To praise and thank God

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To the praise and thanks of God is the first Protestant church hymn book in Switzerland . It was published in St. Gallen in 1533 . This was the first time the entire congregation sang together again in German after this practice had passed to the church servants in the early Middle Ages.

The book goes back to an initiative of the then parish priest Dominik Zili (before 1500–1542), who brought together the traditions of the Reformation songs. He received the order for this from the city council on April 9, 1533. Zili had been a schoolmaster in his hometown since 1521, the first pastor of the Church of St. Laurence since the Reformation and was part of a commission of experts formed by the council, which was supposed to provide suggestions for the future form of church services . The publisher was the City Council of St. Gallen, which gave it an official character. The place of printing was at Froschauer in Zurich .

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The hymn book contains 17 psalm songs and eleven other hymn texts that describe the Bible and the Christian church year after Trinity . Since 1527 Zili has been collecting song texts for school children. With the 130th Psalm , Uss deeper not schry ich zu you , he began his compilation until he had brought together a total of 28 songs. The longest of these, a rewrite of Psalm 37 , had 23 stanzas . His good contacts with Luther enabled him to obtain many songs directly from him. On the front page it says:

"" This includes / includes the most common / psalms / also other gaist and / in the script-based gsang / like sy in several Christian communities / especially Sant Gallen / too praise and thanks to God being sung. / Eph. V / Talking differently from psalms and songs of praise and songs. Singing and singing to the gentleman in hearts' Coloss.III. «Emptying and getting rid of myself with psalms and songs of praise and songs in grace and singing to the lord in their hearts.» "

According to Psalms 1 , 15 , 37, 51 , 67 , 6 , 71 , 73 , 114 , 109 in two versions, 125 , 130 and 137 "following the spiritual chants and the first of the ten commandments ". Each bid is followed by a Kyrie Eleison . On the five pages XLIX to LIII the psalms are compared to the three cantica of the Gospel of Luke Magnificat , Benedictus and Nunc dimittis . All subsequent chants and poems are free and rhymed. First there is a poem from the Christmas story based on Luke 2 , a song from the “Lyden Christi”, the Easter sequence “Christ is erupt” and the Pentecost sequence “Von dem hailgen gaist”. The conclusion is formed by the three poems «Gsang why the sun of God was born in diss power and became man», «Ain bed song and vnderwysung des hailigen Euangelion» and «We are in the midst of life. With death wrapped around "followed by a register" where and on which leaf a contemporary psalm or gsang is found ".

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According to Ehrensperger, with the publication of the hymn book, Zili put the practice of church singing in the liturgy back on the handling of early Christian services. In the text Cantus , which was written between 1536 and 1545, i.e. after To Praise and Thanks God , Zili's friend and Reformation colleague Joachim Vadian criticized the contemporary use of church hymn, which he found incomprehensible and too loud, without the participation of the congregation and not in sung in the local language. For his understanding, Zili had reformed church singing in the right way, as he did not fundamentally question it. In the title of another work, Unterschaid leyplichs gebaetts of stim vnd gesang and innnerlichs gebaetts of gmuet and hertzen , the polarity of his concern becomes clear: "Singing [was] a means of expression of prayer, anchored in the hearts of the believers, and at the same time a means that Promote a feeling of togetherness. ... In Vadian's view, the congregation chant with a loud, audible voice serves to edify the believers, consolidate the preaching and doctrine as a common witness of the faith ». The hymn book served as a model for many other hymn books. Zurich, for example, had its first hymn book based on this model in 1598.

The new edition by Frank Jehle 2010, which could only be realized on the basis of a single copy that was only found in the Bibliotheca Augusta in Wolfenbüttel and only found in the 21st century, is rated as “significant”. The example of Psalm 130 makes it clear that the attitude towards life at that time was tainted with a “puritanical, austere seriousness”. In addition to many word explanations and a detailed afterword, Jehle offers above all a critical, bibliophile view of this contemporary document.

In its new edition in 2010, the book was selected as one of the most beautiful Swiss books .

See also

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h Alfred Ehrensperger : The service in the city of St. Gallen, in the monastery and in the prince-abbot areas before, during and after the Reformation . Theological Publishing House Zurich, 2012, ISBN 9783290176280
  2. ↑ Frank Jehle: To Praise and Thanks to God. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
  3. ↑ The Song of the Reformation. Oldest Protestant church hymn book in Switzerland. September 18, 2010, Catholic Media Center
  4. ^ "The most beautiful Swiss books" competition, portal of the Swiss government
  5. ↑ Advertisement To Praise and Thanks to God