I don t know, my American friends, whether it is true for your country too that the question of the essential nature of music is becoming more and more important in these years. It is a question asked not only by those who think about music but also by musicians and composers themselves. In Germany, at any rate, the intellectual situation of creative and practical musical life is largely influenced by it. And at the same time one is beginning to say again and again that this question cannot be answered in aesthetic categories and philosophic concepts, but that the last and profound reason for music can be given only in theology. But is theology really able to say something binding about music? Is this after all a legitimate task of theology? There is one thing all of us will agree upon, and that is that it will not suffice with some Biblical reminiscences and devotional reflections as we know them, for instance, from Mattheson’s well-known Ehrenpforte of 1740. There, for example, it is said: “Music is a noble art and a great embellishment for a noble spirit. All other arts and sciences will die with us. A lawyer can’t use his skill in heaven, for there will be no trials like in Speyer. Nobody in heaven will ask a doctor for a prescription or a purgative. But the things theologians and musicians learned on earth they will also practice in heaven, that is, to praise God.” No, there must already be a real bridge between theology and music, if theological reasoning of music is to be possible. Let us now discuss this with one another. But not every theology is ready to build this bridge, as we shall see. To mention the result beforehand, I think one can prove that a theological reasoning of music can be possible only on the foundation of Martin Luther’s theology. But now to the point.

Music and theology can be brought into a real relationship only if one ascribes a theological relevance to the peculiar phenomenon that results when ordered air vibrations are mediated by our organs of hearing and are registered in our consciousness as a process of musical experience and understanding. In any case, a theology of music is possible only when we can make real theological statements about music.

The requirement we thus make can be clarified for the non-theologian by a few examples. The offices which are established in the church, whether perhaps there should be a preacher besides the pastor, whether a bishop should be called to be the head of the church, and which polity the church chooses, these are all questions which cannot be decided theologically in a strict sense of the word, i.e., with the Word of God. These are matters that should be decided on the basis of historic facts with the help of natural reason. Theologically, from the revelation of God in Jesus Christ, there is only a twofold requirement: first, that the public ministry is established in some concrete form and that it performs its service, so that by the clear proclamation of the Gospel and by the administration of the sacraments according to the Scriptures the congregation of Jesus Christ is nurtured and renewed in the power of the Holy Spirit; and second, that the polity which the church gives itself in no way contradicts its confession but is adequate to the task received by its Lord. In the same way the questions of the liturgical order, the so-called ceremonies, are reckoned by the Reformers as adiaphora or neutralia, i.e., things which can be decided in some way or another without touching the foundations of faith.

Certainly it is not accidental that in the discussion about the reintroduction of congregational singing, which arose a few decades after the death of Zwingli, the word “adiaphora” was the point at which the minds separated. While the supporters of the prohibition in the spirit of Zwingli concluded from Article 23 of the Second Helvetian Confession that church hymns belong to the things which are not necessary, the opponents of the adiaphora character of Christian singing maintained that it serves the glory of God and the edification of the neighbor and like prayer is commanded by God.

Still more revealing and characteristic for the Lutheran Church’s speedy decline from the deep music-theological insights of Martin Luther is the fact that also the dogmatists of Lutheran orthodoxy declare music to be an adiaphoron. It is significant that Johann Gerhard (1582–1637), its classic representative, quite incidentally mentions music in his article about “ceremonies,” i.e., The Order of Service, in the fifth volume of his loci. The result is summarized by Friedrich Kalb in his essay “The Doctrine of the Cultus of the Lutheran Church During the Period of Orthodoxy” (Berlin, 1959), as follows: “Music belongs like all arts within the Lutheran service in the sphere of adiaphora. The question as to whether and which music should be used during the service is for orthodoxy on the same level as the question as to the right and character, for example, of the Communion vessels, the vestments, the paraments, etc.” And to the systematician of orthodoxy, Ludwig Dunte, in his Decisiones mille et sex casuum conscientiae (1628, page 909), Christian music takes a place at the side of medicine for the body, the companionship of honest people, and a small quantity of wine and fun as an outward means to remove sadness and melancholy! Here indeed is a lack of all presuppositions for a theological estimate of music.

