cantus firmus. Its usage implied at least three parts—a middle-range melody (tenor or “holding” or “enduring” part) accompanied by at least one alto (“high”) part and one bass (“low”) part. Incidentally, Luther’s preface was printed in the tenor part-book of Rhau’s Symphoniae Iucundae collection.

⁸ Gestus corresponds to the Greek σχήματα. The idea of gestures or figures in music appears to be carried over from the use of those concepts in oratory, where a figure refers to “that which is poetically or rhetorically altered from the simple and straightforward method of expression” (Quintilian, Institutes of Oratory 9.1.13). The figures in music, then, are the harmonic notes and rhythms added to the melody or cantus firmus (“the simple and straightforward method of expression”), in order to beautify and embellish it and to enhance its manner of expression. Thus the German phrase Choral and Figural contrasts the singing of a melody in unison (Choral) with the singing of that same melody along with harmonic parts (Figural).

⁹ Luther is alluding to Simon Lemnius, though with the aliquem he avoids referring to him directly. (Ulrich Leupold renders this phrase, “a certain filth poet,” in Luther’s Works [American Edition, 53:324], but that more direct reference would have been quemdam Merdipoetam.) I talk more about this reference in the Afterword. See Weimar Edition, Tischreden 4:89–90, no. 4032, for the five elegiac couplets Luther composed “against the crap-poet Lemchen” on September 30, 1538. (The nickname Lemchen is both a crass diminutive of Lemnius and pronounced exactly the same as Lämmchen, “little lamb,” yielding the same effect as if he had called Lemnius, “dumb little Lemmy-lamb.”)

¹⁰ Alternate translation: “…foul desires and associations with corrupt characters.” Johann Walther rendered pravas societates as “bad company and other vice.”

¹¹ Luther is referring to the fact that music occurs both naturally in creation (element) and as something crafted and refined by humans (art), as he has already outlined.

¹² Johann Franz Buddeus, ed., Supplementum Epistolarum Martini Lutheri (Halle, 1703), 327–30.

¹³ Heinrich Schmidt, ed., D. Martini Lutheri Opera Latina, vol. 7 (Frankfurt am Main: Heyder and Zimmer, 1873), 551–54.

¹⁴ Des Theuren Mannes Gottes, D. Martin Luthers Sämtliche…Schrifften und Wercke, part 22 (Leipzig: Johann Heinrich Zedler, 1734), appendix, 141–43.

¹⁵ Johann Georg Walch, ed., D. Martin Luthers…Sämtliche Schriften, part 14 (Halle: Johann Justinus Gebauer, 1744), cols. 407–412.

¹⁶ Johann Georg Walch, ed., Dr. Martin Luthers Sämtliche Schriften, 2nd ed., vol. 14 (St. Louis: Concordia, 1898), cols. 428–31.

¹⁷ Brecht, Martin Luther: The Preservation of the Church (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 87–89.

¹⁸ Weimar Edition 50:348–51; Tischreden 4:89–90, no. 4032.

¹⁹ Forkel, Allgemeine Geschichte der Musik, vol. 2 (Leipzig: E. B. Schwickert, 1801), 76–79.

²⁰ Holstein, “Eine unbekannte Schrift Luthers über die Musik” in Die Grenzboten. Zeitschrift für Politik, Literatur und Kunst 42, no. 3 (Leipzig, Friedrich Ludwig Herbig, 1883) 77–83.

²¹ Robin A. Leaver, Luther’s Liturgical Music: Principles and Implications (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2017), 12; see also p. 313.

²² Brecht, op. cit., 230.

²³ Des Theuren Mannes Gottes, D. Martin Luthers Sämtliche…Schrifften und Wercke, op. cit., appendix, 141.

²⁴ Forkel, op. cit., 76.

²⁵ Holstein, op. cit., 78.

²⁶ Weimar Edition 35:483–84; Luther’s Works (American Edition), 53:319–20; cf. 21:197; 54:351.

²⁷ Desgleichen sihet vnd höret man von den Vogeln / wie sie mit jrem einigen Helslin vnd Rörlin / jren Gesang / so wunderbarlich vnd meisterlich / erstlich ausschlahen / vnd bald darauff jren Gesang / so künstlich Figuriren / coleriren / verdrehen vnd ritzen / das ein Mensch / der bey sinnen vnd nicht gar ein stein ist / sich darob hoch verwundern mus.

Likewise, one can see and hear from the birds how, with just the one little throat and pipe they have, they first knock out their song in such wonderful and masterful fashion, and then immediately figure, color, recast, and pick it apart so artfully, that a person in his right mind and who is not solid stone cannot help but be astounded by it.

Compare this language to the bracketed exclamation on birds, originating with Figulus, in the German version.

²⁸ Rambach, Über Dr. Martin Luther’s Verdienst um den Kirchengesang (Hamburg, 1813), appendix, 84–90; Grell, ed., D. M. Luthers geistliche Lieder (Berlin: Ferdinand Dümmler, 1817), 85–93.

²⁹ Gesamtausgabe der Musikalischen Werke von Michael Praetorius 17:viii.

Three Bach Cantatas

J.J.

Preliminary Acknowledgment

These three cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) were recently performed by La Follia Austin Baroque. I was graciously given the opportunity to work with these cantatas in connection with this concert, for which I hereby express my deepest gratitude to the ensemble’s director. As a result of this work, my faith in my Savior Jesus was strengthened, as was my ability to express it, and my prayer is that readers of this post will experience the same benefit. I also wish to acknowledge the lovely performances in that concert by the singers and instrumentalists, especially of the arias.

BWV 151 – Süßer Trost, mein Jesus kömmt

Foreword

This cantata was first performed on December 27, the Third Christmas Day, in 1725. However, while it was the first time this text was set to Bach’s music, it was very likely not the first time this text had ever been set to music. Bach took this text from a book titled Gottgefälliges Kirchen-Opffer (God-Pleasing Offering for Worship), written by Georg Christian Lehms (Darmstadt: Johann Levin Bachmann, 1711). In his foreword, Lehms said that he wrote the book for use in the city of Darmstadt, and that the plan was to have one of his pieces of poetry sung to accompaniment every Sunday and festival, and he wanted as many people as possible to have his book in front of them as the words were being sung so that they could, as he put it, “really fix the words into [their] soul.” That means it was most likely set to music by some composer in Darmstadt in 1711, or perhaps 1712, but that composer’s cantata setting is unknown…because that composer was not Johann Sebastian Bach.

