My Documents: Article of the Week Archive

 

The Singing of Psalms: Part 13
Copyright 1996 Sherman Isbell

[Editorial Note: I have become increasingly more frustrated with the current status of the Church, especially as it pertains to the utilization of differing genres in the corporate worship service. My personal understanding of the matter leaves little room in my mind that we ought to be singing the word of God and not some man made "love tune" that is better suited for a camp-fire sing-a-long. Certainly these are my personal opinions and should not be construed as an attack or response to any particular church. The matter can be debated and I welcome it. Feel free to do so by utilizing the link at the bottom of this article. This series contains 14 articles that will be taken in order until completion. If interested in reading ahead you may do so at: http://members.aol.com/RSISBELL/psalms1.html -- W. Hill]

The Only Songs Worthy of God Are Received From Him

Finally, it is instructive to consider John Calvin's argument that the inspired Word of God should serve as the text for worship song. Concurring with Augustine's belief that the only songs worthy of God are those received from him, Calvin urged the use of the canonical songs written by the Holy Spirit.

The Articles which Calvin presented to the city council of Geneva in 1537 called for four actions by which to bring the church into greater conformity with Scripture and apostolic practice.(162) One of these was the singing of Psalms in worship. Congregational psalmody had been introduced by Martin Bucer to the German-language churches of Strasbourg in 1524,(163) and when Calvin became pastor of the French congregation in Strasbourg in 1538, he acted quickly to compile a French psalter.(164) Respecting Calvin's 1539 psalter, Charles Garside(165) says: "Calvin had edited it; of that there is no doubt. It contained nineteen psalms in French translation, all but one of which (No. 113) were rhymed. Thirteen of these were by Clément Marot, and Calvin was responsible for the remainder. The versions of the Song of Simeon, the Decalogue, and the Credo are his also, so that this, his first psalter, unlike later versions, is peculiarly his book."(166)

Calvin's most thorough discussion of psalmody comes in his "Epistle to the Reader" for The Form of Prayers and Ecclesiastical Songs (1542, with additional material in 1543).(167) Calvin, like Luther and Bucer before him, was impressed with the effects of music,(168) and prominent in this "Epistle to the Reader" is Calvin's concern that when words are united with music in singing, the text must be produced by the Holy Spirit. Garside comments: "Now the fact that it is a combination of the two poses a very nearly insoluble problem: 'It is true that every evil word (as Saint Paul says) perverts good morals, but when the melody is with it, it pierces the heart that much more strongly and enters into it; just as through a funnel wine is poured into a container, so also venom and corruption are distilled to the depth of the heart by the melody'. He had begun the addition to the Epistle by asserting that music was a gift of God. Shortly thereafter he had vented his concern for its capacity to alter men's moral disposition or change their hearts. Now he denounces it for its power to enhance and intensify evil words. This being the case, should not music, as Calvin understands it here, be eliminated from worship entirely? On the other hand, if melody could so greatly magnify the impact of evil words, could it not perform a like function with good words? And if so, was not then the question of the words to be sung more crucial than ever? That is precisely the conclusion toward which Calvin has been so carefully and so consciously aiming: the text, in fact, is all-important. 'What is there then to do?' he asks, and confidently replies: sing the Psalms of David. If one accepts the proposition of Saint Augustine, as Calvin does, that 'no one is able to sing things worthy of God unless he has received them from Him,'(169) then the most exhaustive search will yield 'no better songs nor more appropriate to the purpose than the Psalms of David which the Holy Spirit made and spoke through him.' The words, far from being evil, are demonstrably good and cannot be otherwise for they are of divine origin. Moreover, men are assured of this fact, for 'when we sing them, we are certain that God puts the words in our mouths, as if He Himself were singing in us to exalt His glory.' The psalms will serve as a talisman against the power of music, and melody, with all its capacity for intensification, will now accompany the words which are made and spoken by the Holy Spirit, even by God Himself, with the result that men will have 'songs not only seemly, but also holy, which will be like spurs to incite us to pray and to praise God, to meditate on His works in order to love, fear, honor, and glorify Him.' The solution reached in theory, Calvin proceeds to urge the universal adoption of the psalms to the exclusion of all other songs. 'Only let the world be so well advised that in place of songs in part empty and frivolous, in part stupid and dull, in part obscene and vile, and in consequence evil and harmful, which it has used up to now, it may accustom itself hereafter to singing these divine and celestial hymns with the good King David.' "(170)

Calvin had reflected upon the diversity of religious song in Strasbourg, and despite his indebtedness to Bucer, maintained certain reservations. He had embraced Bucer's proposal that throughout society "all secular songs be eliminated and replaced by religious ones; with this sweeping substitution Calvin clearly was in essential agreement. He adopted it, however, with one profoundly significant qualification. Bucer had spoken throughout the Foreword [to the Strasbourg Song Book (1541)](171) of psalms and sacred songs or spiritual songs, and in doing so, as he himself more than once acknowledged, he was following the tradition established by Luther of permitting all kinds of music and all kinds of texts to be sung in church as well as outside it. But what was variety for Luther and Bucer was promiscuity for Calvin. The psalms alone were sacred. For God and His angels as well now as for the world below, nothing else was, or even could be, appropriate, and with that decision Calvin's valuation of vernacular psalmody had reached its apogee."(172)

