The hymnody of the Lutheran Church is the body of sacred songs sung by the Church. These songs may be studied in their twofold aspect; as to their religious and as to their poetical character; they are church hymns and also sacred poems.

(The Lutheran church hymns have been called psalms. According to old linguistic usage, psalm is the same thing as sacred or religious song, not song in general. In secular Greek the word psalm does not mean song, but it refers more particularly to the ability or technique in playing upon stringed instruments—the Greek word “psalmos” means to play a stringed instrument. By psalm we mean a sacred song or lyric, as of the Old Testament Book of Psalms; a hymn.)

THE RELIGIOUS CHARACTER

With respect to the religious character of the Lutheran church hymns, it must be quite clear that if these hymns have grown up out of the soil of the Church, if they are expressions of the spirit of the Church, then they ought to reflect quite faithfully the nature and peculiarities of the Church. The Church, the Communion of Saints, where the Gospel is preached in its purity and where the Sacraments are administered according to the teachings of the Gospel, may be considered partly with regard to the unique religious life-content, which is communicated to the faithful through the Word and the Sacraments and which not only unites them to Christ, the Head of the Church, but also unites them with one another; partly with regard to her nature as a congregation, a communion or community in external form with characteristic expressions and order of life. The same twofold point of view arises in our study of the church hymns. The religious character of the church hymn may, therefore, be determined partly from the point of view of religious life, having its source and standard in Holy Writ, and partly from the point of view of the church communion or the congregation, of whose common life the church hymn is an expression and reflection, and whose common purpose it seeks to promote. The religious character of the church hymn thus centers in the fact that both as to content and form it must be Biblical and congregational.

1. The Biblical character of the church hymn:

First of all, the church hymn must be thoroughly Biblical. It cannot move only in the realm of general religious truth, not only sing the praise of certain abstract ideas about God’s being, about the immortality of the soul, about virtue, etc. Not even such subjects as God’s attributes, the providence of God, Creation, “man’s physical and spiritual attributes, reason, will, conscience, nature and purpose,” have any place in the hymns of the Church, when these subjects are treated in an abstract way, isolated from God’s revelation through Jesus Christ and detached from human life. The subject of the church hymn, provided it possesses sound religious character, is, briefly stated, Christ for us and Christ in us; on the one hand the objective saving grace through Jesus Christ, and on the other hand the subjective appropriation of faith, with love and submission and devotion to God. The sphere of the church hymn will not thereby be restricted to an incessant reiteration of the name of Jesus, his wounds and blood, his love, etc. The church hymn sings the praise of God’s entire means of salvation: God’s thoughts and works of love through Christ for humanity; His sure and saving institutions of grace upon earth; the work of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of men unto repentance, faith and sanctification; the benefits, struggles and victories of His kingdom of grace; the glory of the heavenly bridegroom; death and judgment; the world to come and eternal life. All these subjects become the object of the hymns of the Church. The faithful express through the church hymn their ardent desire for these things; they meditate upon these things, they rejoice in their possession, they describe them and they extol them; they adore, thank, and laud their Saviour, and they give themselves up to God. Since the content of positive Christian faith, or God’s revelation of salvation through Jesus Christ, is the principal subject of the church hymn, it is clear that the church hymn must be in perfect harmony with the Word of God, the Bible, the very source of the revelation of salvation. But this does not mean that the Church should use exclusively the hymns of the Bible, as, for example, the Psalms of David. It is perfectly well to use other hymns, provided they are permeated by the Holy Spirit and constitute a vital reproduction of Biblical truths, grown up out of the soul-experiences of the Church in perfect harmony with Holy Writ. Then the liturgical principles of truth and freedom will come into proper use in congregational hymn singing.

With this character of religious truth in the objective sense, or the conformity of the church hymn to Holy Writ, goes also the matter of religious truth in the subjective or psychological sense. This means that the religious experience, expressed in the church hymn, is not merely a product of human imagination, more or less foreign to those who gather their spiritual life and their soul experiences from the fountain of Holy Writ under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, but it is far more an experience gained from the reality of true spiritual life, and thoroughly accordant therewith, something to which, therefore, every true Christian can easily agree.

