Chapter Two

Two “Johannine” Cantatas

Darzu ist erschienen der Sohn Gottes (BWV 40) and Sehet, welch eine Liebe (BWV 64)

Eric Chafe

In Christus Victor, Gustav Aulén states regarding the association of John’s Gospel to the view of Jesus that forms the subject of his book:

The dualistic outlook is particularly prominent in the Johannine writings, with their constant antitheses, such as light and darkness, life and death. The “world” stands over against God as a dark, hostile power: “the whole world lieth in the power of the evil one” (1 John v. 19). Into this world Christ comes, to thrust back the evil power, to dethrone the devil: “Now is the judgment of this world; now shall the prince of this world be cast out” (John xii. 31). The way that leads Him to death leads also to glory; “the hour is come that the Son of Man should be glorified” (John xii. 23). The promised Paraclete shall convict the world, bring home to its conscience the truth about Christ’s righteousness—his heavenly glory—and about judgment, “because the prince of this world hath been judged” (John xvi. 8 ff.); . . . The purpose of Christ’s coming is thus summed up in 1 John iii. 8: “To this end was the Son of God manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.”1

What Aulén points out was well understood in eighteenth-century Leipzig; on the second day of Christmas 1723, J. S. Bach performed for the first time a cantata whose opening chorus is a setting of the text cited by Aulén at the end of the foregoing excerpt, I John 3:8, and whose subsequent movements explore and develop its meaning along similar lines. Furthermore, this cantata, Darzu ist erschienen der Sohn Gottes (BWV 40), completely bypasses the Gospel reading for the day (Luke 2:15–20), drawing from I John for the opening chorus and the celebrated prologue of John’s Gospel (John 1:1–14) for the subsequent recitative.

In Leipzig, as in many other German cities, Christmas (like Easter and Pentecost) was celebrated for three days as a high feast, with cantata performances each day. The second and third of the Christmas feast days, however, might instead be celebrated as the feasts of St. Stephen (Dec. 26) and John the apostle and evangelist (Dec. 27). John’s prologue was, in fact, the prescribed gospel reading for the third day of Christmas, whereas I John 1:1–10 and John 21: 21–24 were prescribed when that day was celebrated as the feast of John. In 1723, due to the shifting of the emphasis on John, especially the prologue, ahead by one day, the text for the third day of Christmas also deviates from the prescribed Gospel readings. The cantata for that day, Sehet, welch eine Liebe (BWV 64), draws on passages from John’s first epistle for both its opening motto (I John 3:1) and its principal theme: the opposition between love of God and love of the world (the subject of I John 2:15–17). It appears, therefore, that the unknown librettist(s) of Cantatas 40 and 64 intended that the two cantatas would form a thematic pair based on Johannine themes.

This view is supported by the fact that the second (and final) recitative of Cantata 64, after a pronounced expression of John’s realized eschatology, concludes with a reminder of the purpose of the incarnation, thus echoing the dictum of the opening movement of Cantata 40. The focus has shifted, however, from the majestic and universal tone of the beginning of Cantata 40 to a more personal frame of reference: instead of “darzu ist erschienen der Sohn Gottes, daβ er die Werke des Teufels zerstöre” (to this end was the Son of God manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil), we hear “und darzu hat er mich erkoren, deswegen ist er Mensch geboren” (and therefore he has chosen me, on that account he was born a human).2

Bach’s Cantatas for Advent and Christmas, 1723

In keeping with regular Leipzig practice, Bach in 1723 led the performance of a cantata for the First Sunday of Advent (and not the Second, Third, or Fourth) and for each of the three principal days of Christmas (December 25, 26, 27):

The first two of these were reperformances of cantatas Bach had composed in Weimar, while the latter two were newly composed for Leipzig.

Over the course of Bach’s cantatas for the three days of Christmas 1723 (BWV 63, 40, and 64), the focus shifts from Jesus as the promised redeemer of Israel, the subject matter of the Weimar cantata Christen, ätzet diesen Tag (BWV 63), to the meaning of the incarnation as told in John and I John in Cantatas 40 and 64. The texts outline a progression that is both chronological (from the time of Israel to the contemporary Christian believer) and increasingly personal in tone.

The librettist of Cantata 63 created a design that Alfred Dürr has described as “remarkably symmetrical”: the outer movements (1 and 7) are tutti choruses with identical instrumentation, mvts. 2 and 6 accompanied recitatives, and mvts. 3 and 5 duets, with a secco recitative in mvt. 4.3 In this arrangement, the central recitative (mvt. 4) provides the fundamental message of the cantata: with his “bow” and “sword,” Jesus, the “lion from the stem of David,” turns the sorrow that had burdened Israel into salvation and grace. Already, the mvt. 2 recitative sets forth this theme in terms of God’s promise in paradise of the “Shiloh” (Messiah), who has now appeared:

O selger Tag! O ungemeines Heute,

O blessed day! O extraordinary day,

An dem das Heil der Welt,

On which the savior of the world,

Der Schilo, den Gott schon im Paradies

The Shiloh, which God already in paradise

Dem menschlichen Geschlecht verhieß,

Promised to the human race,

Nunmehro sich vollkommen dargestellt

Now presents himself completely

Und suchet Israel von der Gefangenschaft und Sklavenketten

And seeks to rescue Israel from Satan’s captivity

Des Satans zu erretten.

And chains of slavery.

This recitative refers to the so-called “proto Gospel” (Genesis 3:15), in which God announces that the seed of woman shall bruise the head of the serpent, a passage that was traditionally understood as prefiguring the coming of Christ to defeat Satan. Luther and many others linked it to the words of John that most closely express the “Christus Victor” view of the atonement, as cited earlier from Aulén.4 As Helene Werthemann observed, Cantata 63, whose central recitative narrates that the “lion of the stem of David” has appeared, “his bow drawn, his sword whetted,” links up with Cantata 40, which depicts Jesus’s combat with and defeat of the serpent (Satan).5 The tone, which derives from John’s portrayal of Jesus as Christus Victor, links both cantatas to the message of Easter. Thus, as Alfred Dürr writes, Cantata 63, although festive in character, lacks the particular musical attributes usually associated with Christmas: “shepherds’ music, cradle song, the ‘Glory to God in the highest,’ the angels, Christmas songs, even featuring no chorale at all.”6 In contrast, Cantata 40 contains a superabundance of chorales (three) among which the second is not associated with Christmas but appears to have been included to highlight the theme of Jesus’s defeat of the devil.

In fact, Bach’s three cantatas for Christmas 1723 interpret the meaning of the incarnation in broader terms than those usually associated with the tropes of Christmas. Lutheran writers often associated the three principal feasts of Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost with the three persons of the Trinity, according to which Christmas was the feast of God the Father, rather than Jesus, with Easter being the feast of Jesus, and Pentecost, of course, of the Holy Spirit.7 In this view, Christmas was linked with God’s plan for the salvation of humanity, the implementation of which began with the incarnation at Christmas, but whose fulfillment was Jesus’s defeat of the devil and the powers of death at Easter. Fifty days later, on Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit provided the means by which humanity might reap the benefits of God’s plan. When we consider the three Christmas cantatas of 1723 in that light, it is entirely understandable that Cantata 63 centers on the theme of Jesus’s defeat of the devil as promised by God in Genesis, that this theme is further developed in Cantata 40, and that Cantata 64 articulates its benefits for humanity in the present life. Cantata 40 describes the impulse for God’s plan of salvation: his love for humanity and his desire to restore it to its former (i.e., pre-fall) condition. In this light, Cantata 63 is not at all anomalous, but fits with a full exploration of the meaning of the incarnation over the three days of Christmas 1723. In fact, limiting the meaning of Christmas to the nativity story runs contrary to the way that feast was understood in Lutheran thought; and even the Christmas Oratorio, which does include the various nativity tropes, exhibits parallels to the 1723 Christmas cantatas in this respect. In the 1723 cantatas, the nativity story is played down in favor of a more “theological” view of the incarnation, one that draws upon John for its full presentation in Cantatas 40 and 64.

