Sometimes it is suggested that Calvin, after all, did not think that inspiration was necessary in worship song, because it has been claimed that Calvin was the author of the non-canonical hymn "Salutation à Jésus Christ,"(178) which appeared in the Strasbourg psalters of 1545 and 1553, though without an attribution.(179) In 1867 the editors of the Calvini Opera included the hymn in their collection.(180) Two years later, Philip Schaff, promoting a liturgical expansion in the Reformed church, ascribed the piece to Calvin when he placed a translation of it in a hymnal he edited.(181) However, there is no evidence that Calvin was the author of the hymn, and the historians of the Geneva Psalter have been skeptical of these claims. Orentin Douen observed: "This item is not at all, one sees, a translation of the Bible, but a free composition which does not fit Calvin's manner, and of which Garnier is perhaps the author."(182) Pierre Pidoux, who has compiled an exhaustive collection of documents, texts and tunes pertaining to the history of the Geneva Psalter, lists the authorship of the hymn as "unknown," and comments: "Attributed to Calvin by the editors of the Calvini Opera, and to Jean Garnier by Douen. The first attribution is very improbable for reasons of style; the second is hypothetical."(183)
Pidoux notes that the hymn was reportedly in the 1545 Strasbourg psalter, was left out of the Strasbourg psalter of 1548, and appears a second time in the Strasbourg psalter of 1553.(184) The one Strasbourg psalter in which Calvin had a hand was that of 1539, for which he supplied metrical versions of several Psalms. Calvin left Strasbourg on September 2, 1541(185) and arrived back in Geneva on September 13,(186) four years before the hymn was first published. The hymn never appears in the Genevan psalters, or in any psalter on which Calvin worked.
The most likely supposition respecting the authorship of the "Salutation à Jésus Christ" is that it was produced by the man who bore primary responsibility for the only two psalters in which it was included. The editors of the Calvini Opera, and the historian François Ritter, judged that the 1545 Strasbourg psalter was published at the initiative of Jean Garnier, who came to Strasbourg on June 22, 1545 and was pastor of the French congregation in that city until 1555.(187) This involvement leads Pidoux to suggest that Garnier might be the author of the hymn.(188) Douen agrees that the 1545 Strasbourg psalter "was undoubtedly published by Jean Garnier," a scholar esteemed by Bucer, Bullinger, Calvin and Farel,(189) and notes that the 1553 Strasbourg psalter (in which the hymn appears again) was also the work of Garnier, who revised the psalter's translation and prepared the preface.(190) The title-page of the 1553 Strasbourg psalter bears the device of Garnier.(191)
Notes
(178) John T. McNeill, The History and Character of Calvinism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1954), p. 148, calls the hymn Calvin's "best poem," but provides no justification for attributing it to Calvin, and erroneously asserts that the hymn originally appeared in a Genevan psalter. McNeill's assertions are repeated by Peter A. Lillback, "Introduction," in Our Songs in God's Worship (Philadelphia: Committee on Christian Education of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, n.d.), p. 2. A translation of a portion of the hymn appears as number 135 in the Trinity Hymnal (1961).
(179) Pierre Pidoux, Le Psautier Huguenot Du XVIe Siècle: Melodies et Documents, v. 1: Les Mélodies (Basel: Bärenreiter, 1962), p. 150.
(180) Calvini Opera 6:223.
(181) Philip Schaff, Christ in Song: Hymns of Immanuel Selected From All Ages, With Notes (New York: Anson D. F. Randolph and Company, 1869), 678-80. Cf. Armin Haeussler, The Story of Our Hymns: The Handbook To the Hymnal Of the Evangelical and Reformed Church (St. Louis: Eden Publishing House, 1952), pp. 306-09.
(182) Douen, Clément Marot et Le Psautier Huguenot, 1:452.
(183) Pidoux, Le Psautier Huguenot Du XVIe Siècle, 1:150.
(184) Ibid.
(185) Douen, Clément Marot et Le Psautier Huguenot, 2:649.
(186) Garside, Origins of Calvin's Theology of Music, p. 16.
(187) Calvini Opera 6:xvi; François Ritter, Histoire de L'Imprimerie Alsacienne aux XVe et XVIe Siècle
(Strasbourg: F.-X. Le Roux, 1955), p. 577.
(188) Pierre Pidoux, Le Psautier Huguenot Du XVIe Siècle: Melodies et Documents, v. 2: Documents et Bibliographie (Basel: Bärenreiter, 1962), p. 30.
(189) Douen, Clément Marot et Le Psautier Huguenot, 1:451; cf. 2:650.
(190) Ibid., 1:557.
(191) Pidoux, Le Psautier Huguenot Du XVIe Siècle, 2:65.
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)... I went ahead and ordered a couple of Trinity Hymnals. My wife plays piano and it's worked out great. I'm not familiar with a lot of hymns. Some of my favorite hymns are...