When we look into the traditional forms for the coordination of music and theology, in the first place, there is the theology of music originated by Pythagoras and his school. Basic to it is the perception that the same numerical laws determine the structure of music that also characterize the order of the universe and the movement of the stars: everywhere there are the basic musical principles of unity, number, and order. Music developed in all three spheres of the concept of the world of that time: as inaudible music of the spheres (musica mundana), as a well-ordered interplay of man’s body and soul (musica humana), and as a peculiar ontological realm of sounding (musica instrumentalis) binding heaven and earth. The understanding of music therefore at the same time mediated cosmological and anthropological-theological insights, just as inversely special rules for musical production resulted from theological understanding. This musical theology not only determined the medieval art of composition, but can also be found in the Protestant music theoreticians of the 17th and 18th centuries. It also formed the spiritual foundation for the productions of Johann Sebastian Bach, and in our days above all it was resurrected by Paul Hindemith in his Theory of Composition. Usually when Catholic theology today tries to get to the bottom of music, these attempts are made along the lines of a theological over-elevation of Pythagorean insights.

It is not necessary to know much about the theology of the three Reformers to presume from the beginning that it would be difficult to build a bridge from their theological attitude to the musica speculativa of the Pythagorean musical theory. Martin Luther was most closely bound to this tradition; with his extensive ties to medieval conceptions it would be easy to prove a series of numerical elements in his musical-theoretical thinking. But these are more or less unimportant. The new thinking about the musical views of Luther does not have to do with the scientific-speculative aspect of music, but is based on the specific elemental experience of music as a sounding form, and this elemental experience of music is likewise elementally theological and possesses a characteristic theological depth, which witnesses to the deep-rooted unity of music and theology, thus creating the basis for a completely new theology of music. It is not just a coincidence that a thorough reorganization of the teaching of music took place at that time. Luther’s own university in Wittenberg apparently had no chair of musicology, while there were lectures about the other liberal arts. An effort to establish a professorship in music in 1541 failed because of the frugality of the elector. Otto Clemen (Letters of Luther, WA 9, p. 339) and van Crevel presume that Sixt Dietrich, who besides Johann Walther was nearest to the musical view of the Reformer and who on the occasion of a visit to Wittenberg had held a public lecture on music, was slated for this professorship; it is possible that Dietrich had again been a guest lecturer (hospes) in 1544 in Wittenberg for a number of months. The prefaces to the works by Sixt Dietrich show that the world of Pythagorean music theology was lost for him entirely; on the other hand, according to the judgment of his biographer Hermann Zenck, they differ “sharply from the humanistic and renaissance-flavored prefaces of the time.”

Zwingli and Calvin were not so much bound to medieval thought as Luther and did not need to bear the antithesis of the times in their own breast. Unlike Luther, they consequently were not confronted with the tremendous task of breaking out of the “Babylonian prison” of the Catholic Church, but were supported in their Reformation work by other movements. The role that humanism played in the formation of Zwingli’s thinking and in the preparation of the Reformation in German Switzerland is known by everyone. Also his musical concept was determined from this line—that is not surprising, since his teachers were mostly leading men of the humanistic movement. Just as the humanistic feeling for life sought to release all thinking processes from their servitude to theology and pressed toward an establishment of an earthly order and arrangement that proceeds out of itself, it also tried to put the arts on their own feet by proclaiming the aesthetic-artistic as an end in itself. The arts he regarded fundamentally and in their source as secular. It had disastrous results for church music in the Reformed German Switzerland that Zwingli’s humanistic musician friends devoted themselves to secular music and that Zwingli associated himself with them.

If music is altogether a worldly affair—in Zwingli’s writing there is no word that it is a divine gift, a gift of God—nevertheless Zwingli regarded it highly; in this respect he is different from Calvin. Zwingli’s interpretation of the classic passage from the Bible, 1 Sam. 16: 23, is related to his positive evaluation of music: “And it came to pass when the spirit from God was upon Saul, that David took an harp and played it with his hand; so Saul was refreshed and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him.” According to Calvin’s opinion this was a special intervention of God; nothing would be stranger than to attribute the healing of Saul’s despondency to the natural power of music. Therefore this event has no general significance. God could just as well have made use of another means than music to carry out His intentions. Luther, on the other hand, without any reflection is quite certain that David not only played the harp but also sang. The sung Word of God made the miracle possible which is mentioned in the 16th chapter of the First Book of Samuel. Certainly it is not just a coincidence that God used the power of music, for this sung Word for Luther is a part of the abundance of the effective possibilities of the Word, and, to be sure, of the Word in its elemental and pure form as verbum vocale and viva vox; indeed, music keeps reminding one that the elemental form of the Word of God is a forthgoing Word. With Zwingli it is altogether different: to him the reported events are completely natural, which can be seen from his letter to the Episcopal vicar general Fabri. David was simply a good harpist, and it belongs to the ability of music that it can free a melancholy person “for a short time” from his illness. That which is reported in 1 Sam. 16 has, according to Zwingli, a thousand similar parallel cases.