This particular libretto by Lehms is based on the appointed Gospel from the Third Christmas Day, John 1:1-14, in which John, one of Jesus’ apostles, meditates on the mystery of the incarnation, the taking on of human flesh by the Son of God and his dwelling in our midst. Borrowing from John’s thoughts and others elsewhere in the Bible, Lehms puts himself as a representative Christian in the stable of Bethlehem, watching from a distance as Jesus is being born and applying to himself the beauty of the moment, and the profound, invisible, and eternally signficiant truths behind it.

Bach takes the meditations of that spectator in Bethlehem’s stable and makes them soar on the wings of music. You can watch a performance of his beautiful music here.

A few notes on the German text: In the opening aria, kömmt is simply an older variant of kommt, the regular third person, singular, present tense form; Lehms perhaps considered it a more poetic form (somewhat akin to cometh for comes in English). It is also important to note that, although many translations render the second line simply, “Jesus is now born,” wird geboren is an emphatic present passive construction – is being born – not a present perfect construction like ist geboren – is/has been born. This is underscored by the addition of anitzt, “under the present circumstances, at present, presently, now.”

Unless it was simply a hasty mistake (possible, but not likely), Bach made a telling change in the fourth movement, the tenor recitative. In the original, Lehms says that since Jesus has left his Father’s home out of love for us, we in turn desire “to let” (lassen) Jesus into our heart. I do not know the extent to which Lehms was influenced by Pietism or might have been a Pietist himself, but regardless, the language of “letting Jesus into one’s heart” is Pietistic language (and has carried over into much of modern day American Christianity). Bach changed lassen to fassen; instead of letting Jesus into our hearts, Bach has us fixing him more firmly, or framing him, in our hearts. In other words, Bach recognized that if we believe that Jesus is our Savior from sin, death, the devil, and hell, Jesus is already there in our hearts through such faith (a fact which Pietism seemed to enjoy calling into doubt). But the more we consider Jesus’ self-giving love for us, the more we want to make sure he is fixed there firmly, stays there, and holds more sway there.

For the chorale, Lehms incorporated the final (eighth) stanza of Nicolaus Herman’s Christmas hymn, “Lobt Gott, ihr Christen alle gleich,” which is usually dated to 1560, when it first appeared in print in its complete form. However, a four-stanza version had already appeared in print around 1550, though with serious typographical errors.

1. Soprano Aria

Süßer Trost, mein Jesus kömmt,
Jesus wird anitzt geboren!
Herz und Seele freuet sich,
Denn mein liebster Gott hat mich
Nun zum Himmel auserkoren.

Sweet comfort, my Jesus is coming;
Jesus is now being born!
Heart and soul rejoice,
for my God most dear has
now selected me for heaven.

2. Bass Recitative

Erfreue dich, mein Herz,
Denn itzo weicht der Schmerz,
Der dich so lange Zeit gedrücket.
Gott hat den liebsten Sohn,
Den er so hoch und teuer hält,
Auf diese Welt geschicket.
Er läßt den Himmelsthron
Und will die ganze Welt
Aus ihren Sklavenketten
Und ihrer Dienstbarkeit erretten.
O wundervolle Tat!
Gott wird ein Mensch und will auf Erden
Noch niedriger als wir und noch viel ärmer werden.

Be jubilant, my heart,
for now the pain departs
which has so long burdened you.
God has sent his Son most dear,
whom he so esteems and cherishes,
down to this world.
He leaves the throne of heaven
and will the entire world
from its chains of slavery
and its bondage deliver.
O marvelous deed!
God becomes a human, and wishes to become on earth
still lowlier than we and still far more wretched.

3. Alto Aria

In Jesu Demut kann ich Trost,
In seiner Armut Reichtum finden.
Mir macht desselben schlechter Stand
Nur lauter Heil und Wohl bekannt,
Ja, seine wundervolle Hand
Will mir nur Segenskränze winden.

In Jesus’ humility I can find comfort,
in his poverty, riches.
For me this man’s sorry state makes known
nothing but pure happiness and well-being;
yes, his marvelous hand
will only twine wreathes of blessing for me.

4. Tenor Recitative

Du teurer Gottessohn,
Nun hast du mir den Himmel aufgemacht
Und durch dein Niedrigsein
Das Licht der Seligkeit zuwege bracht.
Weil du nun ganz allein
Des Vaters Burg und Thron
Aus Liebe gegen uns verlassen,
So wollen wir dich auch
Dafür in unser Herze fassen.

O precious Son of God,
now you have opened heaven to me
and through your humiliation
the light of salvation have restored.
Since you now, all on your own,
the Father’s castle and throne
have left out of love toward us,
so we desire also,
in return, to frame you in our heart.

5. Chorale

Heut schleußt er wieder auf die Tür
Zum schönen Paradeis,
Der Cherub steht nicht mehr dafür,
Gott sei Lob, Ehr und Preis.

The door to paradise so fair
He op’ns again today,
No more a cherub guarding there—
To God all praises pay.

BWV 82 – Ich habe genung

Foreword

Bach composed this cantata in preparation for the Festival of the Purification of Mary (sometimes also called the Presentation of Our Lord) in 1727, though he had already composed the second and third movements for his wife Anna Magdalena at least two years earlier. Since the Law of Moses pertaining to purification after childbirth said that the appropriate sacrifices were to be made 40 days after the birth (Leviticus 12:1-8), the Festival of the Purification was fixed on February 2 – 40 days after Christmas Day, counting inclusively.

In preparing this cantata, Bach as usual had the appointed Gospel reading for that festival in mind, Luke 2:22-32. Here is a portion of Martin Luther’s translation of that text, to which Bach would have referred:

And when the days of [Mary’s] purification arrived, according to the Law of Moses, they brought him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord… And behold, a man named Simeon was in Jerusalem, and he was pious and God-fearing and was waiting for the Consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was in him. And he had received an answer from the Holy Spirit that he would not see death until he had first seen the Christ of the Lord. And he came into the temple at the instigation of the Spirit. And when the parents brought the child Jesus into the temple…he took him in his arms, praised God, and said, “Lord, now you let your servant depart in peace, just as you said, for my eyes have seen your Savior, whom you have prepared before all peoples, a light to enlighten the heathens and for the glory of your people Israel.”

The particular libretto Bach selected especially seized and expanded upon the little word “now,” spoken by Simeon, and the contentment with which that word is positively dripping. Why was Simeon ready now? What was he now ready for and looking forward to? How can the peace and contentment conveyed in that word now be ours? And how might we put that resignation and contentment into our own words today?

In order to answer these questions, the as-yet unknown poet juxtaposes Simeon’s physical taking of the Christ into his arms, especially in view in the first half of the first movement, with our spiritual embracing of Christ through faith in him, which is in view in the subsequent movements. And Bach puts the poet’s resultant readiness, even eagerness, to face death to music. There is perhaps no better piece of music a Christian could be listening to, pondering, or singing as he or she dies than the aria constituting the third movement. You can watch a performance of this cantata here.

