THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH - Bach: Cantata 186, at Trinity VII
Commentary No. 43 of The Bach Cantatas
Sin and Death: Slavery and Righteousness
Righteousness is the quality of being morally right or justifiable. We are not, here, dealing with self-righteousness, which is a different quality, with its elements of hypocrisy, unfounded certitude, and unassailable superiority. The latter is immensely common amongst politicians, evangelicals, and theocrats.
If one does not accept the notion of divine righteousness, it is intellectually easy and logically tempting to consider that, in fabricated fact, there exists no difference between a uniquely divine manifestation of righteousness and the incalculable number of mortal manifestations of self-righteousness. Especially as, from such a point of view, the wages of good, virtuous or not, also, invariably, is death.
The Christian Scriptures present the concept that the Christian God is righteous, and being righteous is equivalent to being just, that is, one who is morally right and fair; and that Christ, as Son of the Father, is the righteous one, the one who is to fulfill the righteousness of His Father; that is, to bring it to completion, to effect its realization, and, thereby, its actualization.
Baker’s Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology elaborates that “the Father through the Son and in the Spirit gives the gift of righteousness (justice) to repentant sinners for salvation; [and] such believing sinners are declared righteous (just) by the Father through the Son, are made righteous (just) by the Holy Spirit working in them, and will be wholly righteous (just) in the age to come.” In other words, the people (metaphorically, Israel) enter into a covenant relationship with the deity; and, in the quotidian actuality of Israel, life is to be lived in acceptance of, and integration into, an established conformity that has a defined standard of behaviour, and, hence, of morality.
Ethics, in this construct, are the examination of moral principles, and morality is the adherence to a given and systemic, socially prevalent and indisputable, array of moral principles. This array of principles, therefore, is an effectual and unchallengeable arbiter of conduct and, necessarily, behaviour. Justifiable behaviour, therefore, in this argument, has righteousness as its consequence and substance.
The Scriptures are regarded as providing discussion and elaboration of this justifiable righteousness through the pronouncements and examples, most particularly, of Christ and of John the Baptist; Jesus predominantly in terms of the Mosaic law and the Messianic requirements, and especially through the Sermon on the Mount.
The epistle for Trinity VII, and its ecclesiastical theme in it, is Romans 6:19-23.
19 I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness.
20 For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness.
21 What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death.
22 But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.
23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
The passage, especially the first clause of Verse 23, is famously proverbial. The choice of eternal life is made through repentance, and through abandonment of sin, which here is defined as conduct inadmissible to, and unsuitable in, the moral code of Christian righteousness. One chooses which slavery to live by, and in: either in sin, which concludes in death, or in righteousness, which concludes in the Kingdom of Heaven. The choice is Manichean and does not permit of independent interpretation (or alternative possibilities or impossibilities).
Another possible perspective is that one is either self-determinant and, therefore, does not unite with the promulgators of the moral law; or, that one is absorbed into the dependence required by the moral law that is being promulgated. Put another way, one lives in and for the present, or one lives solely for the future. The implication in the Christian code is that the gift of eternity is without compulsion, but the wages of sin are earned within the expectations of those others, including oneself, who pay the wage. I allow I see no practical difference between the two.
The Feeding of the Four Thousand
The gospel of the day (Mark 8:1-9) is simpler, as it recounts the miracle of the feeding of the four thousand. The symbolism that Christ is the bread of life is also a commonality of Christian belief, most constantly in the Holy Communion contained in the Catholic Mass and similar rites, where the Eucharist, the bread rather than the wine its more important consecration, is a recollective celebration of and, for a moment, communion with, through the body of Christ Himself, the Last Supper.
1 In those days the multitude being very great, and having nothing to eat, Jesus called his disciples unto him, and saith unto them,
2 I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now been with me three days, and have nothing to eat:
3 And if I send them away fasting to their own houses, they will faint by the way: for divers of them came from far.
4 And his disciples answered him, From whence can a man satisfy these men with bread here in the wilderness?
5 And he asked them, How many loaves have ye? And they said, Seven.
6 And he commanded the people to sit down on the ground: and he took the seven loaves, and gave thanks, and brake, and gave to his disciples to set before them; and they did set them before the people.
7 And they had a few small fishes: and he blessed, and commanded to set them also before them.
8 So they did eat, and were filled: and they took up of the broken meat that was left seven baskets.
9 And they that had eaten were about four thousand: and he sent them away.
Cantata 186: Fret not, mortal soul
Bach uses the natural opposition of hunger and repletion, as presented in the gospel, as metaphorical stand-in for the opposition of mortal sin and Christian righteousness. This structure he employs in the two-part cantata 186, one part before, and the second after, the sermon; with four solo voices, choir, and an orchestra of strings, oboes, and continuo. It is based on a 1716 version for Weimar, and is for the first Leipzig annual cantata cycle in 1723.
The opening chorus, for all the musical forces, is well crafted, the contrast between abundance and scarcity emphasized by using all the forces for the former and, for scarcity, reducing the forces to the choir and continuo. Throughout, the bass line, in the continuo, climbs up repeatedly and without cessation, making the theological lesson implicit.
Ärgre dich, o Seele, nicht / Daß das allerhöchste Licht, / Gottes Glanz und Ebenbild, / Sich in Knechtsgestallt verhüllt. Fret not, mortal soul, at the meanness of your mortality; God pervades all, and in His image you are made.
The bass recitative reminds that wealth, which Christ eschews, is the domain of Satan. The bass aria provides instructions on how to search, relying on faith rather than reason, for the attainment of righteousness. The tenor recitative, first making vivid the mortal wages of sin, the which yield our reversion to no more than a lump of dirt, then moves to the concept that earthly existence is but preparation, through redemptive salvation gained by the Son, for the ever-after of lovingkindness, which the voice explores in arioso. The subsequent aria discourses, in greatly florid gestures, on this mercy of Christ’s grace; this anticipation of grace redoubled in the choral fantasia for all the forces, which concludes the first part, with its profusion of imitative work suggesting the benefit and the blessing of integration with God the Father, and with the bass line climbing as in the opening chorus.
The accompanied bass recitative that opens the second part of the cantata finds us back in the wilderness of our ways and our deprivations—the very same that necessarily leads our thoughts towards divine compassion. And, as the soprano explains in the subsequent aria, with its interesting chromaticism, is that such compassion will grant the most precious gift, the Word of Life—Das höchsten Schatz, das Lebenswort. The bass recitative reveals how this compassion leads the faithful ones from the desert wastes; and, as declaims the following duet for soprano and alto, after one’s spiritual liberation, salvation awaits one when the weary, mortal journey is through. The concluding choral fantasia is musically identical to the one that concludes the first part of the cantata, but asserts, in new words, that, in all this, the wisdom of the Word of the Lord can be trusted.
This publication is adapted from a chapter in On the Cantatas of J.S. Bach – Trinity I -VII, available at Amazon in both ebook and print editions, and at most other international distributors in its ebook edition.
All my publications on the cantatas of J.S. Bach are available on Amazon as well as at Apple, Kobo, Nook, and other international distributors.