It is possible that this treatment of Christmas was worked out in conjunction with Cantatas 61 and 63, originally composed in Weimar in 1714 for the First Sunday of Advent and Christmas Day, respectively. That is, the deviation from the standard Gospel readings in Cantatas 40 and 64 and their unusual emphasis on John’s view of the incarnation, might have been conceived as a means of creating a sense of continuity with the two Weimar cantatas. Cantata 61, Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, begins the 1723–24 liturgical year (as it did in Weimar in 1714) by outlining the meaning of the incarnation according to the traditional four senses of scripture, which embody four “stages,” moving from historical to spiritual interpretation, and also corresponding to four eras of salvation history.8 The first sense is that of Jesus’s coming to the world as fulfillment of the Messianic prophesies of Israel, now extended to the gentiles: “Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland” (mvt. 1); the second is his coming to the church (corresponding to the shift of era from Israel to the Christian church (that is, the Christological sense): “Komm, Jesu, komm zu deiner Kirche” (mvt. 3); the third is his coming to the individual believer, symbolized by the human heart (the tropological sense): “Öffne dich, mein ganzes Herze, Jesus kömmt und ziehet ein” (mvt. 5); and the fourth is his coming at the end of time (the eschatological sense): “Komm, du schöne Freudenkrone, deiner wart’ ich mit verlangen” (mvt. 6).

The three Christmas cantatas of 1723 also articulate a shift from the literal-historical to the spiritual sense of the incarnation. That is, whereas Cantata 61, on the first Sunday of Advent, delineates the meaning of the incarnation in terms of the four senses (or stages) of traditional hermeneutics—according to which Jesus comes to the world (the Heiden—gentiles), the church, the individual believer, and at the end of time—Cantatas 63, 40 and 64 expand on those “stages,” beginning with references to the Messiah of Israel and continuing with increasing emphasis on John, widely viewed as the “spiritual” gospel. Cantata 63 centers on Jesus as the promised redeemer of Israel, the historical sense, not only looking back to Genesis (the proto-gospel and the promised Shiloh), but also placing great emphasis on the point in time at which the implementation of God’s plan of salvation began. That theme is symbolized in its various references to “diesen Tag,” “heute,” “itzo,” “anheut,” all of which identify the incarnation as the beginning of a new era in which the restoration of humanity to its condition before the fall is associated with Jesus’s defeat of the devil. Cantata 40 then turns to the incarnation of Jesus as the first of the three “spiritual” senses, announcing the incarnation as the fulfillment of God’s promises, then depicting the defeat of the devil and its benefit for humanity (associated with Easter). Cantata 64 then explores that benefit in terms of humanity’s participation in its inheritance as God’s “children” in the present. The three Christmas cantatas, therefore, progressively interpret the meaning of the incarnation in a spiritual light, one whose fourth or eschatological sense, set forth in Cantata 64, is particularly indebted to John and is therefore colored by the idea of “realized eschatology.”9

Within this framework, I will explore in the remainder of this chapter how such Johannine themes are presented in Bach’s newly composed works for Christmas 1723, Cantata 40 and Cantata 64.

Cantata 40, Darzu ist erschienen der Sohn Gottes

BWV 40/1–3: The Incarnation

Cantata 40 projects a striking sense of the bond between John’s Gospel and the Christus Victor theory of the atonement, beginning with a magnificent choral version of the purpose of the incarnation as given by John (in I John 3:8). The listener’s overwhelming impression on hearing the triadic horn motives with which the cantata begins is of a great event. Whether or not she makes an association with other majestic Bach beginnings (such as that of Cantata 71, Gott ist mein König), this gesture alone makes the point of Jesus’s divinity immediately clear. And other, less apparent details make the same point. One of Bach’s many subtle emphases in this movement emerges in the fact that throughout the opening chorus he always places “Gottes” on a strong beat and “Sohn” on a weak (usually an upbeat to the downbeat on “Gottes”), even though this requires emphasizing the article “der” more than “Sohn,” as well (see Example 2.1). This detail is so consistent as to leave no doubt that the majestic character of the opening chorus projects the divinity of Jesus; it is God himself who, through the incarnation of his Son, Jesus, undertakes the defeat of the work of the devil.10

Example 2.1. BWV 40/1, tenor, mm. 29–31

This does not in any way lessen the message of the incarnation; just the reverse: Jesus’s destruction of the work of the devil is bound up with the fact that in him God took on human form. In a sermon dealing with Jesus’s “Erniedrigung” and “Erhöhung” from his Betrachtungen über den Rath Gottes von der Seeligkeit der Menschen, Johann Jacob Rambach makes clear the distinction between the form (“Gestalt”) that God took on in the incarnation (described by Rambach as by most Lutheran theologians of the time as “Knecht-Gestalt,” as in BWV 40/2, “Der Herr erscheinet als ein Knecht”) and his being (“Wesen”) or nature (“Natur”).11 Bach makes this clear in the motives and modulatory design of the opening chorus. The initial motives are rooted in the major triad, which is sometimes presented in rising configurations, such as the motto form of its initial presentation in the horns, but more often in falling ones, such as the oboe continuation.

Bach introduces a dialogue aspect to the largely homophonic initial segment of the movement (mm. 1–29) that immediately suggests the relationship between God and his Son, especially in the many passages in which “Darzu ist erschienen” outlines the descent and “der Sohn Gottes,” the ascent (see, for example, mm. 13–15). The descent part of the phrase mirrors the incarnation, while the ascent, which represents primarily Jesus’s divinity and his return to the Father, also points to the raising of humanity to the status of God’s children, as the closing movements of the cantata make clear. Against such themes, Bach sets another, associated with “daß er die Werke des Teufels zerstöre”: a reiterated single tone of militant rhythmic character that spreads through the four choral voices as the first section closes. The initial segment, which introduces the entire text of the movement, has an arresting declamatory and anticipatory character that prepares for the central section of the movement (mm. 29–62). In this central section, Bach forms the descent/ascent idea into the theme of a fugue, against which the “Werke des Teufels” motive serves as countertheme (Example 2.1).

The two themes suggest two aspects of Jesus’s incarnation: the redemption of humanity and the destruction of the devil’s work (as the means by which that redemption was carried out). In later years, Bach parodied this chorus as the “Cum sancto spiritu” of the Missa Brevis in F major (BWV 233), beginning with the initial two measures of the cantata chorus, then skipping over the remainder of the introduction to pick up with the fugue. In the Mass, the theme associated with Jesus’s destruction of the work of the devil sets the words “in gloria Dei Patris,” a connection that suggests that the work of redemption was that of Jesus’s divinity, as in the Christus Victor theory. In both works, that theme does not enter until all four voices of the choir have presented the main theme. When it does, however, its impact is very telling, since it immediately introduces the flat seventh degree into the F major harmony, a device suggesting in BWV 40/1 both the undermining nature of the devil’s work in the world and the focus on Jesus’s destruction of that work. As a result, the tonality shifts in the flat direction, introducing A-flats and D-flats along with suggestions of the keys of E-flat major, G minor, and F minor (a Phrygian cadence to C in m. 52). The outcome is that the fugal middle section of the movement closes in the subdominant, B-flat major (m. 62), the flat side of the key serving, like the descent element in the fugue theme, as a symbol of the world into which Jesus was born and in which his victory over the devil took place.

Bach’s changes to the main section on its truncated return in mm. 62–63 confirm this interpretation. Beginning the return in the subdominant, he now creates a threefold variant of the initial dialogue theme that rises through the tones of the B-flat major triad. As it reaches the fifth, f’’, for “der Sohn Gottes,” Bach returns to F major, bringing back the music of mm. 12–15 (now 67–70), and following it by the music of “daβ er die Werke des Teufels zerstöre,” which passes through a descending sequence, from c’ in the soprano, through f’ (alto) and d’ (tenor) to b-flat’ (bass), before returning to F major for the close. At the analogous point in the “Cum Sancto Spiritu” of the Missa Brevis, Bach brings back the instrumental beginning of the reprise (slightly altered), in B-flat moving to F. In the Missa, he assigns to the chorus the instrumental ritornello material rather than the original “Darzu ist erschienen” material, and moves into the fugue theme soon after that. He also amplifies the flat (subdominant) character it had on its earlier appearance by passing the theme through C minor and F minor, then B-flat major and E-flat major, even beginning an entry as if in A-flat major. The outcome is a Phrygian cadence to F that sounds like the dominant of B-flat, so that the sense of return to the final F from the “weaker” subdominant region is greater than in the cantata chorus. The reason for this change is that in all four Missae Breves, Bach deals extensively with the pattern of descent followed by ascent, especially in the “Gloria,” which traces the pattern of descent from God in glory (“Gloria in excelsis Deo”) to Jesus’s redemption of the sinful world (“Qui tollis peccata mundi”) and back. In this conception, the “Cum Sancto Spiritu” marks the final return to the glory of God (“in Gloria Dei Patris, Amen”). As in the opening chorus of Cantata 40, the primary meaning of the descent/ascent that is embodied in the modulation to the subdominant and back is that of the incarnation more than the return ascent. But, as we will see, the remainder of the cantata explores the opposition of above/below and ascent/descent with expansion of the modulatory character of the opening chorus to the level of major/minor juxtapositions at the tonic, dominant, and subdominant levels.

