Time&Eternity

No Concept of Time without Narrated Time 17
al as possible, and closeness to text is given priority over rhyme and rhythm.
The qualitative analysis does not supply a hymnological study, that is, it
does not attempt to perform a musical 28 or literary scientific analysis or to
demonstrate church-historical or dogmatic peculiarities. It also does not
seek to analyze intent in order to reconstruct original wording or uncover
the sociological meaning of different hymns. Instead, it is driven by a phenomenologically
motivated interest in retelling what the hymns of different
epochs have to say about time and eternity. For traditional poetry in general,
as well as for the poetry of hymns in particular, a phenomenological
working method appears to me to be appropriate, since it stays close to the
text and still allows freedom for ongoing interpretation. Thus, in the attempt
to narrate the history of time in the hymns of the church, new history
arises. The retelling occasionally borders on new narration and elicits
questions, some of which will be touched upon more closely in the theological
discussion in the next chapter.
Quantitative Analysis
Indications of Time
Comparison of Frequencies
I analyzed 3,682 passages containing indications of time in a total of
3,146 hymns. The EG contains 677 hymns. 29 In the texts of these hymns,
there are about 885 passages containing indications of time, that is, there are
approximately 1.3 indications of time per hymn. A portion of the hymn material
is ecumenical and is also found in Gotteslob. In GL, 579 passages referring
to time occurred in 917 hymns, songs, texts, and prayers. The numerical
ratio shows a significantly higher occurrence of time indications in the
EG. The two books are not entirely comparable in this respect, however, because
in GL, diverse types of prayers and texts are integrated into the hymn
portion, whereas the EG has a separate text and prayer portion that will not
be discussed here. Also in the Catholic portion of the AHB, time indications
certainly occur much less frequently than in the main portion. These
two facts could show that references to time play a lesser role in traditional
Catholic hymn material.
In the 700 hymns of Sv ps, I found 1,128 passages mentioning time,
which I subsequently examined. This means approximately 1.6 indications
of time per hymn, which represents a higher frequency than in the two German
books. In Ps90, 166 passages containing indications of time occur in
123 hymns, i.e., 1.3 indications per hymn. This frequency corresponds pre-