The Only Songs Worthy of God Are Received From Him (Continued)

Sometimes it is suggested that Calvin, after all, did not think that inspiration was necessary in worship song, because it has been claimed that Calvin was the author of the non-canonical hymn "Salutation à Jésus Christ,"(178) which appeared in the Strasbourg psalters of 1545 and 1553, though without an attribution.(179) In 1867 the editors of the Calvini Opera included the hymn in their collection.(180) Two years later, Philip Schaff, promoting a liturgical expansion in the Reformed church, ascribed the piece to Calvin when he placed a translation of it in a hymnal he edited.(181) However, there is no evidence that Calvin was the author of the hymn, and the historians of the Geneva Psalter have been skeptical of these claims. Orentin Douen observed: "This item is not at all, one sees, a translation of the Bible, but a free composition which does not fit Calvin's manner, and of which Garnier is perhaps the author."(182) Pierre Pidoux, who has compiled an exhaustive collection of documents, texts and tunes pertaining to the history of the Geneva Psalter, lists the authorship of the hymn as "unknown," and comments: "Attributed to Calvin by the editors of the Calvini Opera, and to Jean Garnier by Douen. The first attribution is very improbable for reasons of style; the second is hypothetical."(183)

Pidoux notes that the hymn was reportedly in the 1545 Strasbourg psalter, was left out of the Strasbourg psalter of 1548, and appears a second time in the Strasbourg psalter of 1553.(184) The one Strasbourg psalter in which Calvin had a hand was that of 1539, for which he supplied metrical versions of several Psalms. Calvin left Strasbourg on September 2, 1541(185) and arrived back in Geneva on September 13,(186) four years before the hymn was first published. The hymn never appears in the Genevan psalters, or in any psalter on which Calvin worked.

The most likely supposition respecting the authorship of the "Salutation à Jésus Christ" is that it was produced by the man who bore primary responsibility for the only two psalters in which it was included. The editors of the Calvini Opera, and the historian François Ritter, judged that the 1545 Strasbourg psalter was published at the initiative of Jean Garnier, who came to Strasbourg on June 22, 1545 and was pastor of the French congregation in that city until 1555.(187) This involvement leads Pidoux to suggest that Garnier might be the author of the hymn.(188) Douen agrees that the 1545 Strasbourg psalter "was undoubtedly published by Jean Garnier," a scholar esteemed by Bucer, Bullinger, Calvin and Farel,(189) and notes that the 1553 Strasbourg psalter (in which the hymn appears again) was also the work of Garnier, who revised the psalter's translation and prepared the preface.(190) The title-page of the 1553 Strasbourg psalter bears the device of Garnier.(191)

Pidoux notes that the Strasbourg tradition of psalters maintained an independence from the emerging hegemony of the Genevan tradition. That independence is illustrated by the borrowing in the Strasbourg psalters from the Lutheran liturgy of the German-language churches in the city.(192) For example, the 1548 and 1553 Strasbourg psalters contain the Te Deum and the 1548 edition has the Veni Creator Spiritus.(193) It is therefore not surprising that the non-canonical hymn "Salutation à Jésus Christ" found a place in two Strasbourg psalters, while it is absent from the psalters produced in Geneva. Similarly, Douen observed that the retention of the Kyrie eleison at the end of the metrical version of the ten commandments in the Strasbourg psalters is a vestige of Lutheran influence in the Strasbourg tradition.(194) Robin A. Leaver notes: "From 1539 the French congregations in Strasbourg used Calvin's metrical version of the commandments, which owes much to Luther's version 'Dies sind die heil'gen zehn gebot,' which the German congregation in Strasbourg had been singing since 1525. Both Luther and Calvin end each stanza with 'Kyrieleison'."(195) While the church of Geneva retained the singing of the ten commandments (a practice which Calvin derived from Bucer's liturgy at Strasbourg), the Genevan psalter of 1542 suppressed the Kyrie eleison at the end of the ten commandments.(196)

Noting Calvin's statement in 1543, that "when we have looked thoroughly everywhere and searched high and low, we shall find no better songs nor more appropriate to the purpose than the Psalms of David which the Holy Spirit made and spoke through him,"(197) Garside remarks that "the phrase may perhaps be autobiographical. While at Strasbourg, Calvin was exposed to the wide variety of texts used in the liturgy there, and after three years of testing, as it were, the efficacy of both non-Scriptural sacred and spiritual songs and vernacular versions of the psalms, he was confirmed in his decision, reached in 1537, to restrict his congregational psalmody to the latter."(198) Pidoux writes: "The Psalter of Geneva contains only versifications that remain faithful to the biblical prose text. We do not find in them commentaries, paraphrases, nor meditations inspired by a certain passage. Neither do we find attempts to actualize them, as can be found in German hymns of the same period. In the Psalter, that strove for the greatest possible faithfulness to 'Hebraic truth', such elements would create the impression of pure human additions, which would open the door to dangerous inventions."(199)