A few notes on the German text: The most discussed word in this cantata is usually the third – genung. Most performances and printings of the text today will use the modern genug, but it is clear that Bach himself, probably relying on his source text, consistently used the variant genung, which dates back to the 14th century and – according to the Deutsches Wörterbuch (1961), the definitive German language dictionary based on work begun by the Brothers Grimm in 1838 – “also appeared often enough in the 18th century both in prose and in verse.” Regarding the pronunciation, the Wörterbuch says:

[This form of this variant] is Middle German in the widest sense, including Franconia and the Rhine, but it also appears in Upper [i.e. Southern] German in isolated instances. It was pronounced genunk, which is also how it was written at first, for the form cannot be explained from the pronunciation standpoint of genûch or genŭch, but only from the standpoint of genŭk, which thus must also date back to the 14th century.

However, poets like Lessing (1729-1781) and Göthe (1749-1832) would occasionally rhyme genung with words like jung, suggesting that perhaps by the (late?) 18th century, when used, it did not retain its original pronunciation. Bach’s libretto does not help, since the word is not rhymed with anything, except perhaps itself. I personally cannot imagine Bach wanting the word to get lost in the back of the throat at the end of the phrase, especially considering its importance to the cantata’s message, and I therefore personally prefer the genunk pronunciation, although I have only heard it employed by one virtuoso (very beautifully, I might add).

As for the phrase “Ich habe genung” itself, the literal rendering “I have enough” communicates almost nothing clearly in English. The phrase is an idiomatic one in the biblical and liturgical context, which could be paraphrased, “There is nothing else I need and I am completely prepared to die.” Thus my rendering: “I am content.” There is some precedence for this; there is an Easter hymn titled, “Es ist genug,” that has been translated “I am content!”

Another mistake commonly made in translations is to render the first line of the fifth movement, “I rejoice in my death.” Sich freuen auf etw. (acc.) is an idiomatic phrase meaning “to look forward to/eagerly anticipate something.” A literal translation misses the full impact of this powerful expression of faith in Christ.

1. Bass Aria

Ich habe genung,
Ich habe den Heiland, das Hoffen der Frommen,
Auf meine begierigen Arme genommen;
Ich habe genung!
Ich hab ihn erblickt,
Mein Glaube hat Jesum ans Herze gedrückt;
Nun wünsch ich, noch heute mit Freuden
Von hinnen zu scheiden.
Ich habe genung.

I am content;
the Savior, the hope of the pious,
I have taken into my eager arms.
I am content!
I have beheld him;
my faith has pressed Jesus against my heart.
Now I wish—gladly were it yet today—
to depart from here.
I am content.

2. Bass Recitative

Ich habe genung.
Mein Trost ist nur allein,
Daß Jesus mein und ich sein eigen möchte sein.
Im Glauben halt ich ihn,
Da seh ich auch mit Simeon
Die Freude jenes Lebens schon.
Laßt uns mit diesem Manne ziehn.
Ach! möchte mich von meines Leibes Ketten
Der Herr erretten;
Ach! wäre doch mein Abschied hier,
Mit Freuden sagt ich, Welt, zu dir:
Ich habe genung.

I am content.
My comfort is just this alone,
that Jesus can be mine and I his very own.
In faith I hold him,
since I too see with Simeon
the joy of that life already.
Let us go with this man.
Ah! If only from the chains of my body
the Lord would deliver me.
Ah! Even if I were to depart right here,
gladly would I say, world, to you:
I am content.

3. Bass Aria

Schlummert ein, ihr matten Augen,
Fallet sanft und selig zu!
Welt, ich bleibe nicht mehr hier,
Hab ich doch kein Teil an dir,
Das der Seele könnte taugen.
Hier muß ich das Elend bauen,
Aber dort, dort werd ich schauen
Süßen Friede, stille Ruh.

Sleep sweetly, you weary eyes,
close gently and happily!
World, I will stay here no longer;
there is simply no part of you
that could be of use to my soul.
Here must I heap up misery,
but there, there shall I see
sweet peace, quiet rest.

4. Bass Recitative

Mein Gott! wann kömmt das schöne: Nun!
Da ich im Friede fahren werde
Und in dem Sande kühler Erde
Und dort bei dir im Schoße ruhn?
Der Abschied ist gemacht,
Welt, gute Nacht.

My God, when is that beautiful “Now!” coming
when I will depart in peace
and rest in the sand of the cool earth
and there with you in your embrace?
My farewell has been said,
world, good night.

5. Bass Aria

Ich freue mich auf meinen Tod,
Ach, hätt er sich schon eingefunden.
Da entkomm ich aller Not,
Die mich noch auf der Welt gebunden.

I look forward to my death—
ah, had it but arrived already!
There shall I escape all the trouble
which has as yet confined me to the world.

BWV 8 – Liebster Gott, wenn werd ich sterben

Foreword

The early 16th century Scottish poet William Dunbar, in his famous “Lament for the Makars,” writes:

Since there for death is rem’dy none,
Best is that we for death dispone,
After our death that live may we.
The fear of death discomfits me.

In this cantata, Bach attempts to help his audience do just that—dispone or prepare for death. He composed it in preparation for the Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity in 1724, which fell on September 24 that year. In preparing it, he once again had the appointed Gospel reading for that Sunday in mind, Luke 7:11-17. Here is a portion of Martin Luther’s translation of that text:

But as [Jesus] was drawing near the town gate [of Nain], behold, a dead man was being carried out who was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and many people from the town were accompanying her. And when the Lord saw her, he was grieved for her and said to her, “Don’t cry.” And he stepped forward and touched the coffin, and the pallbearers stopped, and he said, “Young man, I say to you, get up.” And the dead man sat up and began to talk, and he gave him to his mother.

With that concept in mind of Jesus bringing comfort in the midst of death and its sorrow, Bach selected a libretto for his cantata that was based on a hymn written around 1690 by Kaspar Neumann, who had been a well-known Lutheran pastor in Breslau, Silesia – today Wrocław, Poland. Even though only the first and fifth stanza of Neumann’s hymn are incorporated word for word as the first and last movements of the cantata, the other movements, written by an as-yet unknown poet, are based on all the intervening stanzas of Neumann’s hymn. One can therefore effectively argue that Kaspar Neumann is really ultimately responsible for all of the textual content of this cantata.

What Bach heard in this libretto, and in Neumann’s hymn on which it was based, was a personal meditation on Jesus’ words, “Don’t cry.”