Finally, the Biblical character of the true church hymn reveals itself also in the style of language, which follows very closely Biblical expression, idiom and form. The language of the church hymn harmonizes very well with that type of religious language which has attained a deep appreciation among Christians; the language of the popular old religious books of the Church; Biblical language. This old hymnic language possesses very decidedly a character of immortality, depending upon the character of the content, whose linguistic garb it is, and with which it has become so closely united. As the content is rooted in eternity and fundamentally consists of God’s incorruptible thoughts and works, so the hymnic language, which is the vessel for these realities of the eternal world, in a way also attains a character of eternity. The history of the church hymns also shows very clearly that whenever this peculiar character of hymnic language has been disregarded, whenever there have been vigorous attempts at modernization of the good old church hymns, when new and modern hymns have been sought, to satisfy some modern aesthetic or aristocratic need, then the true church hymn has suffered very greatly and lost much of its original soundness and genuineness. Indeed, the hymn writer, like any other poet, is influenced more or less by his age; his hymns may show more or less the influence of the peculiar turn of mind, the stage of development and the demands of the age in which he lives; personal ability as a poet and personal life experiences may be distinctly reflected in his hymns. But it should also be true, that if the poet is a sincere student and lover of the Bible and delights in singing its praises, then his hymns ought to possess Biblical tone and content, since there is a very close union between content and form in every human religious product. A church hymn possessing Biblical tone and language ought to be understood and appreciated by the present age. Biblical language is antique but it will never be antiquated; it is old but eternally new and youthful. In all ages and in all churches the thoroughly Biblical church hymn holds the prize for youthful health and beauty.

2. The congregational character of the church hymn:

In the second place, the church hymn should be suitable for use in the congregation, it should possess a congregational character. This quality of the church hymn implies, of course, that it must not contain anything which is at variance with the confession or the doctrines of the Church. The Lutheran Church may use hymns that have been written by non-Lutheran hymn writers, provided these hymns contain nothing offensive to sound Lutheran doctrine. So Lutheran hymnals may contain hymns taken from the Reformed Churches, and Reformed church hymnals may contain many Lutheran hymns.

The congregational element in the Lutheran church hymn further means that it must be free from all unsound and unjustifiable subjectivity. The church hymn is the work of a poet who is vitally united with the religious organism—he is a member of the Church—and from this consciousness of perfect communion his hymns emerge. Writes Dr. Martin Luther: “Church hymns are so called, because the Church has accepted them and uses them as if produced by the Church and as her own hymns. We do not say: thus sings Ambrose, Gregory the Great, Prudentius, Sedulius; but we say: thus sings the Christian Church. It is the songs of the Church that Ambrose, Prudentius and others sing with the Church and the Church with them; when they are dead and gone, the Church remains, and continues to sing their songs.” Personal poetic gifts and temporal conditions and circumstances influence the church hymns. The true church hymn does not lack individuality; but it is free from individualism. The experiences which the church hymn expresses, the soul states which it describes, should not be of an extreme, a singular or an abnormal character, but they should be normal and common to the Church. Not that the church hymn must restrict itself to what every member, in whatsoever condition of spiritual life, would readily subscribe to. Such a requirement would be unreasonable, because the participants in divine worship have reached different stages of spiritual development; in fact, this would restrict the subject matter of the church hymn to only certain general facts and abstract ideas. But it must be required of every church hymn that it express only such religious experiences as are in the main common to the whole communion of the faithful, only such soul states and spiritual stages of development as are essentially experienced by every true Christian.

