Tune: Ein feste Burg

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Author: Martin Luther

Martin Luther wrote “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” (“Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott”) as a metrical setting of Psalm 46, though it may more accurately be said to have been loosely inspired by the Psalm. The first known appearance in print of both text and tune was in Joseph Klug’s Geistliche Lieder auffs new gebessert, Wittenberg, 1529, now lost, but reprinted in the still-extant 1531 Erfurt edition of Andreas Rauscher.

Luther’s text applies the spirit of Psalm 46 to the circumstances surrounding the Reformation. In the midst of the tumults of those times, as the forces of Antichrist threatened the Evangelical Church with utter ruin, the hymn bespeaks a calm reliance upon God in Christ, who is indeed His Church’s Refuge and Strength. Integral to the hymn’s vitality is the brilliant, heavily syncopated tune, whose martial quality, combined with the defiant tone of the text, has led to the hymn’s common identification as the “Battle Hymn of the Reformation.” Indeed, the hymn was reportedly sung by the armies of Gustavus Adolphus, accompanied by fifes and kettledrums, as the Lion of the North led his soldiers in battle against the forces of the Roman Catholic Church. For Luther himself, however, the hymn was more a song of comfort (Trostlied) than a song of defiance (Trutzlied). He sang it regularly while detained at the fortress of Coburg during the Diet of Augsburg in 1530, when the cause of the Reformation hung in the balance, and when he found his colleagues discouraged, he would urge them to sing “The 46th Psalm,” placing their cause confidently into the hands of God, for “with might of ours can naught be done … But for us fights the Valiant One.”

The translation, taken from The Lutheran Hymnal, 1941, No. 262, was first produced for the 1868 Pennsylvania Lutheran Church Book, combining the translations of Thomas Carlyle and W. M. Reynolds with the first line of Frederick H. Hedge’s famous 1852 translation. The result is a text that is nearly word for word reflective of Luther’s German, while still retaining the original meter and rhyme scheme. The music is largely adapted from the 1597 five-voice setting of Johannes Eccard. The melody is in the form originally composed by Luther, with the exception of the first note of the eighth line, which has been shortened from a half to a quarter note, in keeping with the tradition inherited by the Missouri Synod. Both text and music may be freely reproduced for any purpose whatever and are offered with the prayer that they may serve for the edification of Christian people everywhere.