Bach thus molds his opening chorus to suggest themes of distinctly Johannine character. As the cantata continues, the purpose of the incarnation remains squarely in the foreground as the work of God, taking its point of departure in the first half of the mvt. 2 recitative from the above/below, word/flesh, light/darkness, divine/human antitheses of John’s prologue:

Das Wort ward Fleisch

The word became flesh

und wohnet in der Welt,

and dwelt in the world,

das Licht der Welt

the light of the world

bestrahlt den Kreis der Erden,

cast its rays throughout the earth,

der große Gottessohn

the majestic Son of God

verläßt des Himmels Thron,

abandoned the throne of heaven,

und seiner Majestät gefällt

and his majestic nature was pleased

ein kleines Menschenkind zu werden.

to become a tiny human child.

The key idea here is contained in the progression from Jesus as “großer Gottessohn” to “kleines Menschenkind,” for, as the mvt. 5 recitative explains, the children of man, “alle Adamskinder,” had inherited “poison of the soul” from the snake (i.e., the devil) in Eden; Jesus became “flesh” in order to take on humanity’s “poison” and fulfill God’s design that humankind, “des Weibes Samen,” would tread the serpent underfoot. This “exchange” (Tausch), as described in mvt. 2, meant that Jesus’s becoming a “Menschenkind” made it possible for the faithful among humankind to become “Christenkinder” (mvt. 7), “members” and “brothers” of Christ (mvt. 8), or, as the cantata for the following day puts it, “Gottes Kinder.” All such ideas display an enormous indebtedness to John. Interestingly, although one of Bach’s most common devices for depicting the distinction between God and humankind throughout the cantatas is to turn from major to minor, this does not happen in BWV 40/2 for the cadential phrase “ein kleines Menschenkind zu werden.” Instead, although the vocal line, having reached its highest tone, a', on “großer Gottessohn,” descends through an octave plus a major sixth to c for “ein kleines Menschenkind zu werden” (while the harmony simultaneously outlines a circle-of-fifths descent from A to F: A6–d–G6–C6–F), Bach moves to and remains in C major, making a decisive cadence in that key, an emphatic gesture that is not at all suggestive of human weakness. Bach unmistakably asserts the Johannine idea that Jesus, in taking on human form, does not abandon his divinity.

With the next phrase of the mvt. 2 recitative, however, the focus shifts to the human understanding of the incarnation. It was to emphasize this shift of perspective that Bach reserved the turn to minor:

Bedenkt doch diesen Tausch,

Consider, however, this transformation,

wer nur gedenken kann:

whoever only can think:

der König wird ein Untertan,

the king becomes an underling,

der Herr scheinet als ein Knecht

the Lord appears as a servant

und wird dem menschlichen Geschlecht,

and is born into the human race

— o süßes Wort in aller Ohren! —

— O sweet word for all ears! —

zu Trost und Heil geboren.

for its consolation and salvation.

Instantly, on “Bedenkt,” Bach brings in the pitch e-flat’, and the passage shifts from C major toward C minor, which it reaches on “Knecht,” continuing until, with “und Heil geboren,” it closes with a sudden turn to B-flat major. Even the upward rising line on “o süßes Wort in aller Ohren,” which attains the pitch a-flat’, is completely within the C minor framework, in keeping with the reference to the human ears that hear the message of “Trost” (consolation) and “Heil” (salvation). Marking the shift from the high a’ on “Gottessohn,” the a-flat’ immediately drops an octave on “zu Trost,” the C minor harmony then giving way to the move to B-flat major. The shift to B-flat major on “Heil” rather than “Trost” (re-introducing the pitch a’ in juxtaposition with the earlier a-flat’) makes clear that while “Trost” is a quality given by Jesus to humanity in the present life, “Heil” is directed upwards.

In short, the very careful attention to detail in this recitative is indicative of a very particular theological perspective on the text of Cantata 40. For elsewhere Bach does modulate to flat-minor keys—often “deep” flats—to emphasize the humanity of Jesus.12 In such places, Jesus’s humanity is the central focus, often in conjunction with his suffering, whereas in BWV 40/2 Bach introduces the shift to minor only after Jesus’s divinity has been firmly established, associating it not with Jesus, but with the human perspective.

The ensuing chorale (mvt. 3), in G minor, affirms Jesus’s gift to the faithful, “Trost” in this world through the presence of God himself:

Die Sünd’ macht Leid,

Sin creates suffering,

Christus bringt Freud’,

Christ brings joy,

weil er zu Trost in dieser Welt gekommen.

because he came for the consolation of this world.

Mit uns ist Gott

God is with us

Nun in der Not:

now in our need:

wer ist, der uns als Christen kann verdammen?

who is there who can condemn us as Christians?

This chorale, it may be added, does not demand the believer’s recognition of her sinful nature, as we find, for example, throughout the Matthew Passion, but states emphatically that Jesus brings joy and that through him God is present. The message, in other words, is very close to that of the John Passion. Set above a chromatic bass line, its final rhetorical question, “wer ist, der uns als Christen kann verdammen?”, hinges on the word “verdammen” (condemn). As understood in passages such as Romans 8:1—“Es ist nicht Verdammliches an denen, die in Christo Jesu sind” (There is then no condemnation for those who abide in Jesus Christ)—“verdammen” refers to the inner contamination by sin that was the result of the fall—that is, to human nature itself under sway of the devil. As we read in the text of Bach’s 1725 Pentecost cantata, Wer mich liebet, der wird mein Wort halten (BWV 74, also based primarily on John, but also including Romans 8:1), the removal of that “condemnation” came about through Jesus’s suffering and death. In that work, the setting of Romans 8:1 is followed by the aria “Nichts kann mich erretten von höllischen Ketten als, Jesu, dein Blut” (Nothing can rescue me from the chains of hell but, Jesus, your blood), which represents struggle with the forces of evil, affirming with its reference to Jesus’s “blood” and its highly dramatic antithesis/resolution gestures on “Sterben”/“Erben” the crucial point that the redemptive power of Jesus’s victory over evil—that is, its meaning for humanity—was inseparable from his incarnation. The chorale that follows, ending Cantata 74, emphasizes that no “Menschenkind” is worthy of or can in any way “earn” Jesus’s “gift”; nothing but God’s love and grace, which Jesus alone earns for us, brings about human salvation. In Cantata 40 the sequence of movements that follows the mvt. 3 chorale articulates the same message.

BWV 40/4–6: Christus Victor

Cantata 40 features chorales as the third, sixth, and last of its eight movements; and each chorale summarizes the “stage” that precedes it before leading on to the next. The cantata divides logically into three segments, each culminating with a chorale. The first segment (mvts. 1–3) centers on the incarnation itself, the second (mvts. 4–6) depicts the defeat of the “höllische Schlange” (Satan), and the third (mvts. 7–8) affirms Jesus’s protection of the faithful and his bestowing peace, joy, and blessedness on them. The sequence addresses themes usually associated with the principal feast days of the year, Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost. Through these stages, the traditional “enemies” described in the “classic” theory—sin, death, and the devil—are overcome.

Thus the mvt. 3 chorale, “Die Sünd’ macht Leid,” announces the opposition between Jesus and human sin, affirming “Trost” and God’s protection in times of need as the immediate outcomes of the incarnation, while the rhetorical question with which it ends—“wer ist, der uns als Christen kann verdammen?”—leads over into the central grouping of movements and its primary subject matter, Jesus’s defeat of the devil. The bass aria, “Höllische Schlange, wird dir nicht bange” (mvt. 4), accompanied by oboes, strings, and basso continuo, depicts struggle with the contamination of human nature (i.e., sin) by the devil (metaphorically the serpent of Eden) in terms that are easily recognized. The restlessness and struggle of the snake emerge graphically in the continuous undulation of the first violin part, the shifting harmonies, and the principal motto of the winds and lower strings, which suggests the rearing up of the snake’s head, while the punctuating periodic nature of that motive and its continual reiterations invite interpretation as treading on the serpent’s head. Bach introduces the latter idea graphically when the text takes up its second (and final) set of images, “Der dir den Kopf als ein Sieger zerknickt, ist nun geboren, und die verloren werden mit ewigem Frieden beglückt” (He who, like a conqueror, crushes the head [of the serpent] for you, is now born, and those who were lost are blessed with eternal peace). Here the winding “snake” motive drops into the basso continuo line, beneath the bass voice and the punctuating upper parts. And the vocal line takes on a quality that Handel, for example, associated with loathing in the aria “They loathed to drink of the river” from Israel in Egypt: wide intervals whose tones seem to avoid each other. The line is basically a circle-of-fifths pattern in which tritones appear on “Kopf” and “zerknickt.” Although Bach allows the change of tone toward the end of the text to emerge in a florid ascent/descent pattern of sixteenth notes for “werden mit ewigem Frieden beglückt” and “ist nun geboren,” the aria is, in fact, dominated by the depiction of struggle and victory.13