Moreover, it is difficult to reconcile authorship of a hymn with Calvin's subsequent statement that, with the exception of a Latin poem whose text is identified, he had not composed lyrics. In a letter to Conrad Hubert, on May 19, 1557, Calvin wrote: "By nature I was inclined to poetry, but I have bid it farewell, and for twenty-five years I have composed nothing, except at Worms, following the example of Philipp and Sturm, I was lead to write for diversion that poem that you read."(200) The poem to which Calvin refers is his "Epinicion Christo Cantatum," a Latin polemic against the papacy, written at Worms in January 1541 and published at Geneva in 1544.(201) From the period of his conversion, Calvin tells us, he had laid aside composition in verse, apart from a single piece which is manifestly not intended for congregational singing.

There can be little doubt about what was actually sung in the Genevan church. The Genevan psalter of 1549 introduced a "Table for finding the Psalms, according to the order in which they are sung in the church of Geneva," assigning Psalms or portions of Psalms to be used in the Sunday morning and afternoon services, and in the Wednesday service. On the days the Lord's Supper was observed, the song of Simeon from Luke 2 was sung, and the Ten Commandments from Exodus 20.(202) The epistle to the readers in the 1553 psalter is accompanied by an expanded table: "Considering that Wednesday is appointed for solemn prayers, we have selected from the Psalms, for singing on that day, those which contain more explicit prayers and requests addressed to God, and have reserved for Sunday those which contain thanksgiving and the praise of the Lord our God and of his works, as shown in the following table."(203) By following the final form of this table as found in the 1562 edition and all later editions, the church, over the course of six months, sang through the complete Psalter in the three weekly services.(204) Pidoux notes that "The minister had to keep this schedule,"(205) and Blankenburg says that "This order was so binding that the division, for service use, of most psalms into two or more sections is marked by the word 'Pause' (intermission) or by asterisks or other signs in countless editions of the Genevan Psalter up to the 19th century."(206) While the Strasbourg psalter of 1539 and the Geneva Psalter included the Apostles Creed, it should be remembered that it was widely believed at the time that the Creed was composed by the apostles themselves. It is also noteworthy that from 1562, when the Geneva Psalter was expanded to include all the one hundred fifty Psalms, most editions ceased to supply accompanying melodies for the text of the Lord's Prayer, the Apostles Creed, and Clément Marot's prayers for before and after a meal, and none of these texts ever appear on the tables of songs used in the Genevan church.(207)

Moreover, for some time after Calvin's death in 1564, the church at Geneva persisted in singing only texts of divine inspiration. Peter Lillback states that "the Huguenot Synod of Montpellier (1598) authorized the singing of some of the hymns composed by Beza."(208) However, Beza's sixteen songs authorized by the French Reformed Church in 1598 were in fact all metrical versions of Scripture texts. They were published in 1595 as "Sacred Songs gathered from the Old as well as the New Testament."(209) The collection consisted of versifications of Deut. 26:3, "a song of Moses" in Exodus 15, "another song of Moses" in Deuteronomy 32, Judges 5, "the song of Hannah" in Samuel 2, "the lamentation of David" in II Sam. 2:19, "a song of David," "a song of David" from II Samuel 23, "the song of Isaiah" from Isaiah 5, "a song of Isaiah" from Isaiah 12, "a song of Isaiah" from Isaiah 26, "the song of King Hezekiah" from Isa. 38:10, "the song of Jonah" from Jon. 2:3, "the song of Habakkuk" from Habakkuk 3, "the song of the blessed virgin Mary" from Luke 1:46, and "the song of Zacharias" from Luke 1:68.(210)

Pidoux notes that on June 15, 1594 the national synod of Montauban took the following action: "Monsieur Beza will be requested, in the name of the assembly, to put into French verse the songs of the Bible, to be sung in the church with the Psalms." Care was evidently taken with respect to the introduction of new materials into worship, for the national synod of Saumur on May 13, 1596 remitted to the next synod to resolve whether these canticles newly versified by Beza should be introduced into the church.(211) The national synod at Montpellier declared on May 26, 1598 that there would not be any change in the liturgy of the churches, neither in the singing of Psalms, nor in the catechetical formulas; "the songs of the Bible" which had been versified by Beza at the request of many synods might be sung in families, to train the people, and to prepare for the public use of these songs in the churches, but this arrangement would continue only until the next national synod.(212)

In sum, in the words of the 1543 epistle which continued to be published in successive reissues of the Geneva Psalter,(213) Calvin urged that the appropriate text for worship song is the Word of God: "Now what Saint Augustine says is true, that no one is able to sing things worthy of God unless he has received them from Him. Wherefore, when we have looked thoroughly everywhere and searched high and low, we shall find no better songs nor more appropriate to the purpose than the Psalms of David which the Holy Spirit made and spoke through him. And furthermore, 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."(214)

