Martin Luther

The Font as a Place for Burial, Birth, and Bath

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The sacrament of Christian baptism presents a variety of symbolic meanings. In one ritual act, the new Christian is buried with Christ in his death, is birthed to a new life with Christ, and is washed of sin and impurity. This article explains the relationship of these meanings and their implications for the design of baptismal fonts and the practice of baptism today.

Water creates and destroys, brings to life, and drowns. Without water people and animals and plants wither and die. Water extinguishes fires; it cleanses and refreshes. God created water for life and death and bathing. It is God’s instrument for salvation and destruction. As the waters of the flood brought death, so the waters of the Exodus—“swept by a strong east wind”—brought life.

Christian baptism is also water for life and death and bathing. Wherever abundant water flows, there is a setting for baptism: Jesus was baptized in the Jordan River (Mark 3:9–11), and Paul baptized Lydia in a river near Philippi (Acts 16:13–15). Rivers, lakes, and the sea continued to be the usual sites for baptism for two or three centuries. In the second century, however, because Christians were still under persecution, baptism may sometimes have occurred in the bathing rooms and courtyard fountains of private homes and in small public baths.

Early Baptisteries

In the third and fourth centuries, particularly after the emperor Constantine ended the persecutions in 313, special places for baptism were constructed or adapted. Baptisteries were buildings, or sometimes separate areas within buildings, which contained baptismal pools known as fonts. At that period in church history, adult baptism was the norm, and baptism generally occurred during the Easter vigil. To accommodate all the candidates for baptism and to provide privacy, the baptisteries in the West were usually detached or only loosely attached to churches.

Examples of such early baptisteries still exist in Italy in such places as Ravenna, Grado, Lomello, and Rome (San Giovanni in Laterano) and in Fréjus, France. In addition, excavations have revealed other important paleo-Christian baptisteries in Italy: San Tecla in Milan (the Ambrosian baptistery), Castel Seprio, Torcello, Concordia Sagitarria, Aquileia, and San Marcello in Rome. The form of these early baptisteries and their fonts varied by geographic area and related to the architectural origin, the sacramental mode, and the theological meaning of baptism.

The baptisteries seem to have at least two architectural antecedents. First, they have been influenced architecturally by martyria and mausolea, which were often quadrilateral, circular or octagonal. The fourth-century baptistery of San Giovanni alle Fonti at San Tecla in Milan, for example, was modeled after Maximian’s mausoleum at San Vittore. Moreover, its plan bears a striking resemblance to the extant chapel of San Aquilino, attached to San Lorenzo in Milan, which was originally built as a mausoleum and was also modeled after the San Vittore mausoleum. Also remarkable is the eleventh-century trefoil baptistery at Concordia Sagittaria, Italy, which exactly reproduced the nearby fourth-century trefoil martyrium; the martyrium itself, in fact, may have been transformed into a baptistery for a period of time.

A second architectural antecedent of baptisteries seems to have been the frigidarium, the cold section of Roman baths which was usually octagonal, circular, or quadrilateral. The baptistery of San Giovanni in Laterano in Rome is one example of a baptistery built over a preexistent bath. In the Constantinian era, its plan was very similar to two frigidaria in Pompeii.

Interpreting the Font

Fonts, more than the baptisteries in which they were located, deserve our particular attention since it now appears that separate or detached baptisteries would contradict an emerging ecumenical consensus regarding baptismal theology and practice. According to this consensus, baptism is a part of corporate worship, to be celebrated in the congregation’s presence and with their involvement.

The oldest font known to us dates from the early third century. Found in a house church in Dura-Europos (in what is now Syria), this font had the rectangular shape of a coffin. In Italy from the fourth century on, hexagonal and octagonal fonts became common. Round fonts were also found in many areas in the early church including the earliest font at the Lateral baptistery in Rome. Cruciform fonts (square, like the Greek cross) existed in Greece, Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt.

The shapes of fonts have been interpreted according to differing theological emphases, especially burial, birth, and bathing. Paul stressed the paschal nature of baptism in his letter to the Romans:

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. (Rom. 6:3–4, RSV)

This paschal motif was central in the baptismal theology of Ambrose, Cyril of Jerusalem, John Chrysostom, and Theodore of Mopsuestia (Hugh M. Riley, Christian Initiation: A Comparative Study of the Interpretation of the Baptismal Liturgy in the Mystagogical Writings of Cyril of Jerusalem, John Chrysostom, Theodore of Mopsuestia, and Ambrose of Milan [Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1974]), and it is a common theme in patristic writings about baptismal fonts. In the late third century, Origen referred to the font as a sepulcher (In Romanos 5:8). A century later Chrysostom wrote that “it is as in a tomb that we immerse our heads in the water” (In Joannem 25:2) Ambrose of Milan, also in the late fourth century, described the font as being like a grave and a tomb (De sacramentis 2:20 and 3:1).

It is not surprising that baptism was usually celebrated at the Easter vigil, or that many early fonts were interpreted as symbolizing this understanding of baptism as death and resurrection with Christ. Octagonal fonts, which probably originated in the Ambrosian baptistery in Milan and can still be seen in excavations there, symbolized the eighth day, the day of resurrection, the eschatological dawning of the new age. The fifth-century Lateran font, which can no longer be seen, was also octagonal.

Hexagonal fonts suggested the sixth day as the day of Christ’s death. Such paschal symbolism was particularly powerful when a hexagonal font was in an octagonal baptistery—an arrangement which can still be seen in Italy in Aquileia, Grado, and Lomello—because when the candidate for baptism “entered the hexagonal font, he knew he was to die with Christ, but as he left the font and stood once more in the eight-sided room he also knew that he was to walk in newness of life” (J. G. Davies, The Architectural Setting of Baptism [London: Barrier and Rockliff, 1962], 21). Another shape, the cruciform font, symbolized the victory of Christ’s resurrection.