The next two movements, an accompanied recitative, beginning “Die Schlange, so im Paradies auf alle Adamskinder das Gift der Seelen fallen ließ” (The serpent who caused the poison of the soul to fall on all the children of Adam in paradise, mvt. 5), and a chorale, “Schüttle deinen Kopf und sprich: fleuch, du alte Schlange!” (Shake your head and say: “Flee, you ancient serpent,” mvt. 6), continue the theme of the “snake.” The recitative depicts the incarnation as the source of “Trost” for the “betrübter Sünder,” whereas the chorale refers back, in its key (D minor) and reiterations of “Schlange,” “bange,” and “Kopf zerknickt,” to the D minor aria. At the same time, its ending—“und ich bin durch Leiden meines Heilands dir entrückt in den Saal der Freuden” (and I am, through the suffering of my Savior, carried from you into the hall of joys)—leads over into the next movement, the tenor aria, “Christenkinder, freuet euch” (Children of Christ, rejoice), which proclaims not merely “Trost” but rather joy as the outcome of Jesus’s victory over death in the Passion. After that, the third and final chorale, “Jesu, nimm dich deiner Glieder ferner in Genaden an” (Jesus, take your members unto you in grace), with its “Glieder” / “Brüder” / “Christenschar” succession and its extraordinarily joyful ending—“Freude, Freude über Freude! Christus wehret allem Leide. Wonne, Wonne über Wonne! Er ist die Genadensonne” (Joy, joy upon joy! Christ wards off all suffering. Bliss, bliss upon bliss! He is the sun of grace)—affirms the benefit of Jesus’s victory for humankind.

Such an affirmation takes us directly into the sphere of Johannine theology and its association with the Christus Victor theory of the atonement. For while the incarnation is central to both Aulén’s “classic” (Johannine) and “Latin” (late medieval) theories, its significance and its relationship to Jesus’s work are considered different from one to the other. As Aulén explains, the idea behind both the classic theory and the Johannine proclamation that the “word” (Logos) became flesh is the absolute identity of Jesus and God, the assertion that Jesus remains God even as he becomes one of humankind. We have seen that in BWV 40/2 Bach makes this clear by completing the narration of the incarnation with a C major cadence, then turning toward C minor as it urges human contemplation of this exchange (“Tausch”) and its two-sided meaning for humanity: “Trost,” which concerns the present life, and “Heil,” which leads to the next life. The movement shifts suddenly from C minor to B-flat major on “Heil,” closing the recitative, and then turns to G minor for the chorale’s emphatic pronouncement contrasting future “Trost” with present “Not” (need). The chorale’s final reference to condemnation leads on to the aria “Höllische Schlange,” which depicts Jesus’s work in a militant, aggressive, but not joyful manner, indicating its benefit for the believer, “eternal peace,” not with the usual triumphant turn to major, but in a highly dramatic D minor in which all secondary keys and cadences are minor.

The mvt. 5 recitative is illuminating in this regard. Beginning and ending on the identically-scored B-flat major harmony, which also appears at the close of the first phrase (mm. 1, 4, 11), it introduces some striking flat-minor coloration—above all, a strong tendency towards B-flat minor before the close of the recitative—in conjunction with the theme of the contamination of human nature by sin and the devil. Bach accompanies the voice with close-position arpeggiated harmonies in the strings, thereby ensuring that the changing harmonies and “keys” involve as little motion as possible in the voice leading of the instrumental parts. And at the beginning he leaves out the basso continuo, creating a high bass (“bassetchen”) texture, presumably because the narrative at that point refers to what happened in paradise: “Die Schlange, so im Paradies auf alle Adamskinder das Gift der Seelen fallen ließ” (The serpent, who in paradise caused the poison of the soul to fall on all children of Adam). With the word “Gift” (poison), Bach introduces the pitch g-flat’ into the vocal line, the merest hint of the minor key. But with the ending of the phrase—the voice dropping a seventh for “fallen ließ”—the basso continuo returns, and the music continues in B-flat major, cadencing in F major for “bringt uns nicht mehr Gefahr” (brings us no more danger). From here the recitative narrates that Jesus’s incarnation enabled the “seed of woman” to triumph over the serpent (“des Weibes Samen stellt sich dar, der Heiland ist im Fleisch gekommen und hat ihr allen Gift benommen”). Moving to G minor for “der Heiland ist im Fleisch gekommen,” and cadencing in C minor for “und hat ihr allen Gift benommen” (resolving the upward tritone leap on “Gift” into C minor for “benommen”), Bach now brings in a continuously moving bass line for the final phrase, “Drum sei getrost! betrübter Sünder” (Therefore be consoled, tormented sinners), and shifts to extensive B-flat minor coloration, including the Neapolitan harmony of that key, after prolonging the pitch d-flat’’ in the voice on “betrübter.” The final chord, however, is the same B-flat major harmony, with identical instrumental spacing, as the initial chord of the recitative and that on “ließ,” thereby suggesting Jesus’s work as restoration of the faithful to the pre-fall status. In sum, the motion of the recitative is from “high” to “low” in the instrumental sonority, with B-flat major providing its tonal frame of reference. Nevertheless, the B-flat minor coloring directly before the final cadence represents the sphere of human tribulation into which comes “Trost” from above.

In the mvt. 2 recitative, Bach, as we saw, cadenced in C major for the narrative of Jesus’s incarnation, then to C minor for the human perspective on that event; at the end, he turned suddenly from C minor to B-flat major for the “Heil” that constituted its ultimate meaning. Now in mvt. 5, B-flat major is the framework for the “story” of the purpose of the incarnation, colored by its minor mode for the impact of the “snake” on humanity. The modulations to G minor and C minor here depict Jesus’s taking on the poison of sin, after which it closes in B-flat major for the turn to “Trost” (although briefly tormented by the minor mode).

The major third in the final chord of mvt. 5 not only recalls the beginning of the recitative, but also anticipates the D minor of the mvt. 6 chorale. This chorale makes much out of Phrygian harmonies and chromatic voice-leading, especially in the bass, for its second, third, and fourth phrase cadences, on “Schlange,” “Stich,” and “bange.” Then, for the antepenultimate and final phrases, which are melodically identical, Bach juxtaposes the words “Leiden” and “Freuden” by means of a deceptive cadence to B-flat major for “Leiden” and full close to D minor for “Freuden.” The meaning of the text is clear: Jesus’s defeat of the devil, the key to the believer’s salvation, is accomplished through his passion: “Ist dir doch der Kopf zerknickt, und ich bin durchs Leiden meines Heilands dir entrückt in den Saal der Freuden.” Although in minor, Jesus’s defeat of the devil is linked to expressions of victory, a quality that we find in the opening chorus of the John Passion, in which the G minor tonality, throbbing pedal tones, and chromatic writing accompany affirmations of Jesus’s “Herrlichkeit” in “Erniedrigung,” a reminder that in John Jesus’s passion marks the climax of the “book of glory.” Jesus’s victory over sin, death, and the devil is ultimately proclaimed in the aria “Es ist vollbracht.”14

BWV 40/7–8: The Benefits of Jesus’s Passion for the Christian Believer

With the aria that follows, “Christenkinder, freuet euch” (mvt. 7), Bach gives us much more of an indication of what “Trost” and “Freude,” the benefits of Jesus’s passion, really mean (see Example 2.2). The reappearance of F major along with the horns and oboes of the opening movement, after the flat-side modulations of the intervening movements, invites interpretation as a “restoration”—that is, that Jesus’s defeat of the devil restores humanity to its pre-fall status, described now in the terms of I John as God’s “children.” As the middle section of the aria proclaims, Jesus is the protector of the faithful: “Wütet schon das Höllenreich, will euch Satans Grimm erschrecken: Jesus, der erretten kann, nimmt sich seiner Küchlein an und will sie mit Flügeln decken” (Even though the kingdom of hell rages, and Satan’s fury terrifies you, Jesus, who can rescue you, takes his little chicks unto him and will cover them with his wings). The aria is, therefore, also a counterpart to “Höllische Schlange.” The earlier aria deals with Jesus’s work, whereas “Christenkinder, freuet euch” luxuriates in its benefit for the faithful.

