Medieval Hymns

“Did this literature encourage Christians to exercise political leadership?” Was the question my teacher asked us students.

The answer to this question is simple.

No.

The emphasis of these hymns were on the timeless things. Heaven. Peace. Love. The emphasis was also on contrast. Things like good vs. evil. Heaven vs. Earth. Politics did not have a place in the collection of hymns I have studied.

However, the emphasis of many of these hymns was antithetical to fundamental Christian theology. It promoted idolatry and heresy.

“What?” you may ask, “How can these hymns be fundamentally antithetical to Christian theology? They’re hymns!”

The answer is this: Many of these hymns completely ignored the Bible about idolatry. It was crystal clear in the Bible that idolatry is a sin.

Read Romans 1:25 (NASB), “For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen,”

Also Colossians 2:18 (NASB), “Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of the angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind,”

Did those two verses seem clear to you? Direct? No room for interpretation? They most certainly were clear to me.

Now let’s read a couple of excerpts of the hymns that I call “idolatrous” and “fundamentally antithetical to Christian theology”.

The title of this hymn is “Vesper Hymn to the Virgin” by Fortunatus (c. 575 A.D.)

“Hail, O star of ocean,

  Hail, our golden door,

  Mother of the Mighty,

  Virgin Evermore…

“Be indeed our mother,

  Help us in our need;

  Lift thy voice to Jesus,

  He will hear and heed,”

Let’s pause here. The first paragraph is giving attributes of power to Mary. The second paragraph explicitly claims that Mary is the mediator between man and Christ. This is blatantly untrue. First of all, Mary is human, not God. Mary was born of human parents; God has no parents. Secondly, take a good look at 1 Timothy 2:5 (NASB):

“For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,”

Can you tell what Paul is saying? It is clear. Christ, Himself is the only mediator. Not Mary. Not John the Baptist. Not Peter. Not Paul. Not Michael the archangel. Only Jesus Christ is the mediator between God and man since Jesus Christ is both God and man. How can a mere man be the mediator between both man and God if the mediator is only a man?

Let’s read one more paragraph of this heretical hymn.

“Virgin of all virgins,

  Thee our queen we seek;

  Fire with love our bosoms,

  Make us chaste and meek,”

First Fortunatus gives attributes of power to Mary, then he claims that Mary is the mediator between man and Christ, and now she’s a queen?

Wait. Hold on a second. Attributes of power… mediator between man and God… proclaimed a “queen”.. Wouldn’t that make Mary a goddess by conventional definitions?

That raises the question of how a created being, an unassuming, normal Jewish teenager, became a goddess of such reverence and power. Quick answer: She was not a goddess and has no more power than any other deceased member of the Church. She was simply chosen by God to carry out His special purpose. Quite like Moses was. Or Abraham and Sarah (formerly Abram and Sarai). Or David. Or Noah. Or Elija. Or Ruth. Or Solomon. Or Samuel. Or Samson. Why aren’t they worshipped, as well? Hmm… * taps finger on chin *

This sin of idolatry is not restricted to just worshipping Mary. Oh, no. Rabanus Maurus wrote a hymn to an angel. An angel! It is beyond me why people worshipped angels. The Bible warned us of such people (see Colossians 2:18 again).

Here is an excerpt of one such hymn (but wait… there’s more than just this hymn that contain this senseless heresy!). This specific hymn is titled “Hymn to the Archangel Michael” (c. 850 A.D.). I trust that you can find the faults that Rabanus Maurus wrote.

“Blessed Michael, be our leader,

  In our war on sin and pride;

  Be with christ our interceder,

  That the crown be not denied,”

This makes me scratch my head. Christ is our leader. He is the One keeping us alive in our fight against sin and pride. What can a mere angel do for us when the Lord our God, all-powerful and all-seeing, is watching over us and helping us? And, more importantly (you should ask yourself this question), why would you want a mere angel, a created being like us, to be our leader in our war against pride and sin instead of the Lord our God? It is only He who understands our specific sin issues and problems and loves us so much more than an angel ever could!

As you can see, none of these hymns encourage Christians to exercise political power and leadership. Many of them encourage things much more dangerous: to go against the holy Scriptures.

The saddest thing is that back when these were written, the majority of the population was illiterate. Not to mention there were very few copies of the Bible. They all had to be hand-written (laborious and tedious work). There was no printing press back then. These few copies of the Bible were held by, you guessed it, the “spiritual leaders” of the day. The population could not read the Bible for themselves! Only when the Gutenburg printing press came out did more Bible copies come out. Then people started learning how to read. Then people were able to finally catch these heresies and sins and lies. Praise the Lord we now have what we (shouldn’t) take for granted!

Thank you for reading this. I hope you enjoyed.