A second major theological emphasis connects baptism with birth as in this text from the fourth gospel: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” (John 3:3–5; RSV)

Theologically, the font was seen as a womb or a mother. Clement of Alexandria wrote in the early third century that God “begot us from the womb of the water” (Stromata 4:25). Almost two centuries later, Augustine described the font as “the womb of the church” (Sermones 56, De oratione dominica ad competentes). The fifth-century Latin inscription which can still be seen on the architraves in the Lateral baptistery includes many phrases interpreting baptism as birth. Leo the Great, who may have composed the Lateral inscription, also preached about the parallelism between baptismal water and the womb. Round fonts have also been interpreted as suggesting this birth imagery.

A third theological understanding is of baptism as a bath for cleansing us from sin. Paul wrote to the Corinthians: “You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:11; rsv). In the second century, Justin Martyr described baptism as a washing. In the next century, Cyprian of Carthage wrote frequently of baptism as washing and cleansing. It is interesting that some early baptisteries were located near or constructed over Roman baths; whether this was done for symbolic reasons or simply to connect Christians to a source of water is a matter of debate.

Despite their varying shapes, early fonts—literally pools—were always large and held abundant water. The Lateran baptismal pool was twenty-eight feet in diameter—easily accommodating the two most common modes of baptism. Immersion involved dipping the candidate’s head in the water; affusion involved pouring the water over the candidate’s head. In both cases, however, the candidates were standing in the water when they were baptized. Affusion, as well as immersion, suggested burial; water was poured over the candidate just as the earth was cast on a corpse. Submersion (completely plunging the candidate underwater) does not seem to have been practiced in most places in the early church because the fonts were relatively shallow.

From the sixth to the eighth centuries, adult baptisms declined in number—probably due to the high infant mortality rate and parental fears resulting from Augustine’s doctrine of original sin. When fonts no longer needed to be large enough for the immersion of adults or to be located in detached baptisteries to ensure privacy, they were placed inside churches, usually near the main entrance. They were still relatively large—to accommodate the immersion of infants—and traditional in shape, either octagonal (suggesting resurrection), hexagonal (death with Christ), rectangular (tomb), or round (birth).

The Loss of Primary Symbols

From the Middle Ages until the present time, baptismal space has deteriorated both functionally and symbolically. As affusion (pouring) and aspersion (sprinkling) became widespread, the fonts became smaller and smaller. What was originally a river and then a pool eventually became a shallow “birdbath” and finally a small bowl. In addition, in the thirteenth century, when people began stealing the consecrated water in the font to use for witchcraft, locked covers were placed over the fonts. The covers soon became elaborate and decorative, and eventually the covers—not the water itself—became the primary visual symbol, until it was no longer possible to interpret the font with its water as either womb or tomb or even as a bathtub.

As a result, today’s popular understanding of baptism is often trivial. Baptism is seen as a nice little ceremony, rather than as a consequential event of death and life. Few of us perceive baptism as the profound event that Cyril of Jerusalem described in a sermon to newly-baptized Christians in the fourth century: “You died and were born at the same time. The water of salvation became for you both a tomb and a mother” (Mystagogical Catecheses 2:4). Indeed, so little water is commonly used for baptism today that even the washing or cleansing motif is impossible to perceive.

Baptismal Space Today

The trivialization of fonts through the centuries resulted largely from deteriorating baptismal practices. Now, these practices are changing for the better. New and revised baptismal rites across the ecumenical spectrum have attempted to let the rite itself—its texts and actions and setting—demonstrate its profound meanings. Because we learn the meaning of the sacraments from what we do and what we see, the poor baptismal practices of centuries have taught us a poor baptismal theology.

One of the most important changes in baptismal practice today is the growing ecumenical awareness of the sign value of water, and thus the use of more abundant water in the rite. The Roman Catholic Bishops’ Committee on the Liturgy has written: “To speak of symbols and of sacramental signification is to indicate that immersion is the fuller and more appropriate symbolic action in baptism” (Environment and Art in Catholic Worship [Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1978], 39). The remarkable ecumenical document, Baptism, Eucharist, and Ministry, agrees: In the celebration of baptism the symbolic dimension of water should be taken seriously and not minimalized. The act of immersion can vividly express the reality that in baptism the Christian participates in the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. (Faith and Order Paper 111:Baptism V 18 [Geneva: World Council of Churches])

Four centuries ago, in 1519, Martin Luther also affirmed the practice of immersion. He wrote that it is demanded by the significance of baptism itself. For baptism … signifies that the old man and the sinful birth of flesh and blood are to be wholly drowned by the grace of God. We should therefore do justice to its meaning and make baptism a true and complete sign of the thing it signifies. (“The Holy and Blessed Sacrament of Baptism,” Luther’s Works, ed. E. Theodore Bachman, vol. 35 [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1960], 29)

Immersion and even affusion—if the pouring is done with an abundant amount of water—more fully convey the meaning of baptism than mere sprinkling. The point is not how much water is necessary for baptism to be efficacious, but rather how much water it takes for us to realize the radical nature of baptism. A few drops cannot communicate the rich biblical meanings of baptism.

Renewing Our Baptismal Spaces

Baptismal space in a church building will encourage or inhibit a congregation’s development of mature baptismal practices and understandings. An insignificant font kept in a corner for occasional use does not signify the permanent baptismal foundation for the Christian life. A font in any location, if it holds only a minimal amount of water, does not teach us to understand baptism as burial or birth or bath. A small bowl of water placed on the altar for baptism does not reflect the centrality of baptism in the life of the church.

