Charles Garside on Calvin's view of Psalmody Pt.13: recap and conclusion

As all good things must come to an end, so to must this brief study of the development of Calvin’s thought with respect to music and song in public worship. In wrapping these series of posts, I want to follow Garside’s study to its conclusion where he summarizes the main lines of thought developed in Calvin’s growing convictions about worship song between 1536 and 1543. These main turns in thought can be summarized in four decisive steps:

First, Garside establishes the baseline for charting Calvin’s progression in thought by fixing on the year 1537 and more specifically, by appealing to the publication of the Articles. For the first time, Calvin advocates the use of vernacular psalm singing in public worship. This proposal marks a decisive change in practice, as just a year prior, in 1536, Calvin in his Institutes could only commend singing a psalm or reading some portion of scripture during and after participation in the Supper. So what generated this shift in perspective? Garside suggests that the several months of pastoral service in Geneva during the year of 1536 accounts for this change as much as anything else. In witnessing firsthand the coldness of the prayers of the saints, Calvin was moved to consider another course. For Calvin, nothing was more useful for stimulating the heart and emotions to godly fear and joy than the singing of the Psalms in the native tongue of the worshiper. While this proposal was not fully implemented before Calvin was exiled from Geneva in the spring of 1538, he did find opportunity to put this proposal into practice while serving in Strasburg. There he finally experienced the quality of worship which he had envisioned for Geneva, and upon his return in 1542 he made it a matter of first priority to oversee the implementation of vernacular psalmody as a means of intensifying the quality of the Genevan worship experience and stoking the ardor of the church’s prayers.

Second, Calvin’s conviction about the role of psalms in worship solidified as he grew to understand more fully the role of psalms in the worship of the ancient church. Through his extensive interaction with Bucer during the years of pastoral exile in Strasburg, Calvin became even more acquainted with the function of psalms in early worship. Evidence for his deepened awareness of psalm singing in the apostolic and early church is the title for the proposed alterations to Geneva’s worship liturgy which he described as “according to the custom of the ancient Church.” The description of the 1542 liturgy indicates Calvin’s desire to reform the church according to the model of antiquity.

Third, through a careful reading of Augustine, Calvin developed a concept of sacred music. From his study of Augustine, Calvin became impressed with the need for gravity and majesty in the church’s music and the necessity of permitting the text to take priority over the tune and melody. In this way the power of music would be harnessed for spiritual good as the music assisted the worshiper to think about the lyrical content of the song while at the same time restraining dangerous excesses which could be generated by music shaped strictly for the purpose of engaging the emotions while bypassing the intellect.

Fourth, Calvin’s final step in 1543 to replace secular songs with the Psalms even outside of worship marks a final significant turning point. Aiming at counteracting the potentially corrosive effects of immoral and obscene secular songs sung in wider society, Calvin proposed that the psalms could and should be sung around the home and hearth as well as in worship. While Calvin’s effort to banish secular songs and substitute the psalms only in their place may sound extreme to our 21^st century ears, Garside points out that this was not entirely out of step with 16^th century humanist ideas concerning the social dimensions of music which had been profoundly shaped by Platonic theory (p.29).  Given such a context, it is not hard to appreciate how it happened that vernacular psalmody became something like a Calvinist badge as the Reformed sang their psalms in worship and took them on the go as they went into workplace and on to the battle fields while defending their heartfelt faith.

In bringing this final post on Garside’s article to a conclusion, I will give him the last word:

Calvin’s vernacular psalmody in the last analysis is nothing other than a formulation in uniquely musical terms of the Reformation principle of sola scriptura. Thus from its inception Calvin’s theology of music in its textual dimension was Scriptural. The Psalter was conceived, and always would be considered by him, as an indispensable instrument for the prosecution of his ministry of the Word of God to the city of Geneva and the wider world beyond (p.29).

I hope this close look at Garside’s analysis of Calvin’s developing thought between 1536 and 1543 has been both useful and informative, and that it may help stimulate a desire, at least among the Reformed, to return to the rich heritage of Calvin’s and by extension, the apostolic and early church’s practice of worship according to the Word.

In our next series, we will examine other aspects of Calvin’s views on psalmody.

Charles Garside on Calvin's view of Psalmody pt.8: the 1542 Epistle to the Reader

In the last post, mention was made of the fact that Calvin says scarcely little about music or song in the 1541 Ecclesiastical Ordinances. As Garside observes, only two sentences about song can be found, and these are tucked away in the middle of a paragraph devoted to marriage. The point was made that Calvin’s intention was to take up the subject of worship song separately and in an entirely different format. That new format is found in the 1542 Epistle to the Reader in his order for worship for Geneva. This 193 word statement would be enlarged upon and revised over the next year, and incorporated into a couple of different works, but in seed form, there are some very significant thoughts expressed about music and song in this current work which further chart out Calvin’s maturing thought.