Garside concludes that Calvin turned to canonical psalmody not as a mere preference, but because the Word of God is the only suitable text for singing in worship: "When Calvin proposed to re-order the whole vocal-musical life of the Christian community around the singing of the psalms, it was because the words of the psalms were God's words, put by God in the mouths of the singers, just as He had put them first in the mouth of David. Calvin's vernacular psalmody in the last analysis is nothing other than a formulation, in uniquely musical terms, of the Reformation principle of sola scriptura."(173) "Only the psalms of David were to be used during worship; no other texts were to be introduced. The psalms were simply to be rendered into the vernacular and versified; the function of the poet was reduced thereby to translating and re-shaping an existing text."(174) That Calvin treated the metrical Psalm texts as Scripture was further indicated when he preached a series of sermons before 1548 on those particular Psalms which already had been rendered into metrical versions.(175)

Other of the most distinguished, contemporary students of church music in the early Reformed church make a similar assessment of Calvin's statements. Nicholas Temperley says: "There was nothing in French-speaking Europe analogous to the solid German tradition of geistliche Gesänge which could be taken over for religious purposes. French popular song was secular, largely erotic, and often obscene or superstitious. Nor did Calvin feel any special liking for the Latin liturgical hymns, which, to him, showed only how easily errors of doctrine can arise if texts of human composition are allowed into the service. He therefore came down strongly in favour of using only the words of God - that is, the songs of biblical origin, consisting of the psalms and a few lyrical passages from other parts of the Scripture."(176) Walter Blankenburg comments: "Finally, according to Calvin, the task of the service song necessitated a strong tie to the only text admissible in the service, the text of the Bible. This resulted in the exclusive use of psalms for singing, in addition to a few other biblical excerpts."(177)

Notes
(162) Charles Garside, The Origins of Calvin's Theology of Music: 1536-1543, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 69, pt. 4 (Philadelphia, 1979), pp. 7, 10, 17; Ioannis Calvini Opera Quae Supersunt Omnia, edited by W. Baum, E. Cunitz, and E. Reuss (Brunswick: C. A. Schwetschke and Sons, 1863-1900), vol. 10, pt. 1, col. 12.
(163) Garside, Origins of Calvin's Theology of Music, pp. 11-12.
(164) Ibid., pp. 14-15.
(165) No scholar has given such careful consideration to Calvin's views about music in worship as has Charles Garside, who taught modern history for thirty years at Yale and Rice Universities, until his death in 1987. His other publications on the Reformers and music are Zwingli and the Arts (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966); "Calvin's Preface to the Psalter: A Re-Appraisal," The Musical Quarterly 37(1951): 566-77; "Some Attitudes of the Major Reformers toward the Role of Music in the Liturgy," McCormick Quarterly 21(1967): 151-68.
(166) Garside, Origins of Calvin's Theology of Music, p. 15.
(167) Ibid., p. 16. The text of the "Epistle" in La Forme des Prieres et Chantz Ecclesiastiques is given in Calvini Opera, 6:165-72; an English translation is provided in Garside, Origins of Calvin's Theology of Music, pp. 31-33.
(168) Garside, Origins of Calvin's Theology of Music, pp. 22-23.
(169) Calvin's reference is to Augustine's Enarratio In Psalmum XXXIV, Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Latina, ed. J. P. Migne (Paris: 1844-64), 36:323: Nemo illi cantat digna, nisi qui ab illo acceperit quod cantare possit.
(170) Garside, Origins of Calvin's Theology of Music, pp. 23-24; Calvini Opera 6:169-72.
(171) An English translation of Bucer's Vorrede to the Strassburger Gesangbuch is found in Garside, Origins of Calvin's Theology of Music, pp. 29-31.
(172) Ibid., p. 26. Cf. Louis F. Benson, "The Liturgical Position of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America," The Presbyterian and Reformed Review 8(1897): 422: "The people's share in the Church's praise had been won for them at the Reformation; but here, as at so many points, the Lutheran and Calvinistic Reformers had parted company. The Lutheran encouraged the use of hymns in the nature of folk-songs, and adopted also the versions of the ancient Latin hymns; the Calvinistic turned to the inspired songs of the Holy Scriptures as the only proper subject-matter of praise."
(173) Ibid., p. 29.
(174) Garside, "Attitudes of the Major Reformers," p. 162.
(175) T. H. L. Parker, "Editor's Introduction," in John Calvin, A Commentary on the Psalms (London:
James Clarke and Company, 1965), 1:5.
(176) Nicholas Temperley, The Music of the English Parish Church (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 1:20.
(177) Walter Blankenburg, "Church Music in Reformed Europe," in Friedrich Blume, Protestant Church Music: A History (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1974), p. 517. Cf. Walter Blankenburg, "Johannes Calvin," in Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart (Kassel: Bärenreiter Verlag, 1952), 2:660: "From the indispensable linkage of song with the words of Scripture, Calvin recognized the unique qualification for worship of the Psalms produced by the Holy Spirit himself"; Richard Arnold, The English Hymn: Studies in a Genre (New York: Peter Lang, 1995), p. 3: "However, Calvin's enthusiasm for singing was subject to a crucial qualification: he restricted what was to be sung exclusively to the Psalms - these were, he writes in 1543, the songs provided by God and dictated by His Holy Spirit, and it would be presumptuous and sacrilegious for humankind to sing any words or arrangements of his or her own devising"; O. Douen, Clément Marot et Le Psautier Huguenot (Paris: L'Imprimerie Nationale, 1878), 1:271, 278; Leon Wencelius, L'Esthétique de Calvin (Paris: Société d'Edition "Les Belles Lettres", 1937), pp. 273-74; Anne Harrington Heider, "Preface," in Claude Le Jeune, Les Cent Cinquante Pseaumes de David, Recent Researches in the Music of the Renaissance, vol. 98 (Madison, Wisconsin: A-R. Editions, 1995), p. x.