Neumann first squarely confronts the fact that death is unavoidable, due to original sin—the teaching that we are not born with a blank slate, but a blackened one, and are therefore deserving of death and headed for death. Bach reflects Neumann’s expression of the inexorable countdown to death with a very clock-like rhythm in the first movement.

Neumann then acknowledges and addresses the fears that all people, including Christians, have as they consider the inevitable reality of death.

But then the voice of his faith in Christ takes over and Neumann concludes by expressing the serenity he is able to have in the face of death because of Christ’s saving work and his promise to raise the bodies of believers from death on the Last Day and bring them safely to his side.

You can read a rhyming translation of Neumann’s original hymn here.

1. Chorus

Liebster Gott, wenn werd ich sterben?
Meine Zeit läuft immer hin,
Und des alten Adams Erben,
Unter denen ich auch bin,
Haben dies zum Vaterteil,
Daß sie eine kleine Weil
Arm und elend sein auf Erden
Und denn selber Erde werden.

Dearest God, when will I die?
My time continually slips away,
and heirs of the old Adam,
among whom I too am included,
have this as their patrimony,
that they for a short while
are poor and miserable on earth
and then themselves turn into earth.

2. Tenor Aria

Was willst du dich, mein Geist, entsetzen,
Wenn meine letzte Stunde schlägt?
Mein Leib neigt täglich sich zur Erden,
Und da muß seine Ruhstatt werden,
Wohin man so viel tausend trägt.

Why, my spirit, do you shudder at the thought
of when my final hour will strike?
My body draws closer to the earth each day,
and there must eventually be laid to rest,
where so many thousands are carried.

3. Alto Recitative

Zwar fühlt mein schwaches Herz
Furcht, Sorge, Schmerz:
Wo wird mein Leib die Ruhe finden?
Wer wird die Seele doch
Vom aufgelegten Sündenjoch
Befreien und entbinden?
Das Meine wird zerstreut,
Und wohin werden meine Lieben
In ihrer Traurigkeit
Zertrennt, vertrieben?

I confess my weak heart does feel
fear, worry, distress:
Where will my body find its rest?
Who is going to be the one
to free and unfasten my soul
from the yoke of sin imposed upon it?
What’s mine will be dispersed,
and where will my loved ones,
left behind in their sorrow,
be separated and scattered?

4. Bass Aria

Doch weichet, ihr tollen, vergeblichen Sorgen!
Mich rufet mein Jesus: wer sollte nicht gehn?
Nichts, was mir gefällt,
Besitzet die Welt.
Erscheine mir, seliger, fröhlicher Morgen,
Verkläret und herrlich vor Jesu zu stehn.

No! Begone, you absurd, useless worries!
The one calling for me is my Jesus; who would not go?
Nothing I truly enjoy
is in the world’s possession.
Show yourself, blessed, joyful morning,
when I get to stand transfigured and glorious before Jesus.

5. Soprano Recitative

Behalte nur, o Welt, das Meine!
Du nimmst ja selbst mein Fleisch und mein Gebeine,
So nimm auch meine Armut hin;
Genug, daß mir aus Gottes Überfluß
Das höchste Gut noch werden muß,
Genug, dass ich dort reich und selig bin.
Was aber ist von mir zu erben,
Als meines Gottes Vatertreu?
Die wird ja alle Morgen neu
Und kann nicht sterben.

Go ahead, O world, keep what’s mine!
You’re already taking my flesh and my bones for yourself,
so take away, too, my poor possessions.
It’s enough that, out of God’s great bounty,
I still get to have the highest good;
it’s enough that I am rich and blessed there in heaven.
What really is there to inherit from me,
except my God’s paternal faithfulness?
That is new every single morning
and cannot die.

6. Chorale

Herrscher über Tod und Leben,
Mach einmal mein Ende gut,
Lehre mich den Geist aufgeben
Mit recht wohlgefaßtem Mut.
Hilf, daß ich ein ehrlich Grab
Neben frommen Christen hab
Und auch endlich in der Erde
Nimmermehr zuschanden werde!

Ruler over death and life,
make one day my end a good one;
teach me to give up my spirit
with truly calm and composed courage.
Grant that I have a decent grave
next to pious Christians
and also that at last, in the earth,
I nevermore be put to shame.

S.D.G.

Martin Luther’s Favorite Christmas Hymn?

This woodcut was printed on the page before the hymns “Dies est laetitiae” and “Der Tag, der ist so freudenreich” in the 1535 edition of Luther’s Geistliche Lieder auffs new gebessert.

The final section of the 1535 Wittenberg edition of Martin Luther’s Geistliche Lieder auffs new gebessert (Spiritual Songs, Improved Edition), and possibly also of its no-longer-extant 1529 predecessor, was prefaced, “Here follow several hymns composed by the ancients.” The next page read:

These songs of old on the following pages we have also compiled as a testament to several pious Christians who lived before our time in the great darkness of false doctrine, so that you can see how there have still been people at all times who have known Christ rightly and quite amazingly persevered in that knowledge by God’s grace.

The section opens with the Latin Christmas hymn “Dies est leticiae” (Dies est laetitiae) in four stanzas, immediately followed by a loose German translation of that hymn under the title “Der tag der ist so frewden reich” (Der Tag, der ist so freudenreich). The first two stanzas of the German hymn read as follows:

Der tag der ist so frewden reich
aller creature
Denn Gottes Son von himel reich
uber die nature
Von einer jungfraw ist geporn
Maria du bist aus erkorn
das du mutter werest
was geschach so wunderleich?
Gottes Son von himel reich
der ist mensch geporen.

Ein kindelein so löbelich
ist uns geporen heute
Von einer jungfraw seuberlich
zu trost uns armen leuten
Wer uns das kindlein nicht geporn
so wer wir all zumal verlorn
das heil ist unser alle
Ey du süsser Jhesu Christ
das du mensch geporen bist
behüt uns für der helle.

Even though the hymn includes two more stanzas, these first two are the most significant. Each might have appeared independently of the other, and each was often used as its own hymn at first. The second stanza, for instance, was sung by itself after Luther’s sermon on Christmas Eve in 1531.

In fact, one could easily surmise that the second stanza was Luther’s favorite Christmas hymn. He quoted it at least five times in his Christmas sermons. He was no doubt responsible for the paragraph above which cited this hymn, among others, as proof of the perpetuation of the correct knowledge of Christ even in the darkness of the papacy. In the just-mentioned 1531 Christmas Eve sermon, the first of a series on Isaiah 9:6, he quoted it and then commented:

But no one knows what’s being sung. You should be able to sing this song from the heart and not snore so much while you’re singing it, like the world does. It is taken right from the prophet Isaiah.