Our discussion has gone far beyond the starting point. For it has become evident that Zwingli not only broke with the cosmologically founded medieval music theology, but rejects a theological relevance to music, and therefore has no assumptions or a starting point for a theology of music. For even though sacred compositions were sung, as in Zwingli’s house-music sessions, music as such remains a worldly thing. The acute secularization of musical thought during humanism made it natural that Zwingli did not reflect further on it, but as a matter of course proceeded within the spheres of a secularized musical conception. Charles Garside, Jr., therefore, in his essay “The Literary Evidence for Zwingli’s Musicianship” (Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, 48th year, Gütersloh, 1957, pp. 56–74) for good reasons comes to the conclusion: “Music for Zwingli thus exists without the additional theological dimension. . . . And to music Zwingli will not accord the sanction of the Paraclete; it is, on the contrary, wholly secular.” And he sums up: “Music was a recreation of and for this world, for the comfort of souls possibly, but certainly not a divine gift and emphatically not second to theology” (pp. 69 and 73). This attitude of Zwingli, as we saw above, is confirmed by his pupils when they declare music as an adiaphoron which has no place in the service of worship, and is anchored by Zwingli’s successor, Heinrich Bullinger, in Article 23 of the Second Helvetian Confession.

Calvin’s spiritual remoteness from the medieval music theology of the musica speculativa is so great and so manifest that it simply disappears from the scene. This can be explained in his case not only from the completely different structure of his theological thinking but also from his spiritual origins in humanism.

Although Calvin was not personally engaged in music, one dare not overlook the fact that he determined the model for the singing of psalms, and that the musical prototype for him, in the opinion of Arnold Geering, was in the melodies used by the humanists in the composition of Latin odes to teach students the antique meters and verses by having them sing them.

Calvin’s important musical co-workers were also followers of humanism. Certainly it is not only by chance that the meager reports that we have about Louis Bourgeois, Guillaume Franc, Pierre Dagues, and Claude Goudimel, but also about the later arrangers of the Geneva Psalter, primarily Claudin Le Jeune, at least show that they all are friends of and are spiritually at home in musical humanism. “Sur le terrain de la musique, comme sur plusieurs autres, Humanisme et Réforme se côtoient et parfois se rencontrent” (Paul Marie Masson: “In the field of music as in a number of others, humanism and the Reformation go arm in arm and sometimes meet together”).

Although it is clear that a deep chasm lies between Calvin and the musica speculativa of the Middle Ages, the question is still open whether his views on music, contrary to those of Zwingli, could be the basis for an evangelical theology of music. We will turn to this question now. First of all, it is absolutely necessary that we concern ourselves with a third form for the coordination of music and theology that has been handed down to us by history—the first form was the Pythagorean theory; Luther’s music theology is the second form of such a coordination. The third form is characterized by the fact that it asks about the significance of music for the vita religiosa (religious life). Is music useful or a hindrance to reaching the goal of salvation? If the first is the case, how far and in what manner is it able to accompany and accelerate the way of the ordo salutis (the way of salvation)? Where it is the principal task of theology to develop the soul’s way of salvation to God, and where the service of worship in accepting neo-Platonic thoughts is understood as devotion and exaltation to God, it is easy to believe this kind of pragmatic question. Augustine, who was a modern man insofar as he combined the Pythagorean-Platonic thinking about music with a remarkable openness and sensitivity for musical sound, answered with a distinct “yes.” He did this in the sixth volume of his work De Musica, which he wrote after his baptism: The music through which God created the world can simultaneously be means of the anagoge, of spiritual growth, and of the return of the soul to God. With this the presuppositions for the development of a specific form of music, church music, are affirmed. Zwingli chose the very opposite view: Music necessarily leads the believer out of the quietness of prayer and devotion. Therefore he rejected music in every form during the service of worship, whether organ playing, choir music, liturgical music, or congregational singing. The elementary massed singing of the congregation has an outward thrust, but the service of worship aims toward contemplation and devotion. And concerning the other more artistically developed forms of music for worship, Zwingli knew only too well the alluring power that can be involved in it, because of his artistically sensitive nature. Where God’s Word should be obeyed, we cannot at the same time want to listen to the sounds of music. It is significant that Zwingli only approaches the problem of a coordination of music and theology under such a pragmatic view, although he hastens to answer it with a distinct “no”; the service of worship should not be combined with music, and music should not be combined with the service of worship. Because the service should be nothing else than service, and art should be nothing else than art, the theologian Zwingli relegated the musician Zwingli into a sphere of privacy.

