The Legacy of Anti-Judaism in Bach’s Sacred Cantatas

No personal documents have survived in which Johann Sebastian Bach (1685– 1750) has anything explicit to say about Judaism or Jews, nor do we have any reason to assume that Bach ever had any personal contact with Jews. There are some who would be only too pleased to let the matter rest right there. Yet what we can say quite a lot about is how Judaism, Jewish-Christian relations and, by extension, Jews were represented in Bach’s musical output. It is frequently argued, sometimes with surprising vehemence, that any such issues were surely the responsibility of the librettists and not the composer. Yet it should be instantly obvious that this line of argument hardly holds. In this particular case, it is clear that Bach not only chose the librettos he set but in fact “preferred to work directly with an author rather than use already published collections” of libretti for his cantatas.1 Moreover, while his peers frequently composed entire annual cycles of cantatas based on the texts of just one librettist, Bach never did so and rarely drew on texts by one and the same librettist for more than three consecutive cantatas.2 But whatever his level of input into the librettos he chose, he certainly had considerable leeway when it came to the deployment of musical means to de/emphasize certain elements in relation to others; he could go out of his way to highlight or elaborate upon certain ideas and concepts, say, or present them in a relatively dispassionate manner; whether a particular textual element was presented in a chaste or triumphalist manner, for instance, depended in high measure on the musical setting. Given his education and training, Bach was steeped in the Lutheran orthodoxy of his day and his knowledge of, and commitment to, that orthodoxy was carefully examined before he was appointed to his position as cantor in Leipzig. In that role, he was beholden to provide a constant flow of church music for the city’s main churches, especially St Thomas and St Nikolai. The express purpose of this church music was the utilization of musical means to render the congregants more receptive to the Lutheran orthodoxy of the day and thus intensify its articulation in ways that the spoken word alone, it was assumed, could not. In implementing this agenda, Bach presumably thought of himself not so much as

agreat artist but primarilyasaconsummateartisan.³ Against this backdrop it is ultimatelymore or less irrelevant what he mayhavethought or felt in his heart of hearts about certain tenets of the Lutheran orthodoxy of his day. He had atask to perform and we have reason to assume that he was determinedt op erform that task to the best of his abilities.
Taking into account the interpretations of issues relevant to Jewish-Christian relations prevalent at the time, we can reconstruct with ahighmeasure of plausibility the wayi nw hich their reflection in Bach'ss acred cantatas is likelyt o have been understood by most of Bach'sc ongregants, givent heir own religious education and the extensive religious instruction they receivedi nc hurch each week. In his discussion of Bach'sC antata 46,⁴ MichaelM arissen -the scholar who has made the most sustainedeffort to date to discuss constructions of Judaism and Jewishness in Bach'sw orks and specific expressions of anti-Judaism within them -has demonstrated how this reconstruction can be undertaken. If we want to understand what Bach'sc ongregants, as ag eneral rule, would have taken away from anyg iven cantata we need to take into account not only the cantata on its own terms but also the liturgicalc ontext within which it was performed, the specific themesa nd readings assigned to thatp articular day, contemporaneous exegetical and homiletic literature either in wide circulation at the time or known to have been in Bach'slibrary or that of his immediate peers -and,f ar from least,i mages in the churches in which the cantatas were performed. These images were, after all, intended to prompt the congregants to think in certain directions and emphaticallyn ot in others. It should also be borne in mind thatt he biblical and theological knowledge of Bach'sc ongregants,asageneral rule, would have far outstrippedthatofcurrent churchgoers. The meaning of ar angeo fa llusions,a ssociations and cross-references would have been immediatelyo bvious to them. Aw ealth of inter-textual references, in other words, to which manyofusare oblivious today, helpedshape their perceptions of the "message" propagated by ap articular cantata. This includes,a s Eric Chafeh as demonstrated with great sophistication, cross-references,b oth textual and musical, between cantatas thatB ach'sc ongregantsw ould have heard within weeks of each other.⁵ Moreover,c ongregantsw erea ble to buy the cantata librettos in advance, allowing for am ore sustained engagement of the cantatas' theological meaning than might otherwise have been possible.