If the requirement of community in the church hymnody permits dealing with special situations and experiences in the realm of spiritual life, then it ought to follow that this character of community will not be violated if the content of the church hymn bears upon certain external conditions and circumstances in which the entire congregation never can find itself at any one time. Since there are liturgical acts which directly affect only certain individuals in the congregation, not the congregation as a whole, there may be church hymns for certain individuals and special occasions. There are church hymns for marriage, confirmation, ordination, etc. It is also perfectly well to have church hymns for the aged, for the sick, for the dying, for prisoners, in time of war, etc. Since the church members should be kindly and lovingly interested in each other, the congregation may well give expression to certain sympathetic feelings in the church hymns. But such conditions and circumstances in the life of an individual as are quite exceptional and of special interest only to him, not to the congregation as such, are unsuitable as subjects for church hymns, since they may quite easily form a disturbing digression from that character of community which should distinguish the church hymns as such. Hymns “for a father or a mother at New Year, for a poor young man, for a young lady, for a blind man,” and the like, really have no place in the hymnal.

The congregational character of the church hymn also finds expression in the language and style of presentation. This must be plain and clear, so that the hymn may be easily understood and appreciated by all who possess a reasonable religious training, young or old. The mode of expression is original, naive, true-hearted and graphic. The true church hymn avoids startling phrases, prettiness, and mere rhetoric.

THE POETICAL QUALITY

The other point of view from which the church hymn may be considered is the poetical; the church hymn is a song thus a product of poetical art. Before attempting to analyze the poetical quality of the church hymn, it may be well to consider what kinds of poetry are used in the hymnody of the Church.

The three main kinds of poetry are the epic, the drama, and the lyric. Epic and drama are not extensively used in the Lutheran Church. Works exist which show that the graphic and plastic style of epic poetry has been employed in the Christian Church when stories from sacred history were paraphrased in metrical form. The Gospel lessons have often been read or chanted in metrical form, as hymns. This poetical work may be classified as didactic hymnody with an epic touch. The epic, strictly speaking, requires an imaginative adornment of the historical material to be treated, and this cannot very well be applied to Biblical history without a certain amount of injury. Besides, it would be difficult to excel the beauty of the Biblical presentation, with its pre-eminent epic vividness and simplicity. The mediaeval Church employed the dramatic form in the mysteries and miracles, religious plays, which were used especially at great festival occasions to present to the laity in a dramatic and effective way the historical facts pertaining to the festival. More closely related to the Christian cultus was the Passion play, performed by the clergy in the churches during Lent. The Passion play, and a number of dramatic-liturgical ceremonies, especially at Christmas and Easter, were quite freely employed in the early Lutheran Church. But this dramatic activity did not remain permanently in the Lutheran Church. Perhaps the Church felt that the dramatic reproduction of Biblical history did not harmonize very well with that element of personal truth which must exist throughout the cultus and which may suffer injury as the dramatic illusion becomes greater.

While epic and dramatic poetry have little or no place in the Evangelical Lutheran cultus, and so can not very well be employed in the hymnody of the Church, the third kind of poetry, the lyric, is very extensively used. A noteworthy characteristic of lyrical poetry is that the object of the song is most closely united with the singing subject; they are as one; the object lives within the subject and is the real content of the subject. If the cultus is a meeting between God and the Church, in which God imparts his gifts to the congregation and the latter faithfully receives, enjoys, and acknowledges the divine gifts of grace; a meeting, in other words, in which the divine objects join the worshipping subject, in which the latter is permeated by the former, then it seems only very natural that religious lyrical poetry should here find its proper use; when the worshipping congregation gives expression to its life of faith and love through sacred song, through the hymns of the Church, these hymns are lyrical poetry.

