The Formula Missae of 1523 was only a provisional office, and may be called an expurgated edition of the Catholic Mass. It is in Latin, and follows the order of the Roman liturgy with certain omissions, viz., all the preliminary action at the altar as far as the Introit, the Offertory, the Oblation and accompanying prayers as far as the Preface, the Consecration, the Commemoration of the Dead, and everything following the Agnus Dei except the prayer of thanksgiving and benediction. That is to say, everything is removed which characterizes the Mass as a priestly, sacrificial act, or which recognizes the intercessory office of the saints. The musical factors correspond to the usage in the Catholic Mass; Luther’s hymns with accompanying melodies were not yet prepared, and no trace of the Protestant choral appears in the Formula Missae.
Although this order of 1523 was conceived only as a partial or temporary expedient, it was by no means set entirely aside by its author, even after the composition of a form more adapted to the needs of the people. In [247] the preface to the Deutsche Messe of 1526, Luther cites the Latin Formula Missae as possessing a special value. “This I will not abandon or have altered; but as we have kept it with us heretofore, so must we still be free to use the same where and when it pleases us or occasion requires. I will by no means permit the Latin speech to be dropped out of divine worship, since it is important for the youth. And if I were able, and the Greek and Hebrew languages were as common with us as the Latin, and had as much music and song as the Latin has, we should hold Masses, sing and read every Sunday in all four languages, German, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew.” It is important, he goes on to say, that the youth should be familiar with more languages than their own, in order that they may be able to give instruction in the true doctrine to those not of their own nation, Latin especially approving itself for this purpose as the common dialect of cultivated men.
The Deutsche Messe of 1526, Luther explains, was drawn up for the use of the mass of the people, who needed a medium of worship and instruction which was already familiar and native to them. This form is a still further simplification, as compared with the Formula Missae, and consists almost entirely of offices in the German tongue. Congregational chorals also have a prominent place, since the publication of collections of vernacular religious songs had begun two years before. This liturgy consists of (1) a people’s hymn or a German psalm, (2) Kyrie eleison, (3) Collect, (4) the Epistle, (5) congregational hymn, (6) the Gospel, (7) the German paraphrase of the Creed, “Wie glauben all’ [248] an einen Gott,” sung by the people; next follows the sermon; (8) the Lord’s Prayer and exhortation preliminary to the Sacrament, (9) the words of institution and elevation, (10) distribution of the bread, (11) singing of the German Sanctus or the hymn “Jesus Christus unser Heiland,” (12) distribution of the wine, (13) Agnus Dei, a German hymn, or the German Sanctus, (14) Collect of thanksgiving, (15) Benediction.
It was far from Luther’s purpose to impose these or any particular forms of worship upon his followers through a personal assumption of authority. He reiterates, in his preface to the Deutsche Messe, that he has no thought of assuming any right of dictation in the matter, emphasizing his desire that the churches should enjoy entire freedom in their forms and manner of worship. At the same time he realizes the benefits of uniformity as creating a sense of unity and solidarity in faith, practice, and interests among the various districts, cities, and congregations, and offers these two forms as in his opinion conservative and efficient. He warns his people against the injury that may result from the multiplication of liturgies at the instigation of indiscreet or vain leaders, who have in view the perpetuation of certain notions of their own, rather than the honor of God and the spiritual welfare of their neighbors.
In connection with this work of reconstructing the ancient liturgy for use in the Wittenberg churches, Luther turned his attention to the need of suitable hymns and tunes. He took up this work not only out of his love of song, but also from necessity. He wrote [249] to Nicholas Haussmann, pastor at Zwickau: “I would that we had many German songs which the people could sing during the Mass. But we lack German poets and musicians, or they are unknown to us, who are able to make Christian and spiritual songs, as Paul calls them, which are of such value that they can be used daily in the house of God. One can find but few that have the appropriate spirit.” The reason for this complaint was short-lived; a crowd of hymnists sprang up as if by magic, and among them Luther was, as in all things, chief. His work as a hymn writer began soon after the completion of his translation of the New Testament, while he was engaged in translating the psalms. Then, as Koch says, “the spirit of the psalmists and prophets came over him.” Several allusions in his letters show that he took the psalms as his model; that is to say, he did not think of a hymn as designed for the teaching of dogma, but as the sincere, spontaneous outburst of love and reverence to God for his goodness.