But not always is music rejected as such and as a whole by the theological understanding of the unum necessarium and of the service of worship. Then tables of commandments and prohibitions are erected with clearly defined conditions to which music must comply to be allowed for the worship service. Calvin’s attitude toward music is determined by this casuistry. He begins his efforts with the observation that the congregation is largely lukewarm and not participating. Music should be used to help the situation. In order to increase the ardor of the congregation and to give their prayers urgent power, Calvin organized in Geneva an exemplary singing of the psalms. Contrary to Zwingli, Calvin is convinced that music can unleash dissolving lascivious powers. Therefore one dare not allow it to develop freely in the worship service, but must ask of it poids et majesté (power and majesty): In accordance with the cantus ecclesiasticus of the Roman Church, Calvin develops the idea of a special worship service music, of the chants ecclésiastiques, which should differ fundamentally in its style from all other music “with which one gladdens people at table and at home.” At the same time he is certain that during the worship service the Word alone and exclusively dare reign; therefore only such music is permitted during the gathering of the believers which is ready and able in a selfless way to enter into the service of the Word of God. He draws the following practical conclusions from this: (a) Instrumental music has no place in Christian worship because it belongs to the umbrae legis, the “shadow of the Law” in the Old Testament; the truth in Christ has nothing to do with the shadow (Commentary to Ps. 33:2 and Ps. 81); (b) The singing of psalms, at least during the worship service, may be done only in unison, because polyphony can endanger the single meaning of the Word of the Bible. In this limitation, however, vocal music may play an important part in the service: not only that the music by strength of its vertu secrette et quasi incrédible may kindle the heart to prayer and praise of God, but the Word of God penetrates even deeper into the heart when music is added to the Word.

According to the above delineation there can be no doubt that Calvin attributes a devotional-psychological significance to music and beyond that (when we think of his many positive remarks about secular music and the pleasure which it can give) also a general anthropological meaning. But it still remains an open question whether a real theology of music can here find a basis. Certainly Calvin can praise music as a gift of God and can state its one purpose, that it sound to the glory of God. However, it is a gift of God only in an indirect sense; in the foreground of Calvin’s view of music is the idea that it is an invention of men and that musical instruments were invented by the descendants of Cain. Moreover, along with the theological conclusion that music is a gift of God, the other conclusion is not excluded that, as an art invented and practiced by men, it has a worldly character; for the “world,” too, has been created by the hands of God and is held in His hands. In fact, is not the worldly character of music indirectly presupposed if the songs which are used during the service need to be hallowed by mélodies convenables au subject (melodies which are suitable to the subject) and by poids et majesté (power and majesty)?

In this question, however, whether music is essentially “worldly,” opinions differ. The observation is revealing that the vertu secrette of music does not hold true by Calvin, as it does by Luther, in the struggle against Satan and the shades of sadness, in the invasion of Satan’s empire, but rather in the overcoming of the lukewarmness and indifference of human nature, i.e., in its influence on the psycho-physical organism of man. In the same way, according to Calvin’s opinion, it is not possible for music by itself to lift the heart to God, but the understanding must be put to use: “Le coeur requiert l’intelligence.” One should sing not only with the heart and mouth but also with understanding. The distinguishing feature of man’s music is that man, unlike the birds, knows what he is singing. Here is the “heart,” which for Luther is the living center of faith, removed from its single central position The heart, however, is the exhaustible source of all singing and music making.