Although the fusion of the object and the subject is a characteristic feature of all religious lyrics, it is to be noted that these two elements, the objective and the subjective, are never present in equal degree in the church hymns, but that the one or the other element predominates, wherefore it becomes necessary to classify the church hymns into the relatively objective hymns and the relatively subjective hymns. To the former class belong the hymn proper and the didactic or doctrinal hymns; the latter class, the lyrical hymns in a narrower sense, consists of what may be called hymns of experience and sacrifice. The hymn proper sings the praises of God’s majesty and highness, God’s glorious works and attributes, not as something wholly outside of the subject, yet something which is looked up to with worshipful joy and admiration. “A mighty Fortress is our God” is a good example of this class of church hymns. The didactic or doctrinal hymn presents for quiet and instructive contemplation either certain facts from sacred history or certain parts of the Lutheran doctrine. Examples of this kind are “Nun freut euch, lieben Christen g’mein” and “Es ist das Heil uns kommen her.” In these relatively objective hymns, true church hymns, the objective element is more or less permeated by the life, emotion, and sympathy of the subject. In the hymn proper the subject sings its own joy and its jubilation in the great God and His glorious works. The didactic or doctrinal hymn is not merely rhymed history or rhymed dogmatics, but in it the divine events and truths are celebrated as treasures of faith, sources of spiritual life; by means of it the congregation embraces, acknowledges and utters its confident Yea and Amen to the divine revelation of salvation. The relatively subjective church hymns, the lyrical church hymns in a restricted sense, may be characterized as hymns of experience, because they describe and express religious life in its inner experience, emotions, conditions and manifestations, or because they include meditations which a Christian engages in because of his inner and outer condition; to this class of church hymns belong also the so-called hymns of sacrifice, which are more directly an expression of individual devotion to Jesus Christ. Since the chiefly subjective hymns, because of their nature, are subject to the danger of losing themselves in the individual and the incidental, it is very important that they be supported and permeated by a sound religious philosophy. God’s revelation of salvation, especially Jesus Christ, who in His person and work is at once the vital cause, the life, and the living standard of all the various phenomena and forms in the world of divine grace and truth, must form the background which everywhere gleams forth in the hymnody of the Church, the sun that gives light and warmth to the content, the perfect law which restricts the description and keeps the subjectivity within proper bounds.

Since the church hymn is lyrical poetry, it should be beautiful. But the beauty of the church hymn consists in what? It must be emphasized that this beauty is not something applied to the church hymn from without, but this beauty grows up naturally and spontaneously out of the subject which is to be celebrated in song. This beauty is nothing else than the faithful reflection, the telling concrete revelation of its inner harmony, nobility and sublimity. The communion of the congregation with God through Jesus Christ, which seeks concrete expression in the church hymn, is in itself the highest, the most noble, and the most harmonious of all the realities of human life. When this divine communion seeks expression in the church hymn, then the poetical art to be employed must be such as will adequately express and convey the emotions and experiences peculiar to this communion. The inner harmony of the matter should reveal itself in the poetical form of presentation as outer harmony, as beauty. The entire tone of the church hymn will then become, by an inner necessity, graceful, elevated, sublime. It is to be noted that this hymnic beauty is modified according to the specific character of the hymn. In the church hymn proper, like “Ein’ feste Burg,” this hymnic beauty is more elevated, majestic, sublime. In the didactic or doctrinal hymn, it is characterized by the purity, positiveness, and sonorousness of the faithful testimony of truth. In the lyrical church hymn in a restricted sense, it is more colored by subjective qualities such as fervor, sincerity, and affection. The lyrical beauty of the church hymn is free from ostentation; it is distinguished by simplicity and naturalness. This simplicity of expression is a poetical as well as a congregational requirement. Also, the entire presentation of the subject must bear the impress of spontaneity, of freshness. The church hymn should not present abstract ideas, reflective thought, conceptions, and definitions; but, instead, it should present to the eyes of the heart living pictures, concrete realities; just as the Biblical presentation, which the church hymn must follow, and Christianity itself, which the church hymn must reflect, pre-eminently possess this character of concrete and vital reality.

The beauty of the church hymn implies further that its line of thought and disposition be clear and well arranged, that each stanza express a complete thought, and that there be not too many stanzas—the church hymn must not be too long. The phraseology, syntax and metrical form must be free from such defects as mar and desecrate the sublime content of the hymn or make it offensive, unclear, or even incomprehensible to the congregation. This does not mean to commend that vandalism whereby modernists have sought to remove from the old church hymns every obsolete word and construction as well as everything which seemed to be at variance with the rules of secular poetry—a process whereby many excellent old church hymns have been deprived of their original power and simplicity. Most certainly, revision and purification of the outer form of the old church hymns is sometimes necessary, in order to make them popularly intelligible and usable. But such revision and purification should be undertaken only by Christians of poetic mind and sound authority.