The following year, in his morning sermon on St. Stephen’s Day, December 26, he commented on the hymn more extensively:

Now the angels point to him with their song [like the prophets did in their writings] as the one who does it all and in whom all that we need is found. Their song beats back all the devils who wish to lead people to salvation in a different way. If this newborn child is the Savior, then the Franciscan, Augustinian, and Carthusian orders are most certainly not.

And actually the whole world has cried out against Mary and the priests and monastic orders, and the priests and monks themselves have sung against her at their altars and cried for judgment on their own necks, and we did too. And still today the angel’s words, “A Savior has been born to you, who is Christ the Lord,” are sung in all the churches in the beautiful song “For Us Today Is Born a Child [Ein Kindelein so löbelich].” For what do we sing? “Were he not born, we all had dwelled In fear and fire, from God expelled— Salvation’s ours forever!”

And what does that mean—“we all had dwelled”? Whoever composed this song was a spiritual man, and everyone, both young and old, sings his song. It is a song that glorifies and praises Christ and cries for judgment on all the monks and priests, since when it says “we all had dwelled,” it includes them too. Therefore throughout the world a public judgment of condemnation is sung by every mouth against those who lead people away from Christ, yet no one was able to realize this and no one still does. It is sung everywhere.

Therefore, as I have often urged you, ask God to provide faithful preachers, otherwise, unless he himself should rouse the people, we will keep on singing and reciting those words, but we will not understand them. They are supposed to be aroused in the sermon, from the Gospel, from the Ten Commandments, the Creed, the sacraments, and the canticles. Even the adversaries have all these things that we have—baptism, the Sacrament of the Altar, the angel’s song, and the child in the manger. But since they are lacking a man in the pulpit who will open the people’s eyes and make the words in the text clear, so that they know what it says, they consequently have these things in a manner of speaking, but they do not really have them.

Both stanzas date back to at least the early 15th century, and the tune likewise dates to the same century. The Lutheran Hymnal (Concordia Publishing House, 1941) included W. Gustave Polack’s 1940 translation “Hail the Day So Rich in Cheer” (#78). The Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary (ELS, 1996) also includes it (#131) with a livelier version of the tune, stanza 1 being an altered version of Polack’s translation – “Now Hail the Day So Rich in Cheer” – and stanza 2 an altered version of a translation by C. Døving (1867-1937). The Hymnary’s version did have some influence on my translation below.

This hymn deserves to be resurrected in any circles in which it is not currently popularized. The content is rich, and especially the Hymnary’s setting of the traditional tune is both very joyful (and thus a fitting reflection of the text) and eminently singable.

This Day! So Filled with High Delight
A new translation of Der Tag, der ist so freudenreich and Ein Kindelein so löbelich

1. This day! So filled with high delight
for ev’ry earthborn creature!
God’s Son, from realms of heav’nly light
beyond the world of nature,
is born into the human race
of Mary, God’s own choice of grace
to be the virgin mother.
What awesome, wondrous deed is this?
God’s Son, from realms of heav’nly bliss,
came down to be our brother!

2. For us today is born a child,
a firstborn son so peerless,
of Mary, fair maid undefiled,
to cheer mankind so cheerless.
Were he not born, we all had dwelled
in fear and fire, by God expelled—
salvation’s ours forever!
To you, sweet Jesus, glory be
for sharing in humanity!
Let hell subdue us never!

Sources
Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary Handbook

The Free Lutheran Chorale-Book

Hoffmann von Fallersleben, Geschichte des Deutschen Kirchenliedes bis auf Luthers Zeit (Hannover: Carl Rümpler, 1854), pp. 196-197

Martin Luther, ed., Geistliche Lieder auffs new gebessert (Wittenberg: Joseph Klug, 1535)

Martin Luther, Luther at the Manger (Milwaukee: Northwestern Publishing House, 2017), pp. 8-10

Philipp Wackernagel, Das deutsche Kirchenlied von der ältesten Zeit bis zu Anfang des XVII. Jahrhunderts, vol. 2 (Leipzig: Druck und Verlag von B. G. Teubner, 1867), pp. 520-527

Weimarer Ausgabe 36:399-400; 52:50-51

Luther Visualized 9 – At the Wartburg

Luther at the Wartburg Castle

Luther Room at the Wartburg Castle (© Red Brick Parsonage, 2018)

This was Martin Luther’s room at the Wartburg Castle, after he was “kidnapped” for his own safety on his way home from Worms. He lived here from May 4, 1521, to March 1, 1522, with the exception of a secret trip to Wittenberg in the first half of December 1521. It was also in this room that Luther translated the entire Greek New Testament into German in less than 11 weeks, between December 1521 and February 1522. None of the furniture is original except possibly the whale vertebra, which was in the castle’s possession at Luther’s time and which Luther may have used as a footstool.

(UPDATE [12/20/21]: For more on Luther’s capture and his time at the Wartburg, click here.)

Sources
Martin Brecht, Martin Luther: Shaping and Defining the Reformation (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990), pp. 1,29-30,41-42,46-47

Wolfram Nagel, “Outlawed and unrecognized at Wartburg Castle”

Matthäus Merian der Ältere, Eisenach, copperplate engraving, 1650 (coloring subsequent)

On May 3, 1521, on his way home from Worms, Luther preached in Eisenach and then headed south for a short stay with relatives in Möhra. Johannes Petzensteiner, a fellow Augustinian monk, and Nikolaus von Amsdorf, a colleague at the University of Wittenberg, accompanied him. On May 4 Luther and his companions took leave of his relatives and rode east in their covered wagon, circling around the Altenstein Palace to the south through the village of Steinbach. As they were headed north through the ravine, the party was attacked by armed horsemen. Petzensteiner immediately jumped from the wagon and fled. Luther just had time to grab his New Testament and Hebrew Bible before being snatched from the wagon. He ran alongside the horsemen until they were out of sight, and then was given a mount. The horsemen took lengthy detours in order to mislead any pursuers before leading their captive to the Wartburg south of Eisenach at 11 p.m.

Luther Monument northeast of the Altenstein Palace (© Red Brick Parsonage, 2018), marking the approximate place where Luther was “kidnapped” for his own safety. A beech tree called the “Luther Beech,” which allegedly dated back to the event, was used to mark the spot for centuries, until it came down in a storm in 1841. Duke Bernhard Erich Freund of Saxony-Meiningen had this monument erected at the same spot in 1857.

