THE GERMAN MASS AND ORDER OF SERVICE
5. IMPORTANCE AND WORTH
Estimates of the German Mass differ greatly according to the point of view. Those who regard the German Service as the climax of the labors of the Reformation, see in it the long looked-for stroke of freedom; those who desire an Order of Worship with some historic features, but with as many departures from the old forms as possible, give it extravagant praise.
Those who believed that evangelical worship must depart from the historic order altogether, and be built upon other foundations, find Zwingli and the Strassburgers more original than Luther, and credit the latter with liturgical incompetency; those who exalt the earlier attempts to provide German Services, charge Luther with egotism and selfish desire for leadership in bringing out his own Service and ignoring the others.
The German Mass clearly is not Luther’s greatest liturgical work. Luther himself never so regarded it. The Elector desired to introduce it
everywhere by authority, but Luther would not agree. f215 He never gave up the general type of service he had outlined in the Formula missae. He never intended the Deutsche Messe as a universal substitute for this, but simply as a Service for the uneducated laity, the historic order indeed, but simplified and adapted to the needs and abilities of a part of the people, at a particular time in their development. If we wish to know Luther’s mature ideas on worship, we can find them in the later orders for Wittenberg (1533) and Saxony (1539), and in less direct manner, in the other Church Orders prepared by his colleagues in the Wittenberg faculty, undoubtedly with his constant advice.
The report of his travels which Wolfgang Muskulus, pastor in Augsburg, published, gives a complete account of the Services in the parish Church in Wittenberg on Exaudi Sunday in the year 1536. The Introit, Gloria in Excelsis and Agnus Dei were all sung in Latin, the choir and the organ alternating according to an old church custom. The minister, in full vestments, and the clerk (Kuster) knelt before the altar and said the
Confiteor. The minister then ascended the altar steps. The Service Book, as in pre-Reformation practice, was on the south side of the altar and was moved to the north side for the reading of the Gospel. The minister intoned the Salutation, Collect, Epistle and Gospel, all in Latin. Bucer preached the Sermon. Luther, Melanchthon, Bugenhagen, and Fabricius Capito were present. The Lord’s Prayer and the Words of Institution (facing the altar), as well as the Thanksgiving and the Benediction,. were intoned in German, and German hymns were sung by the congregation. Luther was seized with a “schwindel” during the Service, and left the Church, followed by
Melanchthon. Bugenhagen, Capito and Bucer received the Sacrament.
Luther preached at Vespers on the Epistle for the day. f216
The pedagogical purpose is evident throughout the entire Deutsche Messe.
It meets a certain class of the people on their own level, and endeavors to instruct and edify them; to make the non-Christians, Christians, and the weak Christians stronger Christians; and to furnish the youth with Christian truth. It seeks to promote congregational participation, and in order to do this, and also to preserve as much of the historic Service as possible for use in the villages, etc., where there were no capable choirs, it provides
numerous German metrical versifications. This we must think of largely as an experiment, an effort to take advantage of a popular movement, and to put to churchly use the recently awakened enthusiasm for German hymns.
Generally speaking, the Lutheran Church as a whole, in its normal and best development in all lands, with occasional exceptions as to this or that feature, particularly in southern and southwestern Germany, has rejected most of the peculiar, and largely experimental features of the Deutsche Messe, such as the omission of the Gloria in Excelsis (which even Zwingli retained), the omission of the Preface, the versifications of the Creed and the Sanctus, the paraphrase of the Lord’s Prayer, (which opened the way for grave abuses in the period of Rationalism), the impracticable division of the Verba, and twofold administration of the Elements, and the retention of the Elevation.
The transfer of the Lord’s Prayer to a place before the Verba was one of the few distinctive features to gain general acceptance, though some Orders of the first rank never adopted it. But this, certainly, was a mistake, due to the impulse of the moment to introduce a catechetical feature, viz., the Paraphrase of the Lord’s Prayer. It created permanent confusion in all subsequent Lutheran Orders of Service. Luther’s approval and use of an Exhortation to the communicants doubtless kept that feature in most Lutheran Services, though the earlier Nurnberg form generally appears in the Church Orders instead of Luther’s form. Later Lutheran development (as in the Common Service Book), while appreciating the didactic and devotional value of such an Exhortation, felt its unliturgical character in the Service proper, and has given it a more appropriate place in the Service of Public Confession preparatory to the Holy Communion.