The first hymn-book of evangelical Germany was published in 1524 by Luther’s friend and coadjutor, Johann Walther. It contained four hymns by Luther, three by Paul Speratus, and one by an unknown author. Another book appeared in the same year containing fourteen more hymns by Luther, in addition to the eight of the first book. Six more from Luther’s pen appeared in a song-book edited by Walther in 1525. The remaining hymns of Luther (twelve in number) were printed in five song-books of different dates, ending with Klug’s in 1643. Four hymn-books contain prefaces by Luther, [250] the first written for Walther’s book of 1525, and the last for one published by Papst in 1545. Luther’s example was contagious. Other hymn writers at once sprang up, who were filled with Luther’s spirit, and who took his songs as models. Printing presses were kept busy, song-books were multiplied, until at the time of Luther’s death no less than sixty collections, counting the various editions, had been issued. There was reason for the sneering remark of a Catholic that the people were singing themselves into the Lutheran doctrine. The principles of worship promulgated by Luther and implied in his liturgic arrangements were adopted by all the Protestant communities; whatever variations there might be in the external forms of worship, in all of them the congregational hymn held a prominent place, and it is to be noticed that almost without exception the chief hymn writers of the Lutheran time were theologians and preachers.
Luther certainly wrote thirty-six hymns. A few others have been ascribed to him without conclusive evidence. By far the greater part of these thirty-six are not entirely original. Many of them are translations or adaptations of psalms, some of which are nearly literal transfers. Other selections from Scripture were used in a similar way, among which are the Ten Commandments, the Ter Sanctus, the song of Simeon, and the Lord’s Prayer. Similar use, viz., close translation or free paraphrase, was made of certain Latin hymns by Ambrose, Gregory, Hus, and others, and also of certain religious folk-songs of the pre-Reformation period. Five hymns only are completely original, not drawn in any way from [251] older compositions. Besides these five many of the transcriptions of psalms and older hymns owe but little to their models. The chief of these, and the most celebrated of all Luther’s hymns, “Ein’ feste Burg,” was suggested by the forty-sixth Psalm, but nothing could be more original in spirit and phraseology, more completely characteristic of the great reformer. The beautiful poems, “Aus tiefer Noth” (Ps. cxxx.), and “Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh’ darein” (Ps. xii.), are less bold paraphrases, but still Luther’s own in the sense that their expression is a natural outgrowth of the more tender and humble side of his nature.
No other poems of their class by any single man have ever exerted so great an influence, or have received so great admiration, as these few short lyrics of Martin Luther. And yet at the first reading it is not easy to understand the reason for their celebrity. As poetry they disappoint us; there is no artfully modulated diction, no subtle and far-reaching imagination. Neither do they seem to chime with our devotional needs; there is a jarring note of fanaticism in them. We even find expressions that give positive offence, as when he speaks of the “Lamb roasted in hot love upon the cross.” We say that they are not universal, that they seem the outcome of a temper that belongs to an exceptional condition. This is really the fact; here is the clue to their proper study. They do belong to a time, and not to all time. We must consider that they are the utterance of a mind engaged in conflict, and often tormented with doubt of the outcome. They reveal the motive of the great pivotal figure in modern religious history. More than that—they [252] have behind them the great impelling force of the Reformation. Perhaps the world has shown a correct instinct in fixing upon “Ein’ feste Burg” as the typical hymn of Luther and of the Reformation. Heine, who called it “the Marseillaise of the Reformation;” Frederick the Great, who called its melody (not without reverence) “God Almighty’s grenadier march;” Mendelssohn and Meyerbeer, who chose the same tune to symbolize aggressive Protestantism; and Wagner, who wove its strains into the grand march which celebrates the military triumphs of united Germany,—all these men had an accurate feeling for the patriotic and moral fire which burns in this mighty song. The same spirit is found in other of Luther’s hymns, but often combined with a tenderer music, in which emphasis is laid more upon the inward peace that comes from trust in God, than upon the fact of outward conflict. A still more exalted mood is disclosed in such hymns as “Nun freut euch, lieben Christen g’mein,” and “Von Himmel hoch da komm ich her”—the latter a Christmas song said to have been written for his little son Hans. The first of these is notable for the directness with which it sets forth the Lutheran doctrine of justification by faith alone. It is in this same directness and homely vigor and adaptation to the pressing needs of the time that we must find the cause of the popular success of Luther’s hymns. He knew what the dumb, blindly yearning German people had been groping for during so many years, and the power of his sermons and poems lay in the fact that they offered a welcome spiritual gift in phrases that went straight to the popular heart. His speech was that of the [253] people—idiomatic, nervous, and penetrating. He had learned how to talk to them in his early peasant home, and in his study of the folk-songs. Coarse, almost brutal at times, we may call him, as in his controversies with Henry VIII., Erasmus, and others; but it was the coarseness of a rugged nature, of a son of the soil, a man tremendously in earnest, blending religious zeal with patriotism, never doubting that the enemies of his faith were confederates of the devil, who was as real to him as Duke George or Dr. Eck. No English translation can quite do justice to the homely vigor of his verse. Carlyle has succeeded as well as possible in his translation of “Ein’ feste Burg,” but even this masterly achievement does not quite reproduce the jolting abruptness of the metre, the swing and fire of the movement. The greater number of Luther’s hymns are set to a less strident pitch, but all alike speak a language which reveals in every line the ominous spiritual tension of this historic moment.