The above engraving of Eisenach, the city where Luther also attended school from 1498–1501, appeared in Martin Zeiler’s famous Topographia Germaniae series, specifically Topographia Superioris Thüringiae, Misniae, Lusatiae etc (Frankfurt am Main: Matthaeus Merian, 1650), between pages 48 and 49. The city is viewed from the north-northeast, with the Wartburg Castle, built in 1069 according to Zeiler, on the hill overlooking the town. Note how different the castle looked in 1650 from the present day castle. (The various changes undergone by the castle are well documented by models on display there.) The numbers in the engraving identify the following:

1. Princely Residential Castle
2. City Church of St. George
3. Town Hall
4. The Kloeÿ [?]
5. St. Nicholas Church
6. The Bell-House
7. The Royal Shooting Ditch
8. Dominican Monastery
9. Foundation of St. Mary
10. St. Anne Hospital
11. Our Lady’s Gate
12. Clachs [?] Gate
13. St. George’s Gate
14. Dominican Gate
15. The Nuss [Nesse] and Hersel [Hörsel] Rivers
16. Wartburg Castle
17. The Modelstein, where a castle once stood
18. Here the Eisenach Fortress once stood

A Child Was Born to Us Today

“Uns ist ein Kindlein heut geborn” as it first appeared in Gesius’ Geistliche Deutsche Lieder (1601). Source.

“Uns ist ein Kindlein heut geborn”
Anonymous

Translator’s Preface

In 1601, Bartholomäus Gesius (c. 1555-1613) published the first volume of his Geistliche Deutsche Lieder D. Martini Lutheri und anderen frommen Christen (German Spiritual Songs by Dr. Martin Luther and Other Pious Christians). According to the rest of the title, the hymns in the collection “were customarily sung throughout the year in Christian churches,” and were arranged by the author “with four or five voices, according to the usual choral melodies, in a proper and pleasing manner.”

For other hymns, such as “All Praise to You, Eternal God” (folio 9) or “From Heaven Above” (folio 10), Gesius cited the author. But for the hymn on folio 16, translated below, no author was recorded. The four-voice setting is presumably his own. If the title can be applied without exception to all the hymns in Gesius’ collection, either Gesius himself had authored it before this and it had found use in one or more churches, or it may have appeared anonymously (authored by one of the “other pious Christians”) sometime between Luther and the publication of this volume.

Eight years later, when Michael Praetorius (1571-1621) published the sixth part of his Musae Sioniae (Muses of Zion) in 1609, he set the melody in Gesius’ collection to his own charming four-part setting (no. XLIX), which has been popularized in such albums as “Mass for Christmas Morning.”

I was planning to have the choir I direct sing Praetorius’ setting on Christmas Eve, and so I set about to translate it. My only departure from the original, which was admittedly not strictly necessary, was that the original two middle lines of the first stanza –

ein wahrer Mensch und wahrer Gott,
daß er uns helf’ aus aller Not.

true man, true God in full was he,
to rescue us from misery.

I changed to the following:

true man in full, yet also God,
to shatter the Oppressor’s rod.

I think it is rare when a translator is able to improve on the original, but here I was convinced such a case existed. The rest of the first stanza is basically a summary of Isaiah 9:1-7, which was the “Epistle” for Christmas Day at the time of the original composition. So I changed the two middle lines so that the entire stanza would be a summary of Isaiah 9:1-7 (rf. Isa 9:4). The “Oppressor” refers primarily to Satan, but also to sin and death by metonymy and association (Hebrews 2:14; 1 John 3:8).

This hymn just about sums up the beauty of Christian theology and the meaning of Christmas in as concise, straightforward, and lilting a way as possible. I pray it accordingly fills you, the reader, with joy and confidence.

A Child Was Born to Us Today

1. A child was born to us today
of chosen virgin, far away—
true man in full, yet also God,
to shatter the Oppressor’s rod.
Wonder and Counsel is his name;
through him the Father’s grace we claim.

2. What more for us could God have done
than that he gives us his own Son,
who from us has removed indeed
all of our sin and each misdeed,
redeemed us from the sin and pain
wherein we else would e’er remain!

3. Rejoice, dear saints of Christ, therefore,
and thank our God forevermore!
But hate the cunning, lies, and vice
which cost your Savior such a price.
Fear God and live lives pure and mild
to glorify the newborn Child.

O God, Earth, Heaven, and Sea Proclaim

By the Bohemian Brethren

Translator’s Preface

A fellow pastor in my circuit and I decided to use the First Lesson for Holy Trinity Sunday, Genesis 1:1—2:3, to launch a four-Sunday sermon series on the creation of the world. The maxim has been attributed to St. Augustine that all of theology is either implicit or explicit in the first three chapters of Genesis, so we certainly were not going to do poorly by carefully covering one-third of that. In addition, we thought it would prove a timely series in the United States’ increasingly atheistic and evolution-saturated culture.

With a series such as this, I like to have a series hymn that the congregation can sing all four Sundays. Repetition is the mother of learning, and music can be a wonderful aid in the learning process too. A good hymn intentionally repeated can go a long way in impressing important spiritual truths on the hearts and minds of God’s redeemed people.

However, I was unable to find a good creation hymn in Christian Worship, The Lutheran Hymnal, or the couple hymn blogs operated by confessional Lutherans to which I subscribe. I toyed with the idea of penning my own – an introductory stanza, seven stanzas highlighting the divine activity on each of the first seven days of earth’s existence, and a closing doxology. But then I came across hymn #67 in the “Schöpfung und Regierung” (Creation and Governance) section of Northwestern Publishing House’s old German hymnal, Evang.-Lutherisches Gesangbuch für Kirche, Schule und Haus (Evangelical Lutheran Hymnal for Church, School, and Home).

Titled “Gott, Erd und Himmel samt dem Meer” and attributed to the Bohemian Brethren, the hymn seems to be a free paraphrase of Psalm 104, and therefore offers a number of excellent devotional thoughts and truths fueled by the creation account and creation itself.

The original German reads:

1. Gott, Erd und Himmel samt dem Meer
verkünden deine Kraft und Ehr,
auch zeigen alle Berg und Thal,
daß du ein Herr seist überall.

2. Die Sonne geht uns täglich auf,
es hält der Mond auch seinen Lauf,
so sind auch alle Stern bereit,
zu preisen deine Herrlichkeit.

3. Die Tier und Vögel aller Welt
und, was das Meer im Schoße hält,
zeigt uns frei an ihm selber an,
was deine Kraft und Weisheit kann.

4. Du hast den Himmel ausgestreckt,
mit Wolkenheeren überdeckt
und seiner Wölbung Majestät
mit goldnen Sternen übersät.

5. Du bists, der alle Ding regiert,
den Himmel und das Erdreich ziert
so wunderbar, daß es kein Mensch
erforschen noch ergründen kann.