Example 2.2. BWV 40/7, a. corno I, mm. 1–2; b. tenor, mm. 5–6

Although the rate of eighth-note motion is about the same for the two arias, their time signatures—12/8 for “Christenkinder” and three-eight for “Höllische Schlange”—emphasize very different accentual patterns.15 In contrast to the punctuated character of “Höllische Schlange” and the drop in pitch that always follows the rising arpeggio of the principal motive, the main theme of “Christenkinder, freuet euch” unfolds much more broadly, ascending an octave and a fifth, quickening its pace as it passes through the tones of the major triad (Example 2.2a). And when the voice enters, it is with a variant of a theme that has pronounced eschatological associations throughout Bach’s music (Example 2.2b).16 In “Christenkinder, freuet euch,” it suggests joy in the certainty of salvation as the outcome of Jesus’s victory. Overall, the aria prolongs the sense of victory throughout the main section, in which both the instrumental and vocal phrases end in roulades of sixteenth notes, the voice sounding long melismas on “freuet.” As the middle section takes up Jesus’s protection of the faithful from the serpent again, Bach drops the sixteenth notes into the basso continuo, as he had for the treading on the serpent’s head in “Höllische Schlange.”17 The return of the principal section, however, and the fact that “Christenkinder, freuet euch” is approximately twice as long as “Höllische Schlange,” provide a sense that the mvt. 7 aria overcomes all the emphasis on minor keys in the preceding movements, restoring the F major of “Darzu ist erschienen.”

Had Bach ended the cantata with an F major chorale, it would have finalized the positive message. And, indeed, the text of the concluding chorale is unequivocally positive in tone:

Jesu, nimm dich deiner Glieder

Jesu, accept your members

ferner in Genaden an;

henceforth in grace with you;

schenke, was man bitten kann,

bestow what one may ask

zu erquicken deine Brüder;

to revive your brothers;

gib der ganzen Christenschar

give the whole of Christianity

Frieden und ein sel’ges Jahr!

peace and a blessed year!

Freude, Freude über Freude!

Joy, joy upon joy!

Christus wehret allem Leide.

Christ deflects all sorrow.

Wonne, Wonne über Wonne!

Bliss, bliss upon bliss!

Er ist die Genadensonne.

He is the sun of grace.

In his setting, however, Bach ends the cantata in F minor, that is, the “tonic” minor, a stark juxtaposition that seems to offset the tone of rejoicing, especially since there is no intervening recitative to mediate it. This gesture, unique in all Bach’s cantatas, leaves the listener in need of understanding; for whether she knows the extent to which F minor is the quintessential key of lamentation in Bach’s work, she surely hears the shift to minor as a darkening of, if not a turning away from, the joyful character of the preceding movement.

The minor key chorale melody was probably a given, but Bach could very easily have set the final chorale in the relative D minor, representing much less of a juxtaposition with F major. Had he done so, the ending would have linked up with the D minor aria and chorale in mvts. 5 and 6 and would have tied together Jesus’s victory over the serpent and the rejoicing of the “Christenkinder.” But the chorale’s final affirmation of joy would have sounded weak after the F major of the preceding movement. The opening chorus and the two arias articulate an imposing F major–D minor–F major structural “core” that would be undermined by return to D minor for the final movement.

Hence Bach’s striking choice of F minor for the final chorale. I suggest that Bach carefully made this choice to assert a particular theological meaning that involves our understanding the F major/F minor juxtaposition as simultaneously projecting both an opposition (the major/minor “modal” shift) and a potential unity (the keynote F). As we have seen, the two recitatives of Cantata 40 make conspicuous modulations to flat-minor keys in connection with the human condition (from C major to C minor in mvt. 2; and the B-flat minor coloring of B-flat major in mvt. 5). In this light, it is significant that the F minor of the final chorale represents the third and most conspicuous major/minor juxtaposition in the work. The first and second bear unmistakable associations of the divine and the human spheres, in Johannine terms, of the worlds above and below. Since all three chorales bring out the theme of sorrow turned to joy in minor-key contexts, we may conclude that the F minor ending depicts the reality of the human condition, or the sphere of the “flesh” and darkness into which Jesus was incarnated: although tormented and sinful, the faithful nevertheless live in the benefits of Jesus’s victory and the hope of eternity, a classic Johannine viewpoint. The word “ferner” adds a dimension of future expectations to what is otherwise grounded securely in the present. Since its final lines (lines 7–10) articulate the message of sorrow turned to joy in the most emphatic terms (emphasized in the melody through its striking final series of rising sequences), Bach introduces a bass ascent for the final line and ends the setting, as usual, with a Picardy third. At its close, the chorale is, in fact, very positive sounding. That quality is offset, however, by the stark juxtaposition of the tonic major and minor modes and the ending of the chorale on an unaccented syllable (hence a weak beat). Instead of a weak connection to the D minor and F major of the preceding movements, what we have in the final chorale is a far greater sense of the dualism between the believer’s joy and the world. In Cantata 40, the Johannine antitheses dominate from beginning to end.

Sehet, welch eine Liebe (BWV 64)

In Cantata 40, Bach develops the meaning of the two aspects of Jesus that he distinguishes, then joins, in the mvt. 3 recitative of Cantata 64: the Christus Victor and the child. Its ending with what I would describe as a sense of dualism surrounding the joy of the faithful and the world of darkness in which they dwell was perhaps part of a design in which that subject would be treated more fully on the following day in Cantata 64. The idea of humanity as God’s children continues in Cantata 64 with its opening motto: “Sehet, welch eine Liebe hat uns der Vater erzeiget, daß wir Gottes Kinder heißen” (Behold, what a love the Father has shown unto us, so that we are called the children of God), which further expands on the meaning of the incarnation and its ultimate implications for humanity. This entails one of John’s most characteristic themes, the division of existence into worlds “above” and “below,” the former comprising a complex of ideas such as truth, goodness, eternal life, light, God, and the Spirit, and the latter their opposites. This theme links up to another famous Johannine theme, God’s love for humanity as the motive behind the incarnation, thereby providing the necessary perspective on the emphasis on the defeat of the devil in Cantata 40.

In Cantata 64, the Christian believer’s recognition of God’s love as manifested in the incarnation and the elevation of humankind to the status of God’s children results in their rejection of “the world.” In this cantata, viewing the incarnation in terms of God’s love for humankind means that Jesus’s coming into the world brings about the possibility of new life for “God’s children.” The opening motto of Cantata 64, I John 3:1, is drawn from a passage that resembles one from the prologue of John’s Gospel (the Gospel reading for the third day of Christmas); the difference between the two consists in the emphasis on God’s love in I John, for they both bring out the theme of humanity becoming “children of God,” and they both emphasize the fact that the filial relationship to God sets the faithful apart from “the world,” which does not recognize God.18 The verse from which the opening motto of Cantata 64 was drawn continues with the line “Darum kennt uns die Welt nicht; denn sie kennt ihn nicht” (“therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not,” King James Version), introducing a characteristically Johannine antithesis of the faithful and the world. Although not included by Bach’s librettist, its meaning is carried over into the cantata text. In completing the implications of the incarnation, the librettist of Cantata 64 set forth God’s motive for the incarnation at the outset, then used the remainder of the cantata to deal with its fulfillment, the believer’s rejection of the world and anticipation of eternity in the present life—John’s “realized” eschatology.