The judgment of the Church, as expressed in the subsequent development of worship, has positively approved the principle of Services in the
vernacular throughout, the conservative and churchly type of worship, with its adherence to historic elements and order and to fixed forms of
expression, the great development of congregational hymns, and the extension of active congregational participation in worship to include a very large part of the Service. These important features, which are now the commonplaces of Protestant worship, were very largely established, not only for Lutheran Services but for many other Communions in all lands, by the principles and forms first laid down, or first gaining general acceptance, in Luther’s German Mass.
LUTHER D. REED. Bibliography
Texts — See General Introduction, p. 168.
Comments — Rietschel, Lehrbuch der Liturgic Fendt, Luth. Gottesdienst d. 16 Jahrh.
Church Review 10:217ff
Jacoby, Liturgik der Reformatoren
Memoirs of the Lutheran Liturgical Association, 4:29.
THE GERMAN MASS AND ORDER OF SERVICE
INTRODUCTION
Despite the pressure upon Luther to give the people an order of service in the vernacular he proceeded very slowly, particularly since the radical
“prophets,” Munzer and Karlstadt, made it a matter of conscience.
Karlstadt had introduced a German version of the Mass in Wittenberg in 1521 during Luther’s absence at the Wartburg; on his return Luther promptly restored the Latin Mass.
There was a genuine demand for the Service in the language of the people.
Here and there a German liturgy was introduced as early as 1522. Such cities as Nuremberg and Strassburg changed to the German service in 1524. Zwingli in Zurich and Oekolampadius in Basel gave the people the service in their own tongue in 1525.
Luther expressed his thoughts in the treatise “Against the Heavenly
Prophets,” published toward the end of 1524, as follows: “That the Mass is now held in German, pleases me, but when he (sc. Karlstadt) would make it a law, that it must be so, he goes too far.
“I really want to have the Mass in German now, and I am working on it, but I also want it to be cast in a true German mould. Text and music, accent, mode and manner must be thoroughly suited to the mother-tongue and idiom, or it will be mere ape-like imitation.
“Since they press me for it, I will take my time about it.” f217 The following year Luther gave himself to the task and sent an outline of his proposed
“German” Mass to the Elector of Saxony who had added his persuasion to that of others to induce Luther to undertake it. The Elector sent Conrad Rupff and Johann Walther to Wittenberg to assist in the musical notation.
There is still extant a sheet from Luther’s hand which he had probably sent to Walther to illustrate his ideas on the adaptation of the Gregorian
melodies to the German words. f218
On October 25, 1525, Luther wrote to Johann Lang: “We ourselves
outlined a form of worship and sent it to the Elector and by his command it is now elaborated. Next Sunday it will be given a public trial in the name of Christ.
“There will be a German Mass for the laity, but the daily services will be in Latin with German Scripture lessons, as you may see in brief when the printed copies are out. Then, if you choose, you can make your worship conform to ours, or you can use your own. In the meantime keep on with what you are doing.” f219
On October 29, 1525, the twentieth Sunday after Trinity, the trial took place in the Parish Church at Wittenberg.
At the conclusion of the sermon f220 Luther addressed the congregation, stating that one must be sure of doing God’s will in beginning or ordering anything new, and that since he had received many letters petitioning for such an Order in German and had been pressed by the temporal powers for it, he could no longer make excuses and must look upon it as God’s will.
On Christmas Day, 1525, the new Order became the official Order for the Wittenberg Church.
The chief difference between this Order and the Formula missae of 1523 is its omission of the Gloria in excelsis after the Kyrie. The Roman liturgy provided for its omission during Advent and Lent. Bugenhagen in the Brunswick Order of 1528 prescribed it with the proviso that it “may be omitted at times.” The Wittenberg Order of 1533 reintroduced it for festival days.
The musical notation is not given with this translation. It would be unintelligible for the modern reader without considerable adaptation. The service as written is choral throughout, including the Epistle and Gospel, and the musical text is written on a four line system, with change of key whenever the melody goes beyond the four lines. The Weimar Edition reproduces the original; a modernized version is given in the Berlin Edition and a further modification in adaptation to the English words would take us quite a distance from the original. It has never been determined just how much of the musical notation is Luther’s own.
The Deutsche Messe is found in Weimar Ed. 19, 44ff.; Erl. Ed. 22, 226ff.;
Berlin Ed. 7, 159ff.; Clemen Ed. 3, 294ff.
New York.
A. STEIMLE
THE GERMAN MASS AND ORDER OF SERVICE
1526