6. Wie mag doch unsre Blödigkeit
ausgründen deine Herrlichkeit,
so wir ja Dinge nicht verstehn,
womit wir allezeit umgehn!

7. Wie lieblich ist, Herr, und wie schön,
was du geschaffen, anzusehn!
Doch wie viel lieblicher bist du,
o Herr, mein Gott, in deiner Ruh!

8. Du schließest Erd und Himmel ein,
dein Herrschen muß voll Wunder sein,
du bist ein Herr in Ewigkeit
von unnennbarer Herrlichkeit.

9. O Vater, Sohn und Heilger Geist,
dein Name, der allmächtig heißt,
sei stets von uns gebenedeit,
sei hochgelobt in Ewigkeit.

My initial literal translation:

1. O God, earth and heaven together with the sea
proclaim your power and honor,
and every mountain and valley show
that you are a Lord over all.

2. The sun rises upon us daily,
the moon also holds its course,
so too all the stars are ready
to praise your glory.

3. The beasts and birds of all the world
and all that the sea keeps in its lap,
informs us openly all by itself
what your power and wisdom is capable of.

4. You have stretched out the heavens,
covered them with hosts of clouds
and their vault’s majesty
sown over with golden stars.

5. You are the one who rules all things,
adorns the heavens and the kingdom of the earth
so stunningly, that there is not a single person
who can investigate or fathom it.

6. How in all the world may our stupidity
comprehend your glory,
if we do not even understand things
with which we are occupied all the time!

7. How lovely, Lord, and how beautiful it is
to consider what you have created!
Yet how much more lovely you are,
O Lord, my God, in your rest!

8. You enclose earth and heaven,
your ruling must be full of wonder,
you are a Lord into eternity
of inexpressible glory.

9. O Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
your name, which is called omnipotent,
continually be blessed by us,
be highly praised into eternity.

The biggest danger was lying latent in st. 3. In fact, in the first draft of my translation, I had: “Just by existing teach us well | How far your wisdom does excel.” I eventually changed it because I didn’t like the lack of poetry. The potential doctrinal misunderstanding of which I was initially ignorant finally became clear in my first re-translation: “Just by existing do make known | The depths of strength and sense you own.” I was confusing the natural knowledge of God with the revealed knowledge of God. The natural knowledge of God – found in creation and in our conscience – certainly does show us some extent of God’s power and wisdom, but not anywhere close to the full extent. All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Christ alone (Col 2:3), and Christ, though responsible for creation (John 1; 1 Corinthians 8:6), is not revealed in creation itself. He is revealed only to us by his Spirit through his Word (1 Corinthians 2:9,10). The original German was somewhat ambiguous, so I made sure to be clearer in my final product below.

The end of st. 8 might also raise an eyebrow at first: “Forever will your glory shine | Which man cannot see or define.” Obviously, all believers in Christ will one day see God as he is (1 John 3:2). However, it remains true that as we are now, we cannot see or fully define the glory of God (Exodus 33:20; 1 Timothy 6:16). We must first be changed, and God promises we will be (1 Corinthians 15:50-54).

Finally, I made the final stanza a bit more Christ-centered than the original, for which I’m sure the Christian reader will find no need to forgive me.

As to the origin of the hymn, I only know that Michael Weisse published the first hymnal used by the Bohemian Brethren in 1531. I was unable to access a copy of that hymnal to see if this hymn traces back that far. It could also conceivably have come from their later descendants, the Moravians. The NPH hymnal suggests the tune, “Vom Himmel hoch” (From Heaven Above to Earth I Come), but I recommend and will be using “Wo Gott zum Haus” (Oh, Blest the House, Whate’er Befall).

Certainly, as Lutherans, we value the Second Article of the Creed (redemption) more highly than the First Article (creation and providence). But I pray that this hymn gives us appropriate opportunity also to express our praise to the triune God for First Article truths, which are rendered that much more glorious through the lens of true faith, created and sustained by Second Article truths.

O God, Earth, Heaven, and Sea Proclaim

1. O God, earth, heav’n, and sea proclaim
The pow’r and honor of your name;
From valleys low to summits grand,
Creation shows your vast command.

2. The sun comes up, day in, day out;
The moon still runs his monthly route;
The stars at dusk prepare to sing
The brighter glory of their King.

3. All beasts and birds on earth’s broad face,
All creatures in the seas’ embrace
Just by existing do make known
Some scope of strength and sense you own.

4. You have stretched out the sky and made
The clouds its covering and our shade,
And space, whose vault our sight exceeds,
Have sown with golden stars like seeds.

5. To search out or to comprehend
How you adorn the heav’ns and tend
To ev’ry detail on earth’s span—
This goes beyond the reach of man.

6. For we attempt, with puny brain,
To trace your glorious ways in vain,
Since e’en affairs routine and stale
We analyze to no avail.

7. How lovely, Lord, to contemplate
The masterworks you did create!
Yet lovelier and far more bless’d
To view you in your Sabbath rest!

8. The earth and heav’n, by you contained,
Awaken awe for your wise reign.
Forever will your glory shine,
Which man cannot see or define.

9. O Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
Who can the name Almighty boast,
Through Christ receive our endless praise
Here and through heav’n’s eternal days.

First Missions Hymn of Lutheranism

“Es wollt uns Gott genädig sein” (Stanza 1)
By Martin Luther

Translator’s Preface

With a mission festival suddenly on the horizon, I was looking for a manageable setting of a Lutheran missions hymn. Michael Praetorius’ 2-voice arrangement of stanza 1 of “Es wollt uns Gott genädig sein,” found in Part 9 (1610) of his Musae Sioniae (The Muses of Zion), fit the bill perfectly. Based on Psalm 67, “Es wollt uns Gott” is not only considered “the first missionary hymn of Protestantism”; it is also one of the first Lutheran hymns, period. As such, it has a storied history. My favorite anecdote is retold in the Christian Worship: Handbook (Milwaukee: NPH, 1997) on p. 581 (altered slightly to fit the new translation of st. 1 presented below):

In Wolfenbüttel the Catholic prince permitted the singing of several of Luther’s hymns in his chapel. When a priest challenged him concerning this practice and told him finally that the singing of such hymns could no longer be tolerated, the prince asked, “Which hymns?” The priest answered, “My lord, it is called ‘To Us May Our God Gracious Be.'” Whereupon the prince snapped, “Well, then, should the devil be gracious to us? Who can be gracious to us but God?” Thus, the practice of singing Luther’s hymns in that particular chapel was continued.