Form follows function and meaning. If baptismal practices are to be renewed to make clear the meaning of baptism, then our baptismal spaces must also be renewed to enable those practices and that meaning. Water is the central symbol of baptism:

All the things suggested by water—washing, life sustenance, refreshment, drowning, birth, creation, flood, Exodus, Jordan—support and enrich the proclamation of incorporation. The first five of these meanings connect with people’s experience of water outside of liturgy, and they communicate in a supraconceptual way. For example, one cannot really explain the refreshment a shower brings after a strenuous game. The latter four meanings are conditioned or learned, and they depend upon one’s knowledge of biblical history. It is water signaling on all these levels which gives depth and breadth to what is proclaimed about incorporation into Christ. Baptism is not solely a verbal event; it is a total experience. (Eugene L. Brand and S. Anita Stauffer, By Water and the Spirit: Pastor’s Guide [Philadelphia: Parish Life Press, 1979], 25)

The most important factor about the font is the amount of water it can hold. The Lutheran Book of Worship (1978) suggested in its rubrics that “a font of ample proportions for the Sacrament of Holy Baptism should be part of the furnishings of the church” (Minister’s Edition, p. 30). In the same year, Environment and Art in Catholic Worship advocated the same principle. A font should be large enough to accommodate at least the immersion of an infant, or ideally, the immersion of an adult. (A good example of the former is the font at St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church in Hopkins, Minnesota; and of the latter, at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church in Manhattan.) Even if immersion is not now practiced in a parish, the profusion of water will help people recognize the biblical water images used in the baptismal liturgy.

To communicate central baptismal imagery, a font should contain enough water that one could bathe or even drown in it. If possible, the water should be running and heated. Also, in our era when good stewardship of the earth certainly involves water conservation, the water in a font should probably be recirculated.

What, then, should be the shape of a font? The ancient octagonal and hexagonal shapes still have much to commend them. With good pastoral teaching, the shape of the font can help convey the meaning of baptism as burial and resurrection with Christ. Such emphasis seems especially important in our culture in which the denial of death is pervasive and the scandal of the cross less appealing than cheap grace.

Round, cruciform, quadrilateral, and other shapes of fonts are also possible; a remarkable new cruciform font for the immersion of adults has been constructed at St. Charles Church in London. Care should be taken, however, to avoid “cute” shapes such as shells.

Before determining the shape for a new font, a careful study of symbolism should be undertaken by the planning committee—to be followed by a program of thorough and ongoing catechesis with the entire congregation and prospective members when the new font is completed. The shape of the font is less important than its size, however, and this, too, is a matter for good catechesis.

It is not necessary for the font to be adorned with symbols. The water it holds is the central symbol, and the font itself—its size, shape, and location—is also a symbol. Other symbols on the font may detract. This is not to disparage art, but only to suggest that symbols on symbols are not necessary. Likewise, it is no longer meaningful to put covers on fonts. In our culture, baptismal water is not considered supernatural (though it is used for a holy purpose) or magical, and there is no need to prevent people from stealing it as they did in medieval times. It is far better to let the water be visible and tangible.

The location of the font is a matter of symbolism and of good liturgy. First, the Word of God, the Eucharist, and baptism are three separate ecclesial acts. As there are three worship acts, so there should be three worship spaces, the pulpit, the altar, and the font. Placing the font in the chancel obscures this distinction. In addition, as it minimizes the amount of movement in the liturgy, it reduces everyone’s participation in passive roles.

Second, what is symbolized and enabled by the location of the font? The most appropriate location seems to be inside the main entrance to the worship space, with adequate space around it. Such a location symbolizes baptism as entrance into the family of God, the church. It is good for the font to be located so that the people must walk around it as they enter the nave, and thus be reminded each Sunday of their baptism. When baptism is celebrated, the baptismal party (and perhaps others in the congregation, especially children) gather around the font; the rest of the congregation turns to face it (even as it turns to face a bride when she enters for a wedding).

The area around the font is known as the baptistery. The paschal candle may be placed near the font (except during the weeks of Easter, when it is located near the altar) as a reminder of the primary connection between baptism and Easter. A small shelf or table is also useful in the baptistery, to hold items needed for baptisms, such as oil for anointing, a towel, the baptismal garment, and the small baptismal candle.

Proclaiming the Profound

Baptism is a profound and radical act—profound because it draws us deeply into Christ and the paschal mystery, and radical because it grafts us onto the very roots of the Christian faith and into the body of Christ. Baptism is a cosmic and individual act because it makes each of us a part of salvation history. It is also a profoundly personal act with radical corporate consequences because it makes each of us a child of God and simultaneously incorporates us into the communion of saints.

Baptism is an act of termination and a new beginning, a time of transitus—the most important passage of our lives. The words of Ash Wednesday remind us abruptly of the reality of life on earth: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” All too soon we, too, will be but skeletons disintegrating into dust, like the remains that stare out at us from the burial niches of the catacombs. Born from the wombs of our mothers, we move inexorably toward tombs in the earth.

But there is another reality of life in Christ: reborn in the font, the direction we move in is reversed, for the font is both a watery womb and a life-giving tomb. In baptism, we move from death to new birth, from burial to resurrection, from darkness to light, from the stain of sin to the cleansing power of grace, from ourselves into the family of God. We are never the same again because the chaos and self-centeredness of our lives are washed away, and we are joined to Jesus Christ. The waters that drown us are also the waters that give us life.

Baptism is a profound and radical act of burial, of birth, and bath. The sacrament is not a trivial event, but it is trivialized by insignificant fonts and small amounts of water. Baptism is not time for minimalism; it is, rather, a time for signs and actions consistent with its radical and profound meaning. Only large fonts holding abundant water can proclaim and enable baptism’s wonderful consequences: death and life and salvific cleansing.

The Preaching of the Reformers: Martin Luther (1483–1546) and John Calvin (1509–1564)

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Martin Luther, like John Wycliffe, John Huss, and Girolamo Savonarola before him, may be classified as a preacher of “prophetic personality.” For these preachers, preaching was an act of spiritual warfare. Luther’s sermons are polemics against the abuses within the Roman church and the hard-heartedness of many of its priests. Luther also began the tradition of preaching an additional pedagogical sermon. In these catechistic sermons he taught the Ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer, and doctrines of the Reformation. The tradition of featuring both catechetical and homiletical sermons in services became common in some Lutheran (and Reformed) churches, and this practice still continues in some churches today.

