We all believe in one God
The hymn We all believe in one God wrote Martin Luther in 1524 as a paraphrase of the creed . The melody goes back to an original form from the 15th century. The song is one of the two alternative hymns to the creed in the Evangelical Hymn book under Liturgical Chants (No. 183).
Emergence
Three handwritten sources - the oldest around 1400 - transmit a single-trophic Latin Credo song Credo in Deum Patrem omnipotentem with a German version We all believe in one God, creator of heaven and earth . One of the sources is also the melody.
Luther was inspired by this stanza, adopted the melody and the first two lines of text, but otherwise created a completely new three-stanza song that was to take the place of the Latin Creed in the Reformation German Mass . So it went into all early Lutheran orders of worship.
shape
Each of the three stanzas consists of ten eight-syllable lines. Lines 1, 3, 9 and 10 are iambic and rhyme masculine , lines 2, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 are trochaic and rhyme feminine .
content
The song dedicates a stanza of equal length to each of the three divine persons .
As a result, the first stanza, beyond the brief contents of the Nicene and the Apostles , contains genuine Lutheran statements about the goodness of the Father and the care of God, similar to those found in the explanation of the Creed in his Small Catechism .
The Christ stanza adheres closely to the early church confessions, with the line “equal God of power and honor” reproducing the Nicene “consubstantial patri”. The insertion of “in faith” (line 7) corresponds to Luther's core concern.
The Holy Spirit stanza also brings the essential statements of the early church models. For “unam sanctam catholicam ecclesiam” stands “all of Christianity on earth [...] in one sense”. In lines 3 and 4, Pauline- Lutheran statements about the work of the Spirit are added.
Text in use today
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We all believe in one God,
Creator of heaven and earth,
who has given himself as a Father
that we should become His children.
He wants to nourish us at all times,
and also to protect body and soul;
He wants to ward off all accidents
, we should not suffer any harm.
He cares for us, guards and watches;
everything is in his power.
We also believe in Jesus Christ,
his Son and our Lord,
who is eternally with the Father,
equal God of power and honor,
of Mary the virgins,
a true man was born
through the Holy Spirit in faith;
for us who were lost, died
on the cross and
rose again from death through God.
We believe in the Holy Spirit,
God with the Father and the Son,
who is called the Comforter of all the weak
and adorns the beautiful with gifts,
which
holds all of Christianity on earth in one sense;
all sins are forgiven here,
the flesh should also live again.
After this misery there is
a life ready for us forever.
Amen.
melody
The far-reaching in the transposed Doric mode with a range from b to d "and numerous, sometimes long melisms, has a high aesthetic quality, but is not easy to sing for a church service community and has been simplified many times in the history of reception.
In addition to other baroque composers, they worked on Heinrich Schütz ( Small Sacred Concerts I, SWV 303) and Johann Sebastian Bach ( Piano Exercise III, BWV 680 and 681).
literature
- Wilhelm Lucke: We all believe in one God . In: D. Martin Luther's works. Critical Complete Edition , Volume 35. Weimar 1923, pp. 172–177 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
- Robin A. Leaver: We all believe in one God . In: Ders .: Luther's Liturgical Music . Grand Rapids MI 2007, pp. 122–127 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
- Johannes Block, Joachim Stalmann: 183 - We all believe in one God . In: Gerhard Hahn , Jürgen Henkys (Hrsg.): Liederkunde zum Evangelisches Gesangbuch . No. 6/7 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2003, ISBN 3-525-50330-X , p. 63–71 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Lucke questions this initial determination and assumes an original assignment to the Feast of Trinity . However, the textual character and almost all early evidence speak against this, cf. Leaver.
- ↑ here in the old meaning "misfortune", cf. accident. In: Jacob Grimm , Wilhelm Grimm (Hrsg.): German dictionary . tape 24 : U – Uzvogel - (XI, 3rd section). S. Hirzel, Leipzig 1936 ( woerterbuchnetz.de ).
- ^ Apostolic: "carnis resurrectionem"
- ↑ here in the old meaning “foreigners, exile”, cf. misery. In: Jacob Grimm , Wilhelm Grimm (Hrsg.): German dictionary . tape 3 : E – research - (III). S. Hirzel, Leipzig 1862 ( woerterbuchnetz.de ).