Johann Jacob Rambach and Johannine Theology

In his treatise, Seeligkeit der Gläubigen in der Zeit und in der Ewigkeit, Johann Jacob Rambach addresses issues surrounding what we would call “present” versus “future” eschatology, basing his discussions on I John 3:2 and John 10:12–16.19 Rambach begins his discussion of I John 3:2 (“Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him: for we shall see him as he is.” KJV) by addressing I John 3:1, the verse that opens Cantata 64. I John 3:1 makes the all-important proclamation of God’s eternal love as the source of all blessedness, foreordained by him according to his will, while I John 3:2 confronts the question of present and future blessedness and makes clear that Christian believers are not only called the children of God but are children of God now in the present “kingdom of grace”:

Now [i.e., after verse 1] John’s pronouncement, “Beloved, we are now God’s children,” can be made. Previously he had proclaimed as a special grace that we are called God’s children. Now, so that no one might come to the conclusion that this is a mere title, he explains himself more clearly with these words, and says, “We are now God’s children.” We are not only called that, but we also have and own all the reality and truth that may be expressed through this honorable name. And, to be sure, we have this now, in our present humble and imperfect state, now, in the kingdom of grace, from this time on, since we have accepted the only begotten Son of God through faith, and have given ourselves into his community and succession.20

Rambach divides his first sermon into two parts, analyzing first the present and then the future blessedness of the faithful, both of which are rooted in the fact that out of love God takes all who believe as his children. As we might expect, the process of faith that Rambach describes follows the traditional Lutheran stages of recognition of our sinful nature according to the law, followed by God’s mercy and blessings granted through the Gospel of grace.21 The inheritance of eternal blessedness follows, enabling the sinner to raise his eyes to Christ, through which he is enlightened by love, altering his heart and mind. But that future blessedness is “hidden” in the present. On this point, Rambach continues:

However, the future blessedness of the faithful is no less certain on that account; in that John, in the name of all the inheritors of blessedness, speaks, “We know, however, when it takes place, that we will be like him,” etc. The origin of this knowledge is the annointing which the faithful have received from him who is holy. For just as they all know the power of this annointing (I John 2:20), thus they also know that there is an eternal life, and that they will be participants of it.22

In Rambach’s view, the believer’s true knowledge and security in that future blessedness, and therefore of blessedness in the present life, is God’s word:

When the children of God consider the promises of their heavenly Father, which he has incorporated into these his words, and which are certain and worthy of all adoption, when they weigh the power of all that Jesus has accomplished, which on account of his infinite worth can earn not a limited but an infinite glory, when they feel within themselves the witness of the Holy Spirit, who as the pledge of the future inheritance is communicated to them, who even causes their spirit to rejoice in the meantime through a foretaste of the eternal life—then there arises not only a knowledge, but also a certainty and assurance that great things are in store for them in eternity. And this knowledge is no mere matter of their [intellectual] understanding, but is bound up at the same time with the innermost movements of a sanctified will, and through this they are awakened to a secure hope, to a burning longing for heaven, to a willing denial of the world, to patience in all the sufferings of this time, to the innermost joy and to the glorification of God.23

In such passages, we see how John’s emphasis on what we now call “realized eschatology” was understood in Bach’s time. The balance between present and future blessings, as Rambach sets them forth, is very similar to that of Cantata 64. The crucial point remains that the incarnation was the outcome of God’s love, which was the origin of the plan of salvation formed by God before the creation. Rambach does not go into this question in his relatively brief sermon; but it clearly underlies his introductory words:

What firstly concerns the blessedness that the faithful enjoy in this life, consists in the high nobility of divine childhood. . . . On this John had already cried out in the first verse of this chapter, full of holy astonishment, “See, what a love the Father has shown to us, that we are called the children of God!” In which words he uncovers the divine origin of this blessedness, which is the infinite love of the heavenly Father, since he has ordained us to childhood according to the pleasure of his will (Ephesians 1:5).24

Realized Eschatology in Bach’s Cantata 64

Both the text of Cantata 64 and Bach’s compositional choices in setting it mirror the Johannine themes evident in Rambach’s sermon. Bach sets the opening motto (I John 3:1) as a motet-like chorus in E minor, doubled by strings plus the somewhat archaic sound of a choir of cornetto plus three trombones, a scoring shared by the mvt. 2 Christmas hymn, “Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ” (by Martin Luther). After the festive orchestration with trumpets that characterized Cantata 63 and the majestic horns and oboes of Cantata 40, the scoring of the choral movements of Cantata 64 paints another picture altogether. The chorus has a gently hortatory character that arises from the gradual shortening of the note values in its fugal theme from half notes (“Sehet”) to quarters (“welch eine Liebe hat Gott der Vater”) and running eighths (“erzeiget”). Reiterations of “Sehet, sehet” and combinations of the florid “erzeiget” line with the gestural “Sehet, welch eine Liebe” in the interludes convey a sense that the motet-like style matches the security of building on the fundamental, time-honored truth of God’s love.

Luther’s chorale verse (mvt. 2) further suggests that quality in both its text—“Das hat er alles uns getan, sein groß Lieb zu zeigen an. Des freu sich alle Christenheit und dank ihm des in Ewigkeit. Kyrieleis!” (All this has he done for us to show his great love. For which let all Christendom rejoice and thank him in eternity. Kyrie eleison)—and its G mixolydian setting. The simple homophony of the first two chorale lines adds to an atmosphere whose gently archaizing qualities lend the verse a tone not of overt rejoicing but of something akin to “Trost.” The shift of tonal center from E minor to G major is significant, for Cantata 64 is one of the subtlest of the cantatas of the type that I have described elsewhere as featuring an ascent/descent tonal plan—that is, one that modulates in the sharp direction and back—a shape that often aligns with the dualism of worlds “above” and “below.” In such cases, the world “below” is generally viewed in pejorative terms, except insofar as it draws on attributes of the one “above.”25

In Cantata 64, with the security of God’s love established in the chorus and chorale, the mvt. 3 recitative turns immediately to the believer’s rejection of the world: “Geh, Welt! behalte nur das Deine, ich will und mag nichts von dir haben” (Go, world! Keep what is yours; I want to have nothing of you). Bach utilizes continual ascending and descending scales in the basso continuo to represent the dualism of the world and God’s alternative, the certainty of heaven in the present life: “Der Himmel ist nun meine, an diesem soll sich meine Seele laben” (Heaven is now mine, on which my soul shall refresh itself). And Bach retains the scalar patterns throughout the next two movements, their associations becoming ever clearer. At the end of the recitative, the longest of the ascending scales leads directly into the beginning of a second chorale, “Was frag’ ich nach der Welt” (What do I need of the world, mvt. 4), whose solidly tonal D major, enhanced by the long ascending lines of eighth notes in the basso continuo, sets a very positive tone for the believer’s rejection of the world, the theme of the ensuing soprano aria.26

This aria, “Was die Welt in sich hält” (mvt. 5), takes a dance type (the Gavotte) as its stylistic model, thereby contrasting John’s and Luther’s eternal truths regarding God’s love in the first two movements (the archaic styles) with a viewpoint of more modern, “worldly” character in the fifth (the dance style). The strings carry forward the ascending sixteenth-note scales of the recitative, and the voice the eighth-note ascending lines of the chorale bass line, emphasizing the depiction of the dissipation of the world like smoke:

Was die Welt in sich hält,

What the world holds onto

muß als wie ein Rauch vergehen.

must dissolve like smoke.

The middle section of the aria, however, sharply juxtaposes the intrinsic nature of the world and the gifts that the believer receives from Jesus. To project this opposition, Bach takes up the rising eighth-note pattern in unison strings, but now without basso continuo, as the voice introduces the alternative to the world:

Aber was mir Jesus gibt,

But what Jesus gives me,

und was meine Seele liebt,

and what my soul loves,

bleibet fest und ewig stehet.

remains firm and stands for ever.

The device Bach invokes here is one that appears relatively infrequently in his music, but for that reason with generally unmistakable associations. Identified by baroque theorists with the term “bassetto,” “petit basse,” or “bassetchen” (sometimes “bassetgen”), all meaning “little bass,” the texture is characterized not only by the absence of basso continuo realization, but also by the placing of the bass line in the upper register.27 Its basic association in Bach’s music arises from its juxtaposition to music with the normal basso continuo (as we have seen in BWV 40/5). A clear instance is provided by the choruses of angels and shepherds in the Christmas Oratorio, as the angels are without basso continuo and the shepherds with. The meaning given in purely pictorial terms is of the juxtaposition of high and low pitch spheres or, in theological terms, worlds above and below. And this meaning underlies nearly all other usages, even when the text or underlying pictorialism is not so clearly evident.

In BWV 64/5 the meaning is that what Jesus offers the believer through faith is something not belonging to the world itself, but comes, by faith, through the believer’s participation in the world “above.” The basso continuo scales of mvts. 3 and 4, associated with the believer’s longing to escape the physical world, now move into the upper register in a brief anticipation of the world above. Bach continues the passage for fourteen measures without basso continuo, while the music moves very decisively to the key of A major, completing a cadence to that key with the most purposeful of all the ascending lines to this point. Then, upon completion of the A major cadence, the music of the ritornello enters, now with basso continuo, emphatically confirming the A major, as if affirming that the values of the world above are transferred to that below.