John Calvin did not preach in the popular style that Luther did. However, he influenced Reformed preaching more than Luther’s style influenced Lutheran preaching. Calvin regarded the sermon as the central point of the liturgy; in fact, the liturgy itself was but the framework for the sermon. Dropping the readings of the liturgical calendar, he often chose to preach a series of sermons through a book of the Bible. To Calvin, a sermon was an exposition. Following the historical, theological, and grammatical approach, he eschewed all allegorizing and mystical interpretations in favor of a traditional exegesis that sought to reveal the actual meaning of Scripture.

Calvin and Luther

It would be difficult to find so marked a contrast between any two celebrated contemporaries in all the history of preaching as that between Luther and Calvin. Luther (1483-1546) was a broad-shouldered, broad-faced, burly German, overflowing with physical strength; Calvin (1509-1564) a feeble-looking little Frenchman, with shrunken cheeks and slender frame, and bowed with study and weakness. Luther had a powerful intellect but was also rich in sensibility, imagination, and swelling passion—a man juicy with humor, delighting in music, in children, in animals, in poetic sympathy with nature. In the disputation at Leipzig he stood up to speak with a bouquet in his hand. Every constituent of his character was rich to overflowing. With all this accords his prodigious and seemingly reckless extravagance, and even an occasional coarseness of language when excited.

Calvin, on the other hand, was practically destitute of imagination and humor, seeming in his public life and works to have been all intellect and will, though his letters show that he was not only a good hater but also a warm friend. And yet, while so widely different, both of these men were great preachers. What had they in common to make them great preachers? Along with intellect, they had the force of character, an energetic nature, and will. A great preacher is not a mere artist and not a feeble suppliant; he is a conquering soul, a monarch, a born ruler of humankind. Calvin was far less winning than Luther, but he was even more than Luther an autocrat. Each of them had unbounded self-reliance, too, and yet at the same time, each was full of humble reliance on God. This combination, self-confidence, such that if it existed alone, would vitiate character, yet checked and upborne by simple, humble, childlike faith in God, this makes a Christian hero, for word or for work. The statement could be easily misunderstood, but as meant it is true and important, that one must both believe in oneself and believe in God if one is to make a powerful impression on others.

This force of character in both Luther and Calvin gave great force to their utterances. Everybody repeats the saying about Luther that “his words were half battles.” But of Calvin too it was said, and said by Beza who knew him so well, Tot verba, tot pondera, “Every word weighed a pound”—a phrase also used of Daniel Webster. It should be noticed too that both Luther and Calvin were drawn into much connection with practical affairs, and this tended to give them greater firmness and positiveness of character, to render their preaching more vigorous, as well as better suited to the common mind. Here is another valuable combination of what are commonly reckoned incongruous qualities—to be a thinker and student, and at the same time a person of practical sense and practical experience. Such were the great Reformers, and such a man was the apostle Paul.

Calvin: Theologian and Church-Builder, Expositor and Preacher

The vast reputation of Calvin as theologian and church-builder has overshadowed his great merits as an expositor and preacher. With the possible exception of Chrysostom, I think there is no commentator before our century whose exegesis is so generally satisfactory and so uniformly profitable as that of Calvin. His Latin, so clear and smooth and agreeable, is probably unsurpassed in literary excellence since the early centuries. All his extemporized sermons taken down in shorthand, as well as his writings, show not so much great copiousness as true command of the language, his expression being, as a rule, singularly direct, simple, and forcible.

The extent of his preaching looks to us wonderful. While lecturing at Geneva to many hundreds of students (sometimes eight hundred), while practically a ruler of Geneva, and constant adviser of the Reformed in all Switzerland, France, and the Netherlands, England, and Scotland, and while composing his extensive and elaborate works, he would often preach every day. For example, the two hundred sermons on Deuteronomy, which are dated, were all delivered on weekdays in the course of little more than a year, and sometimes on four or five days in succession. It was so with the other great Reformers. In fact, Luther accuses one preacher of leading an “idle life; for he preaches but twice a week, and has a salary of two hundred dollars a year.” Luther himself, with all his lecturing, immense correspondence, and voluminous authorship, often preached every day for a week, and on fast days two or three times.

Luther’s Preaching

Luther had less sustained intensity than Calvin, but he had at times an overwhelming force, and his preaching possessed the rhetorical advantage of being everywhere pervaded by one idea, that of justification by faith, round which he reorganized all existing Christian thought and which gave a certain unity to all the overflowing variety of his illustration, sentiment, and expression.

Luther showed great realness, both in his personal grasp of Christian truth and in his modes of presenting it. The conventional decorums he smashes, and with strong, rude, and sometimes even coarse expressions, with illustrations from almost every conceivable source, and with familiar address to the individual hearer he brings the truth very close to home. He gloried in being a preacher to the people. Thus, he says: “A true, pious and faithful preacher shall look to the children and servants, and to the poor, simple masses, who need instruction.” “If one preaches to the coarse, hard populace, he must paint it for them, pound it, chew it, try all sorts of ways to soften them ever so little.” He blamed Zwingli for interlarding his sermons with Greek, Hebrew, and Latin, and praised those who preached so that the average person could understand.

Luther’s Personality

Luther is a notable example of intense personality in preaching. His was indeed an imperial personality, of rich endowments (in talent), varied sympathies, and manifold experiences. Those who heard him were not only listening to truth, but they experienced the man. Those who merely read his writings, in other lands and languages, experienced the man, were drawn to him, and thus drawn to the gospel.

With all his boldness, Luther often trembled at the responsibility of preaching. He says in one of his sermons, As soon as I learned from the Holy Scriptures how terror-filled and perilous a matter it was to preach publicly in the church of God … there was nothing I so much desired as silence.… Nor am I now kept in the ministry of the Word, but by an overruled obedience to a will above my own, that is the divine will; for as to my own will, it always shrank from it, nor is it fully reconciled unto it to this hour.

What Luther says of preaching must end with a paragraph from the Table Talk, which makes some good hits, though very oddly arranged.

