05-4 Theology of the..

34 LOGIA
makes it great: its ability to communicate to more than one generation.
If parents and children cannot recognize each other’s
forms and language of worship, they will be unable to understand
each other when they speak about God, even though they live in
the same house. Hence the grave danger of constantly revising the
wording of the Scriptures, the Small Catechism, and our hymns,
so that they sound more modern. The problem, in a world in
which the English language is changing so rapidly, is that what
seems modern today turns out to be hopelessly dated and even
faddish tomorrow—and must be changed yet again.
According to the oldest and most popular
tradition, the Te Deum was composed
(on the spot) by Ambrose and
Augustine on the occasion of the latter’s
baptism in Milan.
nb
The liturgy may be improved, but we must make sure that we
are really making improvements. In this, as in so many other
respects, let us follow Luther’s example. He lived in a time of dramatic
change, and the liturgy of his day had some serious problems.
Unlike other contemporary reformers, however, Luther
excised only what was really offensive to the gospel, in particular,
the canon of the mass, the list of saints who were supposed to
intercede on behalf of the worshipers. If an element of the traditional
liturgy did not involve false doctrine, Luther’s assumption
was that it could stay. It is important to keep in mind that Luther
did not consider himself a reformer in the usual sense of the
word. 13 He built on tradition—when the tradition was sound. 14
And it is clear, too, that Luther did not believe that the Holy Spirit
had been asleep during the entire Middle Ages. Many of his great
chorales are translations (some quite literal) of ancient Latin
hymns. Where other liturgical reformers, of Luther’s time and
since, have not followed his conservative approach, it has meant
an enormous loss, because the forms of worship they have substituted
for the traditional ones are, almost without exception, shallow
and uninspiring, focused on man instead of God, and without
a sober appreciation for the beauty of God’s holiness.
IV.
Now, one such example of a liturgical classic that deserves to be
dusted off and sung once again with feeling by the Lutheran
Church is the Te Deum, one of the most venerable of all Latin
hymns. 15 It was once sung at the coronation of kings and the installation
of bishops, the election of the pope, the end of a council, or
even a great military victory. Pope Gregory XIII ordered the Te
Deum sung after the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre. Frederick
the Great—himself something of an anti-cleric and a friend of the
rationalist philosopher Voltaire—had it sung in Dresden after one
of his military triumphs. The “Marseillaise of the church,” 16 as it
has been called, was so well known that it inspired numerous spin-
offs and parodies. In the Middle Ages, someone wrote a Te Matrem
laudamus in honor of the Virgin Mary, and the Counter-Reformation
produced Te Lutherum damnamus. 17 Many of the great composers
of the modern period have tried their hand at rendering this
Latin hymn in polyphony or in classical or romantic style. (These
include Palestrina, Purcell, Handel, Scarlatti, Haydn, Mozart,
Berlioz, Bruckner, Verdi, and Vaughn Williams.) Luther himself
prized the Te Deum for its succinct combination of praise, confession,
and prayer. He put it in third place after the Apostles’ and
Athanasian Creed in his book on The Three Symbols or Creeds of the
Christian Faith (1538) and declared it to be “a fine symbol or creed
(whoever the author) composed in the form of a chant, not only
for the purpose of confessing the true faith, but also for praising
and thanking God.” 18 And Luther published both a prose and verse
translation of the Te Deum (1531). The great Lutheran hymn of
praise “Nun danket Alle Gott” (Martin Rinkart, 1644) owes much
to the Te Deum. At least until fairly recent times, the Te Deum was
an important part of the Lutheran liturgy, where it was traditionally
used in the service of Matins, as well as in the service for festival
days such as All Saints’ and Thanksgiving and occasional services
like confirmation and marriage. 19
If the Te Deum itself is famous, the question of who wrote it is
shrouded in obscurity. By the beginning of the sixth century, it was
possible for Bishop Cyprian of Toulon to declare that the Te Deum
was known “throughout the entire world.” It was prescribed to be
sung weekly by Caesarius of Arles (512) and was included in the
famous rule of Benedict (546)—to be sung by his monks every Saturday
night. No mention, however, is made of its author in these
early references. In the earliest manuscripts, too, the hymn is unattributed.
20 According to the oldest and most popular tradition, the
Te Deum was composed (on the spot) by Ambrose and Augustine
on the occasion of the latter’s baptism in Milan. Although other
names appear here and there in the manuscript tradition, it was the
story of Ambrose’s and Augustine’s improvisatory composition
that maintained its grip on the popular imagination well into the
early modern period. Luther had his doubts about the veracity of
this colorful legend 21 and, not surprisingly, prosaic nineteenth- and
twentieth-century scholars have rejected it altogether.
In 1894 Dom Germain Morin proposed the idea that it was
Nicetas, bishop of Remesiana (modern Bela-Palanka in former
Yugoslavia) in the late fourth century, who had composed the Te
Deum. 22 Nicetas was a popular name among Christians in the
fourth century—there were churchmen in Vienne (c. 379) and in
Trier (527–566) as well as in Aquileia (died 485), each of whom
bore the name—but Nicetas of Remesiana (c. 340–414) seemed
the logical choice to Morin, because he was known to have concerned
himself with the composition of psalms and hymns. Paulinus
of Nola admired Nicetas’s talent as a hymn writer, wanted
him to visit the church of St. Felix “with psalm-singing and
hymns,” and imagined Nicetas teaching the sailors on board the
ship that would carry him over the Adriatic to sing hymns in chorus.
23 Morin’s idea was accepted by such notable church historians
as Theodor Zahn, Ferdinand Kattenbusch, and Henri
Leclercq, and the English scholar A. E. Burn defended the thesis
with special enthusiasm. In 1958, however, Ernst Kähler published
a study of the Te Deum that essentially demolished the work of
Burn, who, it turned out, had been a little overzealous in his quest