Notes
(178) John T. McNeill, The History and Character of Calvinism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1954), p. 148, calls the hymn Calvin's "best poem," but provides no justification for attributing it to Calvin, and erroneously asserts that the hymn originally appeared in a Genevan psalter. McNeill's assertions are repeated by Peter A. Lillback, "Introduction," in Our Songs in God's Worship (Philadelphia: Committee on Christian Education of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, n.d.), p. 2. A translation of a portion of the hymn appears as number 135 in the Trinity Hymnal (1961).
(179) Pierre Pidoux, Le Psautier Huguenot Du XVIe Siècle: Melodies et Documents, v. 1: Les Mélodies (Basel: Bärenreiter, 1962), p. 150.
(180) Calvini Opera 6:223.
(181) Philip Schaff, Christ in Song: Hymns of Immanuel Selected From All Ages, With Notes (New York: Anson D. F. Randolph and Company, 1869), 678-80. Cf. Armin Haeussler, The Story of Our Hymns: The Handbook To the Hymnal Of the Evangelical and Reformed Church (St. Louis: Eden Publishing House, 1952), pp. 306-09.
(182) Douen, Clément Marot et Le Psautier Huguenot, 1:452.
(183) Pidoux, Le Psautier Huguenot Du XVIe Siècle, 1:150.
(184) Ibid.
(185) Douen, Clément Marot et Le Psautier Huguenot, 2:649.
(186) Garside, Origins of Calvin's Theology of Music, p. 16.
(187) Calvini Opera 6:xvi; François Ritter, Histoire de L'Imprimerie Alsacienne aux XVe et XVIe Siècle
(Strasbourg: F.-X. Le Roux, 1955), p. 577.
(188) Pierre Pidoux, Le Psautier Huguenot Du XVIe Siècle: Melodies et Documents, v. 2: Documents et Bibliographie (Basel: Bärenreiter, 1962), p. 30.
(189) Douen, Clément Marot et Le Psautier Huguenot, 1:451; cf. 2:650.
(190) Ibid., 1:557.
(191) Pidoux, Le Psautier Huguenot Du XVIe Siècle, 2:65.
(192) Ibid., 1:vi-vii.
(193) Ibid., 1:209-10.
(194) Douen, Clément Marot et Le Psautier Huguenot, 1:350.
(195) Robin A. Leaver, The Liturgy and Music: A Study of the Use of the Hymn in Two Liturgical Traditions (Bramcote, England: Grove Books, 1976), p. 11.
(196) Douen, Clément Marot et Le Psautier Huguenot, 1:314; cf. p. 271.
(197) Garside, Origins of Calvin's Theology of Music, p. 33; Calvini Opera 6:171-72.
(198) Garside, Origins of Calvin's Theology of Music, pp. 23-24, n. 134.
(199) Pierre Pidoux, "The History of the Origin of the Genevan Psalter I," Reformed Music Journal 1(1989): 4.
(200) Calvini Opera 16, no. 2632, col. 488: Ad poeticen natura satis eram propensus: sed ea valere iussa, ab annis viginti quinque nihil composui, nisi quod Wormaciae exemplo Philippi et Sturmii adductus sum, ut carmen illud quod legisti per lusum scriberem.
(201) Calvini Opera 5:417-28. For the identity of the poem to which Calvin refers in the letter to Hubert, cf. 16:488, n. 6; Émile Doumergue, Jean Calvin: Les hommes et les choses de son temps (Lausanne: Georges Bridel and Company, 1899-1927), vol. 2, app. 6: "Calvin Poete," pp. 742-43; Garside, Origins of Calvin's Theology of Music, p. 5, n. 7.
(202) Pidoux, Le Psautier Huguenot Du XVIe Siècle, 2:44.
(203) Ibid., 2:61-62.
(204) Ibid., 2:135.
(205) Pierre Pidoux, "The History of the Origin of the Genevan Psalter II," Reformed Music Journal 1(1989): 32.
(206) Blankenburg, "Church Music in Reformed Europe," p. 531.
(207) Pidoux, Le Psautier Huguenot Du XVIe Siècle, 2:134; cf. 1:144.
(208) Lillback, "Introduction," p. 2.
(209) Les Saincts Cantiques Recueillis tant du Vieil que du Nouueau Testament, Mis en Rime Françoise par Theodore de Besze; Pidoux, Le Psautier Huguenot Du XVIe Siècle, 2:167.
(210) Pidoux, Le Psautier Huguenot Du XVIe Siècle, 1:225-31.
(211) Ibid., 2:167.
(212) Ibid., 2:169.
(213) Pidoux, "History of the Origin of the Genevan Psalter II," p. 32.
(214) Garside, Origins of Calvin's Theology of Music, p. 33; Calvini Opera 6:169-72.