A good preacher should have these properties and virtues: first, to teach systematically; secondly, he should have a ready wit; thirdly, he should be elegant; fourthly, he should have a good voice; fifthly, a good memory; sixthly, he should know when to make an end; seventhly, he should be sure of his doctrine; eighthly, he should venture and engage body and blood, wealth and honor, in the Word; ninthly, he should suffer himself to be mocked and jeered of every one.

The expression, “he should know when to make an end,” recalls a statement I have sometimes made to students, that public speaking may be summed up in these three things: First, have something to say; secondly, say it; third and lastly, quit.

Philosophy of Music in Reformed Worship

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Although the Reformed tradition has been more restrictive about the use of music in worship than the Lutheran tradition, it nevertheless highly values the role of music in worship. This article describes emphases importance in the Reformed tradition, largely in terms of the writings of Reformer John Calvin.

The comparison is unavoidable: two great reformers of the sixteenth century with two vastly different approaches to reforming public worship. For Luther, it was the reform of the Mass. For Calvin, whatever his debt to the Mass, it was a new service. For Luther, it was the retention of the full musical resources of the church. For Calvin, it was only the voice of the congregation. For Luther, it was whatever texts were theologically correct. For Calvin, it was only the words of Scripture.

Both Luther’s Formula of Mass (1523) and his German Mass (1526), Latin and German Reformation forms of the Roman Catholic Mass, were the stimuli for the writing of numerous musical works for the congregation, solo voices, choir, organ, and instruments, not only achieving a culmination in the great works of Johann Sebastian Bach but also continuing to provide inspiration for composers into the present.

In contrast, Calvin’s The Form of Church Prayers inspired an elegant collection of metrical Psalm texts and melodies, a few canticles, and some sixteenth- and seventeenth-century polyphonic vocal settings of these texts and melodies for use outside the church service. These range from simple, familiar-style settings to monumental multi-movement Psalm motets. In spite of this early flowering of polyphonic Psalm settings, the development of a significant body of art music that was distinctively Reformed was frozen in the sixteenth century.

This comparison of the musical results of these two Reformation branches is not intended to diminish the value of the numerous Genevan and non-Genevan metrical settings of the Psalms and other passages of Scripture for congregational singing that has come out of the Reformed tradition of worship. Nor is it intended to diminish the significance of the organ and choral works based on Genevan and other Psalm melodies and metrical texts. Nevertheless, a Psalter is a closed volume once the 150 Psalms and a few canticles are prepared. In contrast, the Lutheran hymnal was an open-ended book, inviting continuing contributions from poets and musicians and providing composers with new texts and melodies as the basis for new compositions.

And the limitation of musical resources for public worship in the Reformed tradition to the voice of the congregation discouraged the writing of works for the full musical resources available to Lutheran composers. In the Reformed churches, there was no need to write a cantata for the third Sunday after Pentecost or an anthem for the second Sunday in Epiphany.

The result of this relatively small body of distinctively Reformed music is that not much attention is given to John Calvin or the Reformed tradition when discussing church music. The Psalms and the Reformed services attracted but a few significant composers in the history of music, and most of those were concentrated in a short span of time.

From a musician’s point of view, Calvin’s reform is, therefore, usually judged negatively. It was he, it is said, who silenced choirs and tore out organs as being unnecessary and even detrimental to the newly reformed way of worship. And his limitation of worship music to the unaccompanied singing of metrical Psalms and some canticles by the congregation produced rather few polyphonic vocal settings of the Psalms (though by composers of note) and (when organs were restored) some organ settings of those same Psalm melodies.

As a result of the differences in approach to reforming the abuses of the medieval church, the Lutheran churches received the fruits of a long line of distinguished composers from Walter to Distler. Though the Calvinist tradition in its four-hundred-year history has produced significant music for voices and for organ based on the melodies of the metrical Psalter of 1562, the shadow cast by the vast and distinguished repertory of Lutheran church music places the Calvinist contribution to church music in a near-total eclipse for many music historians. And that eclipse of the music inspired by the Genevan Psalter by Lutheran art music has also, unfortunately, placed Calvin’s careful and logical thought for the music of the church in eclipse.

The error is that music historians leave their evaluations of Calvin with complimentary words for the Psalter melodies and for the sixteenth-century polyphonic settings of them. However, as musically valuable as the Genevan Psalter melodies and their polyphonic settings are, Calvin’s contribution to the music of public worship is not primarily the 150 Psalms and a few canticles in metrical versions and their settings for voices and for an organ that follows, but rather a well-thought-out theology of church music.

While Calvin’s theological foundations were born out of sixteenth-century thought, their applicability is not limited to a single time. His principles are timeless, clearly based on Holy Scripture and the thought of the early church. They balance sixteenth-century humanism, with its concern for human interests, and Renaissance rebirth of interest in ancient learning: a balance of the tension between the present and the past, between tradition and experience. The keeping of these two foci in creative tension is significant for finding direction for the music of the church at all times and places.

Calvin understood worship to be the most important of all relationships: the relationship between the all-holy God and sinful humans. It is, therefore, not a casual relationship. Neither the texts of worship nor the music that carries them can be casual. Theologically, it is a spiritual relationship between a covenant-making and a covenant-keeping God with his chosen people. At its best, Calvinist worship aims at restoring the ideal of communion with God enjoyed by Adam and Eve before their disobedience, a restoration not to be perfected until the coming of the kingdom.

Given the significance of this relationship of communion with God, worship and its music are approached with care, done only according to God’s commands and carried out under the laws of order and decorum of the church, laws based on the Holy Scriptures. Calvin recognizes, however, that worship needs also to be done with concern for human frailty. He understands the reality of sin in human life and its role as an impediment to fellowship with God. Therefore there is in Calvin a pastoral concern for the worshiper. External aids, rites, and ceremonies with valid purpose and not for spectacle, are necessary. Their purpose is to inspire reverence for the holy mysteries of sacrament and service, arouse piety in the exercise of worship, encourage modesty so the worshiper comes into the presence of God without presumption, foster gravity in order to worship only with the seriousness of purpose, and above all lead the worshiper directly to Christ. In Calvin’s thought, music is an important aid for the worshiper.