This passage marks a turning point in the work. For while the B minor tonality of the aria perhaps represents a turning “downward” after “Was frag’ ich nach der Welt,” to characterize the world in itself, the A major of the bassetchen passage and its ritornello confirmation unmistakably continue “upward” from the D major of the chorale, interpreting its eighth-note basso continuo line in the context of Jesus’s gift to the soul. As in the aria “Jesu, deine Gnadenblicke” from the Ascension Oratorio (BWV 11) of 1735, Bach uses the bassetchen texture to represent the believer’s looking toward heaven.28 In the oratorio, although Jesus has ascended to heaven, his love remains for the believer who lives “hier in der Zeit,” enabling her to anticipate eternity “in the Spirit,” exactly the meaning that underlies the middle section of “Was die Welt in sich hält,” as well as Rambach’s sermon.29 The bassetchen texture in BWV 64/5 holds only for the abovementioned passage; after the entrance of the ritornello and the cadence to A major, the remainder of the B section takes up the same text, now with the basso continuo and now in F-sharp minor. Bach’s point, articulated by means of traditional figural representations of “bleibet fest und ewig stehet” (reiterated held tones), is that owing to Jesus’s “gift” of love—a gift from the world “above”—the world “below” is divested of its wholly pejorative character. From here the sequence of principal keys returns from A major, through the F-sharp minor and B minor of the remainder of the aria.

The ensuing recitative (mvt. 6) then begins in G major and ends in that key after recalling the B minor, A major, and F-sharp minor of the aria, the last of these keys marking a caesura as the bass proclaims the certainty of heaven, “possessed” already through faith:

Der Himmel bleibet mir gewiß,

Heaven remains certain for me,

Und den besitz ich schon im Glauben.

And I possess it already through faith.

Der Tod, die Welt und Sünde,

Death, the world, and sin,

Ja selbst das ganze Höllenheer

Yes, even the whole company of hell

Kann mir, als einem Gotteskinde,

Can neither now nor evermore steal it

Denselben nun und nimmermehr

From my soul

Aus meiner Seele rauben.

Since I am a child of God.

Nur dies, nur einzig dies

Only this, and this alone,

Macht mir noch Kümmernis,

Still gives me trouble,

Daß ich noch länger soll auf dieser Welt verweilen;

That I must linger in this world still longer;

Denn Jesus will den Himmel mit mir teilen,

For Jesus means to share heaven with me,

Und darzu hat er mich erkoren,

And therefore he chose me,

Deswegen ist er Mensch geboren.

For that purpose he was born a human.

As it was for Rambach, the concept of the certainty of salvation is central to Cantata 64. The opening line “Der Himmel bleibet mir gewiß, und den besitz’ ich schon im Glauben” echoes “Der Himmel ist nun meine” in mvt. 3, equating it with Jesus’s “gift” to the soul in the middle section of “Was die Welt in sich hält,” and affirming that, since the believer is a child of God, that possession is safe from “death, the world, and sin, yes, even the whole company of hell,” the forces defeated by Jesus in the Christus Victor theory. Following the believer’s confessing that “the only thing that causes anguish: that I must remain still longer in this world,” the tonality settles on G major and the bass soloist places the gift of heaven within the context of the incarnation in the recitative’s last three lines. This recitative thus echoes themes from the cantata of the preceding day, especially the purpose of the incarnation, now viewed in wholly personal terms, making clear the relationship of Jesus and the world for the believer.

This is followed by the G major aria, “Von der Welt verlang’ ich nichts, wenn ich nur den Himmel erbe” (Of the world I desire nothing if I can only inherit heaven), in which the alto soloist lays claim to the “inheritance” of God’s children. The straightforward fifth descent of the first and last phrases of the ensuing chorale, “Gute Nacht, o Wesen” (Good night, O existence [or “O flesh”]: the fifth verse of “Jesu, meine Freude,” one of the best-known expressions of Jesus-love from seventeenth-century Lutheranism) seems to mirror the tonal descent from the A major in “Was die Welt in sich hält” to the E minor of the cantata’s ending. In returning to the starting key, E minor, it completes the message of the preceding recitative and aria, that the believer—living physically in the world, but rejecting it in the certainty provided by God’s love—participates in the present, through faith and as a child of God, in the world “above,” whose full manifestation lies in the future.

In Cantata 64, the succession of principal keys—E minor, G major, D major, B minor, A major, B minor, G major, E minor—outlines an ascent/descent “shape,” that is, a tonal motion from keys of one to three sharps and back, that depicts Jesus’s gifts to the soul, principally love, as the certainty of heaven for the believer in the present life. Whereas in Cantata 40 the F major/F minor juxtaposition in the keys of the last two movements emphasizes the dualism of worlds above and below, Cantata 64 moves beyond it to describe a continuity between these two worlds. That quality derives from John’s emphasis on realized eschatology, the certainty of the possessions of faith in the present life as the attributes of the world above, given by Jesus. By faith, the believer draws from the world above while living physically in that below. This dualism is a key to the structure and theological meaning of the John Passion, produced just a few months later.

Notes

1. Gustav Aulén, Christus Victor: An Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Idea of the Atonement, trans. A. G. Hebert (New York: Macmillan, 1969), 74–75.

2. All translations in this chapter by the author unless otherwise noted.

3. Alfred Dürr, The Cantatas of J. S. Bach with their Librettos in German-English Parallel Text, rev. and trans. Richard D. P. Jones (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 93.

4. See Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Vol. 1, Lectures on Genesis, Chapters 1–5, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan (St. Louis: Concordia, 1958), 188.

5. See Helene Werthemann, Die Bedeutung der alttestamentlichen Historien in Johann Sebastian Bachs Kantaten (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1960), 16–18.

6. Dürr, The Cantatas, 93.

7. See, for example, Martin Möller, Praxis Evangeliorum: Einfeltige erklerung und nützliche betrachtung der Evangelien / so auff alle Sontage und vornemesten Fest Jährlich zu predigen verordnet sind (Görlitz, 1614), 3:293–294; and August Pfeiffer, Evangelisches Schatz-Kammer (Nürnberg, 1697), 38.

8. The foundational study of the four senses of scripture is Henri de Lubac, Medieval Exegesis: The Four Senses of Scripture, 2 vols., trans. Marc Sebanc and E. M. Macierowski (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1998–2000).

9. A similar pattern is built into the liturgy of the post-Easter season (the weeks between Easter and Pentecost, known from ancient times as the “great fifty days”), a time when the majority of the gospel readings come from John, the only span within the year when this is so. Bach’s cantatas for that time period (especially those of 1725) reflect the shift in numerous ways. See Eric Chafe, J. S. Bach’s Johannine Theology: The St. John Passion and the Cantatas for Spring 1725 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 44–47.

10. See Aulén, Christus Victor, 4ff.

11. Johann Jacob Rambach, Betrachtungen über den Rath Gottes von der Seeligkeit der Menschen (Giessen, 1737), 548–556: “Dasjenige aber, daran der Sohn Gottes ist erniedriget worden, ist die Gestalt Gottes, durch welche aber hier nicht das göttliche Wesen und die göttliche Natur, sondern die göttliche Herrlichkeit und Eigenschaften, verstanden werden” (541). In later years, Bach owned a copy of Rambach’s book. The basic statement of doctrine on this question is Martin Chemnitz, The Two Natures in Christ (1578), trans. J. A. O. Preus (St. Louis: Concordia, 1971).

12. Bach’s choice of key of E-flat minor for “Mein Gott, mein Gott, warum hast du mich verlassen?” (My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?) in the Matthew Passion is, perhaps, the best known of a large number of such instances.

13. Alfred Dürr (The Cantatas, 110) links the “triumphant character” of “Höllische Schlange” to the “accentuated three-eight rhythm and the clear periodic design which approaches the dance.” I would suggest, rather, that the movement does not have a triumphant character. I would say it projects a dualistic character, offsetting its militant gestures by its restless harmonies and minor key. As in several movements of the John Passion, including the opening chorus, the aria depicts Jesus’s majesty, identity, and victory in minor, reserving overt triumph for very select points, such as “Es ist vollbracht” (“Der Held aus Juda siegt mit Macht”). In Cantata 40, something closer to that kind of triumph is reserved for the next aria, “Christenkinder freuet euch.”

14. Raymond Brown, The Gospel According to John XIII–XXI. The Anchor Bible, vol. 29A (New York: Doubleday, 1970), 548ff.

15. See Renate Steiger, “‘Die Welt ist euch ein Himmelreich’: zu J. S. Bachs Deutung des Pastoralen,” Musik und Kirche 41 (1971): 1–8, 69–79, 107.

16. This theme was a well-known trumpet Intrada fanfare, used by many composers before Bach. Bach uses it either exactly or with some variation in Cantatas 70, 21, 127, 130, 147, and others; it is the theme of the middle section of the aria “Es ist vollbracht” from the John Passion, setting the words of Jesus’s victory, “Der Held aus Juda siegt mit Macht.” This theme appears in a considerable number of cantatas, and even in instrumental music (the first Brandenburg Concerto in particular), where it always suggests an extramusical intention. In Cantata 70, it is associated with God’s judgment, in Cantata 127 with the “Posaune” of the last judgment, in Cantata 130 with the envy of Satan for God’s omnipotence (“Der alte Drache brennt vor Neid”).