There is still another decisive argument, from which it becomes clear that, from Calvin’s view on music, no real theology of music is possible. If Martin Luther gives music the closest place next to theology, in fact, if Johann Walther, the closest musical collaborator of Luther, can describe the rootlike unity of music and theology with the picture that music is “wrapped and locked in theology,” then this is possible only because music in Luther’s opinion is understood “like word,” i.e., only from its center in Jesus Christ: “In Christ lie hidden all God’s treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:3). Because music from the beginning is coordinated with the Word of God, it can be coordinated also with theology. From this fundamental conception, Luther develops his characteristic theology of music, of course not in a closed system but in great remarks and aphorisms, which have their secret center in this fundamental conception. Now, of course, Calvin also mentions that music must be convenant à la parolle (appropriate to the word). It is revealing of his position that he makes this demand especially for the music of the worship service, and that therefore only a stylistic demand is made. In Calvin one cannot speak of a direct inner relation of music to the Word, of a “Word relation” in music, also not in simple instrumental music. To the contrary, the pictures used by Calvin for music all proceed from the presupposition of a fundamental difference between the basic word and the “dress,” the “cover,” the “vessel,” the “funnel” of the music; an agreement can be made only in the “suitability” of the garment or of the receiving vessel. For Calvin’s conception of music a direct, dangerous line leads from the ability of music to cheer men and enkindle the spirit to the promotion of disorderly conduct through music, and this line is interrupted at only one point: i.e., where music is called upon, “in the face of God and His angels,” to aim at the attitude of poids et majesté (power and majesty) and thereby to have a part in the honor of the chant ecclésiastique.

When we now try to summarize with necessary care the results of our discussion thus far, we can say the following: For Zwingli all music is worldly; but it is just in this worldliness that it has its special dignity and task beyond the sphere of worship.

Calvin can attribute a function helpful to worship in music, which in itself is secular, if with the use of chants ecclésiastiques stylistic protections are included as a safeguard against the natural, lascivious powers of music. It is from this point that Claude Goudimel in the preface to his Premier livre de Psaumes en forme de motets (1551) can argue against every kind of secular composing, although he himself in subsequent years never ceased to publish secular chansons.

For Luther all music is “spiritual” (sacred), i.e., theologically relevant. For him there is no secular music in the strict sense of the word, but at the most a degenerate music: “Music is a gift, a benefaction, of God, not a gift of man” (TR, No. 7,034). Singing “has nothing to do with the world” (TR, No. 1,300). A motet of Senfl and a sermon of Luther are both gifts of the Holy Ghost.

It cou1d mean an important confirmation of our exposition if it were possible to show how the different music conceptions of Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin each correspond to a characteristic concrete form of music making and of the music itself. For Luther music is a statement of the deeper realities, and the playing of music a banning of hidden powers; these deeper realities speak to him as movingly in the ancient church hymns as they do in the modern motets of Josquin, and a right kind of music making signifies a mobilization of the powers of music as well as of the Word of God in the struggle against the shades of sadness. For Zwingli and his cultivation of music, instrumental music is clearly in the foreground. Chamber music especially fascinated him, and he prepared the way for an early blossoming of this art form in German Reformed Switzerland. His understanding of music as pure art hangs together with his aesthetic-formal ideal of art. Music is for him a kind of game; the denial of a theological relevance to music corresponded then, as it does today, to the play theory of music (which does justice only to certain phases of music). It is along the same line when Zwingli now and again tries to bridge over to the popular music of the minstrel. Just as the minstrel in the Middle Ages was the representative of secular music and thus the opponent of the practically exclusively sacred art music, so at the same time, Zwingli confirms his confession to the worldliness of music by removing the barriers to a worldly music making of the people. As to Calvin, he apparently reckons with a music which has an eye for the inflammability of the Roman temperament and aims in this direction. The Psalms of the Geneva Reformation, when seen from the standpoint of their musical type, are closely related to the Marseillaise of the French Revolution, the gripping melody of which fascinated the people, and it is the same line which leads to the electrifying rhythm of Bizet’s “Carmen” and Ravel’s “Bolero.”

Thus there remain two forms for a theology of music: that which is not practicable for an Evangelical faith, the musica speculativa founded on the regular structures of music; and the theology of music developed by Martin Luther, which is borne by the faith that music is deeply related to the Word of God. That music comes from the auricularia, i.e., from the sphere of the miraculous audible things—like the Gospel, that it is a unique gift of God’s creation which comes to us in the same way the Word of God does, namely, mediated by the voice, that is a point at which Luther is lost in wonder again and again. Gospel and music, theology and music, point to one another: the Gospel is the high school of singing, just as music itself leads very closely to the Gospel and, in the fact, knows even more of the mystery of the Gospel than many a learned theologian. It cannot be our task to develop these outlines of a Lutheran theology of music; we must be content to have pointed out the place from which one can speak theologically about music, and for that reason to see the real, deep nature of music in its true light.

Berlin, Germany

From The Musical Heritage of the Church, Volume VI (St. Louis, Mo.: Concordia Publishing House, 1963). Copyright Concordia Publishing House. Printed by permission. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Concordia Publishing House.