In my characterization of Marissen'sw ork on this topic, Ir eferred to "constructionso fJ udaism and Jewishness in Bach'sw orks and specific expressions of anti-Judaism within them." Marissen and I, Is hould point out,don ot necessarilya gree on the issue of wherel egitimate religious polemic directed at Judaism ends and outright anti-Judaism begins. In this discussion, Iw ill relyo na n intentionallyi nclusive definitiono fa nti-Judaism. To my mind, supersessionist (or,a si ti ss ometimes called, substitution) theology -thati s, theologyb ased on the claim that the new covenant on which Christianity is predicated has replaced God'se arlier covenant with the Jews, and that therea re consequently no legitimate grounds for post-biblical Judaism -is, on principle, anti-Judaic. Consequently, Iw ould likewise insist that the claim thatt he Christian version of the Tanakh, the Old Testament,p rimarilyo re xclusively prefigures the New Testament narrative,n ot to mentiont he attempt to exploit the vast corpus of post-biblical rabbinic writingst od emonstrate the validity of Christian truth claims, are inherentlyanti-Judaic. Moreover,anumber of corejuxtapositions integral to Lutheranism -lawv s. grace, true faith vs. mere outward adherencet o rules, the letter vs. the spirit of scripture -have historicallybeen saturated with anti-Judaic connotations thatwould have been instantlyobvious to earlymodern Protestants and are likelystill to resonate with manyProtestants today.⁶ Growing up (on and off)inaLutheranf amilyinGermanyint he 1970sa nd early1 980s, I was certainlystill taught these juxtapositions with their anti-Jewish connotations and Iwould be surprised if they had simply evaporatedsince. To be sure, in their more lucid moments, at least some professional theologians have not been entirelyo blivious to the fact that these juxtapositions actuallyr eflect complicated dialectical tensions within Christianity.I f, however,o ne looks, for instance, at the multitude of earlym oderni mages that didacticallyc ontrasted lawa nd grace, the olda nd the new covenant,o ne would have been hard-pressed, even as an educated and well informed congregant,t od etect at race of these dialectical tensions and associate the negative pole in each case not just with Catholicism and Judaism but also with Lutheranism itself.
Eighteenth-centuryLutheranism, then, was fundamentallyanti-Judaic. To be sure, positions regarding Judaism and the Jews among earlymodern Protestants  See especiallyEric Chafe, J. S. Bach'sJ ohannine Theology:The St.John Passion and the Cantatas for Spring 1725 (New York: OxfordU niversity Press, 2014).  On the history and polemicalu ses of these juxtapositions in the "longue durée," see David Nirenberg, Anti-Judaism:The History of aW ay of Thinking( London: Head of Zeus,2 013).
The Legacy of Anti-Judaism in Bach'sS acred Cantatas varied. Thisconcerned two principal questions. First,there wassome controversy as to whether "the Jews" had been damned eternallyf or their failuret oa cknowledge the divinity of Christ or might yetb er edeemed if they converted at the end of days.S econd, some felt thatindividual Jews werem ore likelyt oconvert if they weretreated with some measure of respect and that an undulypolemical approach would onlya ntagonize them. Even when Christian attitudes towards Judaism were at their most benevolent and relations between Christians and Jews at their most amicable, however,t he suggestion that the Jews might be appreciated -to borrow the apt phrase Gershom Scholem coined for al ater period -for what they had to give rather thanwhat they had to give up,remained inconceivable to earlym odern Christians of anys tripe.
In short: Bach would have been entirelyo ut of step with his education and training,t he assumptions taken for granted by everyone around him, and the requirementsofhis professional position, had he been entirelyfreeofanti-Judaic convictions and sentiments. The punch line, then, is hardlyt hatBach stood out in this respect.I fa nything,the notion that he might not have subscribed to the prevalent anti-Judaic attitudes would be perplexing and inexplicable. As so often, the reallyi nteresting question thereforel ies not in the 'did he/didn't he?' but instead concerns the extent to,a nd the ways in, which the anti-Judaic consensus of his time found expression in his output.I nacontext in which anti-Judaism went without saying,w ec an still draw distinctions between those for whom anti-Judaism quite literallyw ent without saying and those for whom it was am ajor preoccupation -and the various gradations in between these two positions.T he vehemence with which Bach chose to accentuate anti-Judaic notions seems to have varied, and his approach was certainlym ore nuanced than that of, say, GeorgPhilipp Telemann (1681-1767).⁷ Deploy musical means to lend additional affectiveforcetothe propagation of anti-Judaic notions he nevertheless did.
In this context,wea lso need to bear in mind that,i nsofar as the existence and legitimacy of Christianityh ingesf undamentallyo ni ts relationship to,a nd delineation from, the religion of the biblical Jews, every Christian theological statement is implicitlya lso as tatement about Jewish-Christian relations.When it comes to discerninga nti-Judaism in Bach'ss acred cantatas, then, we need to focus not onlyo no bvious thematic 'flashpoints' or explicit anti-Judaic/anti- Jewishs tatements.⁸ An inordinatea mount of ink has now been spilled over Bach'st wo Passions. Some work has also been done specificallyonBach'sc antatas for the Tenth Sundaya fter Trinity -known in the Lutheran churcha s" Israel Sunday" because it is the dayonwhich Lutheran congregations traditionally commemorate(d) the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalemin7 0CE-of which the aforementioned Cantata 46 is one; and on ah andful of cantatas with librettos that make explicit anti-Jewish references. Yetthe bulk of Bach's200 surviving sacred cantatas have not been scrutinizedfrom this perspective -on the understanding that therecan be no anti-Judaism wherethe actual words "Judaism" or "Jew" do not feature.