17. This reference to Jesus’s protection of the faithful in the imagery of a hen gathering its chickens under its wing makes the only reference in Cantata 40 to the Gospel for the day (in Matthew 23:37, Jesus, having condemned Jerusalem, cries, “How often have I longed to gather your children, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings; but you would not let me”).

18. The first epistle of John has been called “a tract, occasioned by the denial of the reality of the incarnation” (The New English Bible, New York: Oxford University Press, 1976, 302), its “style and themes” recalling those of John’s Gospel, beginning with the “centrality of the incarnation, the mission of the only Son, the Word.”

19. Johann Jacob Rambach, Die Seligkeit Der Gläubigen In der Zeit und in der Ewigkeit, Nach Anleitung der Worte Johannis I Epist. 3, 2 . . . und nebst einer Predigt Von Der seligen Bekantschaft der Schafe JESU Christi / mit ihrem guten Hirten (Halle, 1729), 5ff.

20. “Nun kan der Ausspruch Johannis statt finden: Ihr Lieben, wir sind nun Gottes Kinder. Er hatte es vorher als eine besondre Gnade gerühmet, daß wir GOttes Kinder heissen sollen. Damit nun nicht etwa jemand auf die Gedancken kommen möchte, daß solches ein leerer Titul sey, so erklärt er sich in diesen Worten deutlicher, und spricht: Wir sind nun GOttes Kinder. Wir werden nicht nur so genennet, sondern wir haben und besitzen auch alle die Realität und Wahrheit, die durch diesen ehrwürdigen Namen ausgedruckt werden mag. Und zwar haben wir diese schon itzo, in dem gegenwärtigen Stande unsrer Niedrigkeit und Unvollkommenheit, itzo in dem Reich der Gnaden, von der Zeit an, da wir den eingebornen Sohn Gottes im Glauben angenommen, und uns in seine Gemeinschaft und Nachfolge begeben haben.” Rambach, Die Seligkeit der Gläubigen, 5–6.

21. Rambach, Seligkeit der Gläubigen, 12–13.

22. “Nichts desto weniger aber ist die künftige Seligkeit der Gläubigen II. etwas gewisses; indem Johannes im Namen aller Erben der Seligkeit spricht: Wir wissen aber, wenn es erscheinen wird, daß wir ihm gleich seyn werden, u. Der Ursprung dieser Wissenschaft ist die Salbung, welche die Gläubigen von dem, der heilig ist, empfangen haben. Denn gleichwie sie Kraft dieser Salbung alles wissen, I Joh. 2, Vers 20. also wissen sie auch, daß ein ewiges Leben sey, und daß sie desselben theilhaftig werden sollen.” Rambach, Seligkeit der Gläubigen, 23–24.

23. “Wenn Kinder Gottes die gewissen und aller Annehmung würdigen Verheissungen ihres himmlischen Vaters, die er diesem seinem Worte einverleibet hat, betrachten; wenn sie die Kraft des Verdienstes Jesu Christi erwegen, welches wegen seines unendlichen Werthes keine geringere, als eine unendliche Herrlichkeit, erwerben können; wenn sie das Zeugniß des heiligen Geistes, der als das Pfand des künftigen Erbes ihnen mitgetheilet ist, ja der zuweilen ihren Geist durch einen Vorschmack des ewigen Lebens erfreuet, in sich empfinden: So entstehet daher nicht nur eine Wissenschaft, sondern auch eine Gewißheit und Versicherung, daß ihnen noch grosse Dinge in der Ewigkeit bevorstehen. Und diese Wissenschaft ist keine blosse Beschäftigung, ihres Verstandes, sondern sie ist zugleich mit den innigsten Bewegungen eines geheiligten Willens verbunden, und sie werden dadurch zu einer vesten Hofnung, zu einem brennenden Verlangen nach dem Himmel, zu einer willigen Verleugnung der Welt, zur Geduld in allen Leiden dieser Zeit, zur innigsten Freude, und zur Verherrlichung Gottes erwecket.” Rambach, Seligkeit der Gläubigen, 25–26.

24. “Was denn erstlich die Seligkeit betrift, deren die Gläubigen in der Zeit geniessen, so bestehet dieselbe in dem hohen Adel der göttlichen Kindschaft. . . . Davon hatte Johannes schon im ersten Vers dieses Capitels voll heiliger Verwunderung ausgerufen: Sehet, welch eine Liebe hat uns der Vater erwiesen, daß wir GOttes Kinder heissen sollen! In welchen Worten er den göttlichen Ursprung dieser Seligkeit entdecket, welcher ist die ewige Liebe des himmlischen Vaters, da er uns verordnet hat zur Kindschaft nach dem Wohlgefallen seines Willens, Ephes. 1, 5.” Rambach, Seligkeit der Gläubigen, 2.

25. Eric Chafe, Tonal Allegory in the Vocal Music of J. S. Bach (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 209–15.

26. That the scoring is the same for the opening chorus and both chorales suggests that they form an ascending sequence articulating the keys of E minor, G mixolydian, and D major.

27. In the seventeenth century the basso continuo realization moved into the upper register, whereas in the eighteenth it was more usual to omit it altogether. See Frank T. Arnold, The Art of Accompaniment from a Thorough-Bass, 2 vols. (London: Oxford University Press, 1931), I/373–81.

28. See Eric Chafe, “Bach’s Ascension Oratorio: God’s Kingdoms and Their Representation,” in Bach Perspectives 8: J. S. Bach and the Oratorio Tradition, ed. Daniel R. Melamed, 112–45 (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2011), 134–37.

29. Love is a recurrent theme in many of Bach’s bassetchen arias, such as “Aus Liebe will mein Heiland sterben” from the Matthew Passion and “Doch Jesus will” from Cantata 46.

Bibliography

Arnold, Frank T. The Art of Accompaniment from a Thorough-Bass. 2 vols. London: Oxford University Press, 1931.

Aulén, Gustav. Christus Victor: An Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Idea of the Atonement. Translated by A. G. Hebert. New York: Macmillan, 1969.

Brown, Raymond. The Gospel According to John XIII–XXI. The Anchor Bible, vol. 29A. New York: Doubleday, 1970.

Chafe, Eric. Tonal Allegory in the Vocal Music of J. S. Bach. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.

———. “Bach’s Ascension Oratorio: God’s Kingdoms and Their Representation.” In Bach Perspectives 8: J. S. Bach and the Oratorio Tradition. Edited by Daniel R. Melamed, 112–45. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2011.

———. J. S. Bach’s Johannine Theology: The St. John Passion and the Cantatas for Spring 1725. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.

Chemnitz, Martin. The Two Natures in Christ (1578). Translated by J. A. O. Preus. St. Louis: Concordia, 1971.

de Lubac, Henri. Medieval Exegesis: The Four Senses of Scripture. 2 vols. Translated by Marc Sebanc and E. M. Macierowski. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1998–2000.

Dürr, Alfred. The Cantatas of J. S. Bach with their Librettos in German-English Parallel Text. Revised and translated by Richard D. P. Jones. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.

Luther, Martin. Luther’s Works, Vol. 1, Lectures on Genesis, Chapters 1–5. Edited by Jaroslav Pelikan. St. Louis: Concordia, 1958.

Möller, Martin. Praxis Evangeliorum: Einfeltige erklerung und nützliche betrachtung der Evangelien / so auff alle Sontage und vornemesten Fest Jährlich zu predigen verordnet sind. Görlitz, 1614.

Pfeiffer, August. Evangelisches Schatz-Kammer. Nürnberg, 1697.

Rambach, Johann Jacob. Die Seligkeit Der Gläubigen In der Zeit und in der Ewigkeit, Nach Anleitung der Worte Johannis I Epist. 3, 2 . . . und nebst einer Predigt Von Der seligen Bekantschaft der Schafe JESU Christi / mit ihrem guten Hirten. Halle, 1729.

———. Betrachtungen über den Rath Gottes von der Seeligkeit der Menschen. Giessen, 1737.

Steiger, Renate. “‘Die Welt ist euch ein Himmelreich’: zu J. S. Bachs Deutung des Pastoralen.” Musik und Kirche 41 (1971): 1–8, 69–79, 107.

Werthemann, Helene. Die Bedeutung der alttestamentlichen Historien in Johann Sebastian Bachs Kantaten. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1960.