The title of this new work setting forth the liturgical order for Genevan worship is itself instructive, The Form of Prayers and Ecclesiastical Songs, with the manner of administering the sacraments and consecrating marriage according to the custom of the ancient Church. Of particular importance for our purposes is that within the body of this work Calvin identifies three ordinances which constitute public worship: preaching, public prayers, and the administration of the sacraments. For the first time in Calvin’s writings about song, we see that he places song, an element of worship, under the rubric of public prayer. Expounding upon this rubric of public prayer he writes that prayers are of “two kinds: the one made with the word only, the others with song.”  With respect to this apparently new liturgical development of subsuming worship song under the rubric of prayer Calvin explains that it “is not a thing invented a short time ago” (p.17). So what does he mean by all this?

Garside explains that Calvin is essentially introducing his theology of music and song to the public for the first time. Prior statements made about the role of song had only been made in private communications to the council of Geneva. In presenting this liturgical work to the broader church community in Geneva, it was necessary to offer some explanation of why song and prayer were joined together. The first point he wants to make about song in general is already signaled in the title of the 1542 Genevan order of worship, tucked away at the very end in the prepositional phrase “according to the custom of the ancient church.”  Calvin’s primary explanation for the introduction of song as a form of prayer in worship is expressed in two succinct sentences in the Epistle: for from the origin of the Church this has been so, as appears from the histories. And even as Saint Paul speaks not only of praying by mouth, but also of singing (p.17). In other words, to “sing prayers” was to follow the custom and practice of the early church, and in turn, that was to embrace and follow a practice which was founded upon the authority of Scripture.

 An additional insight into Calvin’s developing thought about song in worship is unveiled in the Epistle where he breaks new ground in commenting about the nature of worship music itself. With respect to music Calvin writes, “And in truth, we know from experience that song has great force and vigor to arouse and inflame the hearts of men to invoke and praise God with a more vehement and ardent zeal” (p.17). Garside makes the point that this marks a tangible movement forward in Calvin’s understanding since in the 1537 Articles his remarks were limited to the content of song, while in the 1542 Epistle his remarks branch out and cover new ground, taking into consideration the topic of music in general. This new insight about music seems to be have been generated and born out of his own experience of congregational singing in Strausburg. In 1537 Calvin could only propose song on the basis that the content of the songs (psalms) themselves could be “most expedient for the edification of the church.” Now however, in 1542, having experienced the “feeling” generated by hearing the whole congregation sing aloud in worship, Calvin speaks of music’s “emotional power.”

The concept of music’s inherent power to move the emotions was a matter of great concern for Calvin. He was not at all interested in moving the emotions for the sake of having an emotional experience. In other words, he was not “sanctifying” the mere experience of emotional uplifts, or any and every form of emotional manipulation. Rather, he was speaking to the benefit and blessing of a certain kind of spiritual vigor kindled in the heart by a peculiar kind of music. This fact is born out by a clarifying comment found subsequently in the Epistle: there must always be concern that the song be neither light nor frivolous, but have gravity (pois) and majesty (maieste), as Saint Augustine says” (p.18). Interestingly, Garside points out that neither “gravity” or “majesty” or their equivalents are found in the passage from Augustine that Calvin quotes. Instead, it seems that these two qualities of music are unique and original to Calvin himself.

In searching for an objective handle to sort of grasp hold of what Calvin has in mind by “gravity” and “majesty,” Garside proposes that a final comment in the Epistle provides a helpful starting point for analysis. Distinguishing between the quality of “sacred” and “secular” music, Calvin says, “And thus there is a great difference between the music which one makes to entertain men at table and in their homes, and the psalms which are sung in the Church in the presence of God and His angels” (p.19). Apparently, there is music which is directed to men (music "at table" and "in home"), and it is for the purpose of entertaining, and then, there is music directed to God (sung in Church), and it is uniquely suited for the worship of His glorious and eternal being. It is obvious from the context and tenor of Calvin’s remarks that it would be wrong to seek to inflame the emotions by the use of song and music which is purely for man’s entertainment (which is obviously the nature and character of all revivalistic and contemporary worship music ). For Calvin, only songs of a unique and specific quality (Psalms) combined with tunes which are appropriately grave and majestic can meet the rigid qualifications of worship song which is truly worshipful to the Lord. These comments then, contained in the 1542 Epistle, truly do mark out a significant leap forward in Calvin’s theology of music, and according to Garside, signal the beginning of “the sacred style” which would subsequently come to characterize the melodies of the Genevan Psalter.

The next post will take up Calvin’s remarks about song contained in the 1543 edition of the Institutes.