Given the accumulated quantity and the questionable quality of such aids in the church before the Reformation, Calvin insisted that these aids are to be simple, few in number, of clear value in assisting weakness, and understood by the worshiper. Displays of praying hands, the use of choirs, bands, and banners were not part of Calvin’s plan. The question always is “what is necessary and what obscures Christ?” What encourages communion with our actually present Lord in the Holy Supper and what impedes it? For Calvin, it was less music rather than more; simpler music rather than more complex.

Calvin’s liturgy, then, is a reformed service rather than a reformed Mass with its tradition of music. Worship needed to be returned to the people in language, in ritual, in clarity of thought, in accuracy of biblical meaning, and in the simplicity of music so there could be meaningful physical, intellectual, and spiritual participation. The result is a liturgy reduced to its essentials with that which was judged extraneous and distracting removed. All aspects of the liturgy, including the music, are to serve the central functions of the word read and preached and the sacrament appropriately administered. Visual and aural effects were diminished, so magnificent altar and reredos were replaced by a simple table; elaborate priestly vestments were replaced by the academic gown; images, candles, incense, and bells were replaced by a simple sanctuary and service. Organs and choirs were replaced by an unaccompanied singing congregation.

Evaluation of Calvin’s liturgical and musical reform is, therefore, usually concerned with what Calvin “got rid of”; what needs to be considered is what he brought to the service. Priority is given to the Word read and preached over the sacrament (though Calvin preferred weekly Communion). Attention is no longer directed primarily to the altar but to the pulpit from which God speaks through his Scripture. Music is used to enhance Scripture. The Psalms, extolled for their value in the Christian life by all who take time and effort to know them, are put in a form that ensures their assimilation into the thought and life of the singer.

That the Psalms, all 150 of them, should have been given to the people in an easily singable and easily remembered form was an enormously significant contribution to church worship and the Christian life. Testimony to their value in the Christian life can be found in writings from St. Basil and St. Augustine to C. S. Lewis and W. Stewart McCullough in The Interpreter’s Bible. But perhaps Calvin says it best in his introduction to his Commentary on the Psalms.

There is no other book in which there is to be found more express and magnificent commendations, both of the unparalleled liberality of God towards his Church, and of all his works; there is no other book in which there is recorded so many deliverances, nor one in which the evidences and experiences of the fatherly providence and solicitude which God exercises toward us are celebrated with such splendor of diction, and yet with the strictest adherence to truth; in short, there is no other book in which we are more perfectly taught the right manner of praising God, or in which we are more powerfully stirred up to the performance of this religious exercise.

In one word, not only will we here find general commendations of the goodness of God, which may teach men to repose themselves in him alone, and to seek all their happiness solely in him; and which are intended to teach true believers with their whole hearts confidently to look to him for help in all their necessities; but we will also find that the free remission of sins, which alone reconciles God towards us, and procures for us settled peace with him, is so set forth and magnified, as that here there is nothing wanting which relates to the knowledge of eternal salvation.

Can there be any question as to why Calvin gave the Psalms to the people in song?

Calvin finds his foundation and nourishment for reforming the worship of the church in the tradition of the church, of which the Bible is the most significant part, over present experience. Therefore, two principles undergird Calvin’s reform: the absolute sovereignty of God over against his human creatures, and the absolute authority of God’s Word found in the Bible over human thoughts and experience. Yet, sixteenth-century humanism influences Calvin to make worship the people’s offering to God. His respect for Scripture and his knowledge of God keep God and his revelation central in Calvin’s reform. But the reform is to make public worship the people’s worship.

The result was a service that focused the people’s attention on the exalted, enthroned, ruling Christ seated at the right hand of God. The worshiper’s heart is to be lifted up “on high where Jesus Christ is in the glory of His Father.” Public worship puts one in the presence of God and his angels, raises the worshiper to heavenly places. How logical that in the awe-inspiring presence of God the worshiper sings only words received from God himself in his Scriptures.

In keeping with Calvin’s high regard for what worship is, the relationship of sinful humans to their all-holy God, the service expresses clearly the posture of adoration for the absolutely sovereign God and the need for purification when entering into the very presence of God. This adoration is possible only when the worshiper is restored to holiness and is acting in obedience to God. The opening invocation from Psalm 124, “Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth” immediately identifies who the worshiper is in relation to God. That realization prompts the worshiper immediately to confess sin as a beginning of the return to the holiness of life as essential preparation for fellowship with God. The worshiping sinner confesses before God’s holy majesty “that we are poor sinners … incapable of any good,” but also ask God to “magnify and increase in us day by day the grace of thy Holy Spirit … producing in us the fruits of righteousness and innocence which are pleasing unto thee.… ” Then follows the absolution in which God, through the minister, says “To all those that repent … and look to Jesus … for their salvation, I declare that the absolution of sins is effected.… ” Those who have thus been restored to sanctity are fit to commune with God in the Holy Supper, to be raised to heavenly places, to sing his praises.

This lofty understanding of what public worship is leads Calvin to great care in crafting the service and choosing the words to be used. The liturgy is a fixed liturgy. Freedom and spontaneity are restricted, for after learning from Scripture, there is little room for improvisation and certainly none for caprice. Free prayer, so cherished in later Reformed churches, is given little room in Calvin’s liturgy, and those prayers that are left for the minister to the phrase are prescribed as to content. And when prayer is sung (Calvin regarded church song as a form of prayer), only the words of God, those from the Bible, are permitted.

It is this liturgy that is the context for the music of public worship and which prescribes its role. The essential ingredients of that liturgical context for music are preaching, communion, and prayer. It is important to note here that these are not items merely to be listed. The very nature of worship for Calvin requires that these three essential ingredients be present and that they demonstrate the authority of God’s Word, be done corporately by the holy people of God (and not be done for them), and that in each the Holy Spirit is present and active. Without that presence, worship is a purely human and earthbound activity.