Unfortunately, the translation of st. 1 found in hymn 574 of Christian Worship (“May God Bestow on Us His Grace”) did not lend itself well to Praetorius’ setting.

Time to translate.

First, the original text, with lines ( | | ) demarcating phrases that had to be kept intact in the translation (that is, had to contain the same number of syllables and make sense, not breaking off in the middle of a word or prepositional phrase) in order to fit the setting:

Es wollt uns Gott genädig sein
Und seinen Segen geben
| Sein Antlitz uns | mit hellem Schein
Erleucht zum ew(i)gen Leben
| Daß wir erkennen | seine Werk’
Und was ihm liebt auf Erden
| Und Jesus Christus | Heil und Stärk’
Bekannt den Heiden werden
Und sie zu Gott | bekehren |

Then, a literal translation unhindered by meter or other restrictions:

May it please God to be gracious to us
And give (us) his blessing,
May his countenance with brilliant shine
Illuminate us to eternal life,
So that we recognize his works
And what is pleasing to him on earth,
And (so that) Jesus Christ’s salvation and strength
Are broadcast to the heathens,
And convert them to God.

Lines 5-8 proved most difficult by far. I ended up having to make all the verbs passive, instead of alternating between the active voice in lines 5-6 and the passive voice in lines 7-8, as in the original. What I ended up with is the product below.

Since, instead of copying the music from an original 1610 edition, it was graciously copied for me from the Gesamtausgabe der musikalischen Werke (Georg Kallmeyer, 1929) by the staff of the Martin Luther College Library, I don’t feel comfortable sharing the music publicly here. However, I am willing to share it legally for non-profit purposes with other confessional Lutheran clergy and choir personnel upon request. Simply use the contact info on my About page to submit a request for a PDF file of the 2-voice choir setting.

I pray this fresh translation of the first stanza of Lutheranism’s first missions hymn serves to remind especially Lutherans of the high priority that the Lutheran Church has always (rightly) placed on mission work, and that, even if only in a very small way, it encourages her to continue to do so with ever-increasing zeal. I pray that it might also serve any English-speaking Christians that come across it as a fitting, and memorizable, missions prayer.

To Us May Our God Gracious Be

To us may our God gracious be
And bless us in rich measure;
May his kind face shine brilliantly,
Guide us to life forever.
To us shall God’s works then be known
And God-pleasing behavior,
And to the heathens shall be shown
The pow’r of Christ their Savior,
Which shall cause their conversion.

16th Century Christmas Hymn

By an anonymous author, possibly of Finnish origin

Translator’s Preface

One of my favorite Christmas hymn settings is Michael Praetorius’ 1609 4-voice arrangement of “Parvulus nobis nascitur” from Part 6 of his Musae Sioniae (The Muses of Zion). According to John Julian’s Dictionary of Hymnology, this Latin hymn first appeared in the 1579 edition of Lucas Lossius’ Psalmodia.

The now dissolved Chorus Cantans Latine of Martin Luther College, consisting of 12 male voices at its height, performed this arrangement several times, and its memory has stuck with me. I recently had an opportunity to translate it so that it could be sung by an American Lutheran church choir.

First, I pulled up my literal translation from years ago:

1. A little child is born for us,
Given birth from a virgin.
Because of him the angels rejoice
And we [his] servants give thanks:
“To the Trinity be glory without end!”

2. We have the King of grace
And the Lion of victory—
The only Son of God
Who gives light to every age.
To the Trinity be glory without end!

3. He came to bring us, [God’s] dear children,
Back to God from death,
And to heal the severe wounds
Inflicted by the cunning of the serpent.
To the Trinity be glory without end!

4. To this sweet little infant
Sing you all with one accord,
[Who is] lying in a manger,
Humbled in a shabby bed.
To the Trinity be glory without end!

In undertaking a rhyming translation to fit Praetorius’ setting, I wanted to accomplish several things:

1. The nobis (“for us“) of st. 1 was emphasized by being set to two ascended Ds (“no-bis”) after three G notes (“Par-vu-lus”). I wanted to retain that gospel emphasis on “for us” by having “us” occur with the first of the two Ds. In other words, “us” had to be the fourth syllable of the first line of st. 1.
2. In the refrain (last line of each st.), Praetorius has the music match the concept of eternity, either by dragging out the syllables with multiple notes (soprano) or by repeating the lyrics (tenor and bass). I didn’t want my translation to get in the way of that feature; the refrain had to conclude with the concept of eternity and have lyrics that could be easily and pleasantly repeated.
3. I wanted to have the same clear allusions to various Scripture references as the original. The “lion of victory” in st. 2 clearly alludes to Revelation 5:5, the second half of st. 2 to John 1:1-18, the second half of st. 3 to the fall into sin in Genesis 3, etc.
4. It’s always nice if one can introduce a new theme or thread while being faithful to the original. In this case, after opening st. 1 with “See,” I thought about starting each stanza with “See” – to give the whole hymn a sort of “Behold!” or surprise-like character to match the wondrous miracle of the incarnation that is celebrated on Christmas. But when that didn’t work, I ended up going with a sort of sensory progression in the first three stanzas – sight (“See”) to hearing (“Hear”) to touch (“to snatch…From death’s firm clutches”). This also made st. 4 stand out more as a conclusion by the absence of any direct sensory reference in it.
5. Without getting ridiculous, I like to repeat consonant and vowel sounds within stanzas and lines of stanzas. It helps to unify.

What I ended up with is the product below. You can also access the English choir score here. One suggestion is to have the choir sing “To the Trinity” in st. 4 in unison, before returning to 4 parts for the remainder of the stanza. This would audibly comply with the immediately preceding exhortation: “In unison let all rejoice.”

Unless I am mistaken, this is the first publication of a singable, rhyming translation of “Parvulus nobis nascitur” in English. May it serve to the eternal glory of the Trinity.

See, Born for Us a Precious Child

1. See, born for us a precious child,
Son of a virgin undefiled!
The angels praise him in the sky
And we on earth make glad reply:
“To the Trinity ascend
Sweet songs of glory without end!”

2. Hear now the King from Judah roar!
With all our foes he shall wage war!
The Father’s Son, the God of grace!
The light of life beams from his face!
To the Trinity ascend
Sweet songs of glory without end!

3. Sent down to snatch God’s children dear
From death’s firm clutches, and its fear,
He came the serpent’s head to smite
And heal his sin-envenomed bite.
To the Trinity ascend
Sweet songs of glory without end!

4. Though in a manger poor he cries,
Though on a bed of straw he lies,
To this sweet infant raise your voice!
In unison let all rejoice:
“To the Trinity ascend
Sweet songs of glory without end!”