In philological history these hymns have a significance equal to that of Luther’s translation of the Bible, in which scholars agree in finding the virtual creation of the modern German language. And the elements that should give new life to the national speech were to be found among the commonalty. “No one before Luther,” says Bayard Taylor, “saw that the German tongue must be sought for in the mouths of the people—that the exhausted expression of the earlier ages could not be revived, but that the newer, fuller, and richer speech, then in its childhood, must at once be acknowledged and adopted. With all his [254] scholarship Luther dropped the theological style, and sought among the people for phrases as artless and simple as those of the Hebrew writers.” “The influence of Luther on German literature cannot be explained until we have seen how sound and vigorous and many-sided was the new spirit which he infused into the language.”[70] All this will apply to the hymns as well as to the Bible translation. Here was one great element in the popular effect which these hymns produced. Their simple, home-bred, domestic form of expression caught the public ear in an instant. Those who have at all studied the history of popular eloquence in prose and verse are aware of the electrical effect that may be produced when ideas of pith and moment are sent home to the masses in forms of speech that are their own. Luther’s hymns may not be poetry in the high sense; but they are certainly eloquence, they are popular oratory in verse, put into the mouths of the people by one of their own number.
In spite of the fact that these songs were the natural outcome of a period of spiritual and political conflict, and give evidence of this fact in almost every instance, yet they are less dogmatic and controversial than might be expected, for Luther, bitter and intolerant as he often was, understood the requirements of church song well enough to know that theological and political polemic should be kept out of it. Nevertheless these hymns are a powerful witness to the great truths which were the corner-stone of the doctrines of the reformed church. They constantly emphasize the principle that [255] salvation comes not through works or sacraments or any human mediation, but only through the merits of Christ and faith in his atoning blood. The whole machinery of mariolatry, hagiolatry, priestly absolution, and personal merit, which had so long stood between the individual soul and Christ, was broken down. Christ is no longer a stern, hardly appeasable Judge, but a loving Saviour, yearning over mankind, stretching out hands of invitation, asking, not a slavish submission to formal observances, but a free, spontaneous offering of the heart. This was the message that thrilled Germany. And it was through the hymns of Luther and those modelled upon them that the new evangel was most widely and quickly disseminated. The friends as well as the enemies of the Reformation asserted that the spread of the new doctrines was due more to Luther’s hymns than to his sermons. The editor of a German hymn-book published in 1565 says: “I do not doubt that through that one song of Luther, ‘Nun freut euch, lieben Christen g’mein,’ many hundred Christians have been brought to the faith who otherwise would not have heard of Luther.” An indignant Jesuit declared that “Luther’s songs have damned more souls than all his books and speeches.” We read marvellous stories of the effect of these hymns; of Lutheran missionaries entering Catholic churches during service and drawing away the whole congregation by their singing; of wandering evangelists standing at street corners and in the market places, singing to excited crowds, then distributing the hymns upon leaflets so that the populace might join in the [256] paean, and so winning entire cities to the new faith almost in a day. This is easily to be believed when we consider that the progress of events and the drift of ideas for a century and more had been preparing the German mind for Luther’s message; that as a people the Germans are extremely susceptible to the enthusiasms that utter themselves in song; and that these hymns carried the truths for which their souls had been thirsting, in language of extraordinary force, clothed in melodies which they had long known and loved.