Of particular interest in regard to the music of public worship is prayer. Prayer is done according to the rules for right prayer from Scripture, and, whether sung or spoken, prayer in public is a corporate act made effective by the Holy Spirit, who intercedes for us. It is impossible to understand Calvin’s seemingly limited church music without the theological foundation and liturgical context for it. The music appointed for the liturgy follows logically from them.

Calvin first insists that music for worship has a clear purpose. He does not begin with the assumption that music must be present in public worship. He begins with a theological justification for it. It is essential for Calvin that there be a well-thought-out reason for its presence in the public worship of God. That reason must be based on Holy Scripture and the thought and practice of the early church, as well as contemporary experience based on a thorough knowledge of the faith. That is, the question must be asked, “What can and should music do to assist the worshiper?” Without a clear definition of purpose, there is no demonstrated need for its existence in the public worship of God, and there is very little possibility of its doing what it can do and best ought to do for the worshiper.

For Calvin, music in public worship ought to aid concentration by exercising “the mind in thinking of God and keeping it attentive.” It should also inspire reverence, lending “dignity, and grace to sacred actions.” Further, it should create unity by joining “the faithful in one common act of prayer.” It should also rouse zeal, kindling “our hearts to a true zeal and eagerness to pray.” And it should provide edification “as each from the other receives the confession of faith” in song. Well, might the contemporary churchgoer and the modern church’s leadership ask whether prayer and concentration on the thing prayed, reverence in speaking with God, unity in prayer, zeal and eagerness in prayer, and spiritual growth are being served by our church song?

So that the purpose for the music of the church may be realized, Calvin recognized that it is necessary for music to be regulated. This is necessary because music has the power “to turn or bend … the morals of men.… We find by experience that it has … incredible power to move our hearts in one way or another.” And music is a gift of God “we must be the more careful not to abuse it … converting it to our condemnation when it has been dedicated to our profit and welfare.” This power of music, particularly with text, has been recognized by all who have reflected on the role of music in human life. Plato, Basil, Luther, and Confucius all knew the power of music. And so does the contemporary church. But Plato and Calvin and others knew that for salutary results in the use of music careful regulation was essential.

This regulation is accomplished, first of all, by the rules for right prayer, since song in the service is a form of prayer. One must sing with reverence, sincerity, penitence, humility, and faith. But congregational song is also regulated by the scriptural rules for decorum. It is to be simple, it is to be understood, and it is to be adapted to the age in which it is used.

The purposes and the proper use of music require appropriateness of text and music to the human response of worship, for only then will its purposes be realized and proper use be respected. As sung prayer, music is not decoration, entertainment, or filler, but it is one of the three essential ingredients of public worship. Calvin, therefore, understands that it must have weight or significance, and majesty, that is dignity. And the texts associated with the music are to be preeminent and are to represent true doctrine.

In Calvin’s own words appropriateness is expressed this way: When we have looked thoroughly, and searched here and there, we shall not find better songs nor more fitting for the purpose, than the Psalms of David, which the Holy Spirit spoke and made through him. And moreover, when we sing them, we are certain that God puts in our mouths these, as if he himself were singing in us to exalt his glory.… Touching the melody, it has seemed best that it be moderated in the manner we have adopted to carry the weight and majesty appropriate to the subject, and even to be proper for singing in the Church, according to that which has been said.

As is so often true in the realm of the spiritual, the truth of a matter is represented by an ellipse, having two foci. Purposes, proper use, and appropriateness are to be balanced with pastoral concern. It is a matter of respecting the divine while recognizing the human. That is, the music that results from respect for these three (purpose, proper use, and appropriateness) must be useful to the worshiper. It must serve the worshiper in serving God. It must be usable. Though addressed to God, it is a congregational prayer which, while offering to God, also edifies the worshiper and gives witness to the faith.

In bringing purpose, regulation, and appropriateness to the people, the church’s song must be useful and useable so as to be of benefit to them. This results in the music of a particular character. This music is first of all biblical. Only if it is true to Scripture can it be the right worship of God and of true benefit to the worshiper. For in praying in accord with Scripture one comes to know and do God’s will in prayer. For Calvin, this means sung prayer is by means of the very words God gives us. To be appropriate, the church’s song must be biblical. “We shall not find better songs … than the Psalms of David, which the Holy Spirit spoke and made through him.”

This music must also be decorous, that is, it must have dignity and aptness. It serves an elevated purpose as prayer to God and is, therefore, to be noble in character as one addresses the song to God. It is to be proper to the subject, the text, so as to be suited to singing in the church “before God and his angels” and in so doing to bring attention to the texts, the thing prayed, and not merely delight the ears. “There is a great difference between music which one makes to entertain men at the table and in their houses, and the Psalms, which are sung in the church in the presence of God and his angels.” And “such songs as having been composed only for sweetness and delight of the ear are unbecoming to the majesty of the church and cannot but displease God in the highest degree.”

In addition, this music is to be sacred for it needs to be distinctive music if it is intended for distinctive people engaged in a distinctive activity. It is for the holy people of God engaged in intimate fellowship with their all-holy Creator. It is not music for aesthetic enjoyment nor for entertainment. It is music for the dialogue of worship. In the text of the song, the Psalms, God speaks to the worshiper and the worshiper speaks to God in prayer.

This being music for the people, it must also be popular. That is, it must be easy to sing, it must be understandable, and it must be attractive. Without those qualities, it would not likely be used. Note that this popularity is not in the contemporary sense of music purveyed in enormous quantity so that it becomes popular by hype. It is music that is simply useful and usable.

That Calvin succeeded in a useful and useable body of church music is attested to by the over 60 known editions of the Psalter that were published within three years of its first publication in 1562. The rhymed texts in two simple classic poetic meters, with an entirely original melody type as to rhythm (with its longer notes at the beginning and end and in only two note values), gave them durability and wide dissemination.

These four characteristics properly understood are not merely descriptions of Calvin’s music in the sixteenth century but represent a significant contribution to thinking on the music of the church for all ages. These characteristics, biblical, sacred, decorous, and popular, all at the same time, are principles that are also useful in our own age. Music, then, is to be of assistance in the true and spiritual worship of God. This makes Calvin’s concerns for a defined purpose, regulation, appropriateness, and usefulness the concerns for worshipers of all ages. Only then will music aid concentration, increase reverence, provide unity, rouse zeal, provide edification, and in the offering of our worship refresh us in God’s grace.

The results of Calvin’s careful scriptural thought regarding the worship and worship music of the church resulted in a closed “hymnal.” The texts of Calvin’s completed “hymnal” of 1562 are limited to the 150 biblical Psalms plus the Decalogue and the Song of Simeon. The completed version of the Psalter consisted of 152 texts and 125 melodies. The authors of the texts were Clement Marot, court poet to Francis I of France. His death in 1544 left the versification of the remaining Psalms to Theodore de Beza, a Reformed theologian. The texts are metrical, rhymed, strophic, in classic poetic meter (mostly iambic), and set syllabically to the music. They are, therefore, accessible to a singing congregation. They are popular in the most elevated meaning of that word.

The first of the composers is presumed to be Guillaume Franck, a musician at St. Peter’s church in Geneva, Calvin’s church. Louis Bourgeois followed Franck at St. Peters and is the musician of the Psalter. His style is stamped on the Psalter since he not only added melodies but edited those already in the collection. His work dates from the 1551 edition. Pierre Dague, Bourgeois’s successor at St. Peter’s, is thought to have finished the music of the Psalter. As Beza had Marot’s work to emulate, so Dague had the work of Bourgeois to emulate. It is generally conceded that the original texts and the Genevan melodies are of superior literary and musical quality.

The melodies are often assumed to be edited from secular sources. However, Bourgeois, in the preface to the Pseaumes Octant Trois of 1551 says the source of his work is pre-Reformation melodies, which some commentators take to be Gregorian chant. Whether the source is secular or sacred for any given melody, the style is radically changed, particularly by the schematized rhythm.

The melodies are characterized by structural simplicity. The settings of the texts are syllabic, the music is strophic, the phrases are arche-shape, melodic movement is mostly stepwise, and the range of a melody rarely exceeds an octave. And while the melodies are modal, they are, for the most part rather major- or minor-like. Only two basic note values are used and these in a schematic design with phrases normally beginning and ending with longer notes with the shorter notes clustered in one or two groupings in the middle of a phrase of the melody. The aesthetic character of the melodies develops from the combination of stepwise movement and the schematic rhythm along with the lack of a regularly recurring strong accent. The melodies possess a graceful, rhythmic flow.

By every standard, these melodies are accessible to a singing congregation. However, Enlightenment regularity and symmetry have accustomed us to a consistency of meter and design not possessed by the original Genevan Psalter melodies. The considerable variety of metrical schemes for the music and the absence of classic regularity make these melodies less easy for us to sing than for their sixteenth-century users, though the rewards of learning and using them are enormous.

It should be noted that the melodies of the Genevan Psalter are in a style that was familiar to the sixteenth-century worshiper in France. They are not, however, in the style of folk music or music of the pub, but in the style of cultivated music of the day. The schematized rhythm sets them apart from even that music, making this truly distinctive music for a distinctive people engaged in a distinctive activity, the public worship of God.

In summary, Calvin’s contribution to the music of the Christian church lies in his carefully reasoned thought regarding the church at worship and the use of music in that worship. In preparing suitable music for the church’s worship, he expresses four concerns: for the purposes that music can and should serve in the worship of God, for its regulation so as to ensure the realization of those purposes, for its appropriateness to the subject of the text and the object of our worship, and for its usefulness in serving the worshiper in serving God. These concerns resulted in music that was biblical, decorous, sacred, and popular.

When thinking about church music, admiration is most likely to appear in the presence of a significant repertory of art music for choir, instruments, and organ—artistic value offered to God in the presence of his people. One stands in much less awe in the presence of music intended for common worship. Even less consideration is given to music that is not even intended for the enjoyment of community singing but only as a corporate offering of words by means of music in response to God’s words to the worshiper.

However, this seeming tension between art music and congregational music need not be settled on the side either of music beyond the average congregation or music beneath a suitable level of artistic integrity. And Calvin would not settle the matter of music for use by the congregation on the side of distinctly secular music. He writes in the Psalter preface that “care must always be taken that the song is neither light nor frivolous: but that it has weight and majesty, as St. Augustine says, and also, there is a great difference between music which one makes to entertain men at the table and in their houses and the Psalms which are sung in the Church in the presence of God and his angels.” Calvin achieved this ideal.

Churches in the Reformed tradition were affected by the same cultural influences as every other Christian tradition, but particularly by pietism, the Enlightenment, and post-Enlightenment thought. The results have been principally in two directions. On the one hand, there has been an increasing openness to new ideas, growing confidence in human gifts, and the desire for a pleasing human experience in public worship. By and large, such openness has meant the abandoning of Calvin’s principles for worship reform and for worship music. On the other hand, some Reformed communions have resisted cultural influences and retained Psalm singing to the exclusion of hymns, some even without accompaniment. While the former abandoned Calvin’s principles, the latter failed to apply those principles to the present, overlooking Calvin’s injunction that “rites and ceremonies,” including music, need to be adapted to the age.

Calvin recognized that his application of principles to the practice of the church was conditioned by his time. His practice was adapted to his age. His, however, was a time of a fortuitous combination of humanistic interest in the person and Renaissance interest in the tradition. It put the reformers in a posture of relying on the truth of the past, particularly the Holy Scriptures, and bringing it to the benefit of the people. It is at this point that our own time needs again to examine Calvin, the other sixteenth-century reformers, and the church fathers for balance between the human and the divine, between personal experience and the tradition, between theocratic and democratic forces in church music.