This was certainlyt he position of leadingm embers of the now-defunct Internationale Arbeitsgemeinschaft fürt heologische Bachforschung [International Working Group for Theological Bach Research], established in 1976,who made (and some of whom continue to make) asustained effort to discredit anydiscussion of possibleanti-Judaism in Bach'sworks.⁹ As Robin Leaver recentlyrecalled, the workinggroup's "conferences in the earlyy ears wereg enerallyeffective and productive." Yets ubsequently "the non-scientific speculations of some of the members" increasinglyg ained traction in the workingg roup and, following the death of its principal founder, Walter Blankenburg, in 1986, "manyi nt he wider Bach world" became convinced "that the old imageo fB ach the supreme Lutheran Cantor was being repristinated. Ultimatelyw hen it became clear that the wider culturalr eligious issues such as those pursuedb yT anya Kevorkian, or the Anti-Judaism explored by Michael Marissen, weren ot being encouraged, af ew of the established members of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft took action that eventuallyl ed to the demise of the workingg roup."¹⁰ Michael Marissen has described his own chequered encounters with this group. Having argued thatB ach'sm usic "sometimes puts a spin on the text in aw ay that is readilye xplainable as orthodoxL utheran in its orientation" and demonstratedt hat the librettist and composer of Bach's St John Passion could  It is worth notingthat,ascantor in Leipzig,Bachwas sparedthe temptation, should he have been susceptible to it,o fc apitalizingo ns ome of the particularlyo bvious 'flash points,' since cantatas were not performed in Leipzig during Advent and Lent -parts of the church year that had the potential to throwt he question of what was qualitatively new about Christianity and whyt he 'old' had supposedly ceased to servei ts purpose into particularlys harp relief. It hank Jeanne Swack for pointingt his out to me.  Ihavediscussed this in greater detail in Lars Fischer, "Bach Matters," in Constructions of Judaism and Jewishness in Baroque Music, ed. Lars Fischer (forthcoming).  Robin A. Leaver, "Introduction," in The Routledge Companion to Johann Sebastian, ed. Robin A. Leaver( Abingdon: Routledge,2 017): 1-22,h erea t1 7 -8.
The Legacy of Anti-Judaism in Bach'sS acred Cantatas have done awhole lot more to emphasize the anti-Judaic implications of the passion narrative (as Bach'sp eers frequentlyd id), he was initiallyt he Working Group's "golden boy."¹¹ But then Manyi nt he Arbeitsgemeinschaft weres orelydisappointed, and indeed violentlya ngry [ … ] when Iwent on to writead etailed conference paperont heological anti-Judaism in Bach's cantata Schauet doch und sehet (BWV46) […]and asubsequent conference paper on Bach's St.M atthew Passion that included ad etailed exposé of Luther'sh eightening in his translation whatever degree of anti-Judaic tendencies therem ight be in the Greek source text of the Gospel of Matthew […]W hat struck my Arbeitsgemeinschaft colleagues as further scandal was the fact that my research for these projects had been supported by an Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung research fellowshipa tt he (large and overwhelminglyL utheran) Theology Faculty of the University of Leipzig. It happened that senior theologians at the university during my year in Leipzig [2001] had likewise strongly disapprovedo ft he research, repeatedlyt ellingm e, several times via purple-faced screaming,t hat it was absolutelyi mpossible for Luther or for Bach'sL utheran liturgy to have said such and such a thingabout Jews.They wereutterlyunmoved by the historical texts Ishowed them that obviouslydid saypreciselythose very things that they had declaredimpossible. It was afrustrating year.¹² Somewhat counter-intuitively,g iven my earlier remarks about the need to move beyond the obvious 'flash points,' in this chapter Iwill focus principallyont he one surviving cantata by Bach in which 'the Jews' are mentioned explicitlya nd of which one might be forgivenf or assuming that its problematic nature would be instantlyo bvious. And yet, especiallyi nt he sort of handbooks likelyt oa ppeal to 'practitioners'-pastors,cantors,singers and instrumentalists -theira udiences,bethey congregantsorconcertgoers,and, not least,the authors of program notes,the problem simplydoes not seem to exist.I fn ot even this explicit negative reference to 'the Jews' raises anyconcerns, we can hardlyhope for widespread sensitivity regarding the more subtle articulation of anti-Judaic assumptions in Bach'scantatas. Whyall this matters rather more thanmay meet the eye Iw ill address in the final section whereIdiscuss the troublingi mplications of the neo-traditionalist notiont hat cantatas are musicals ermons that render their message 'real in the present.'  Marissen,B ach &G od, xii.  Ibid., xiii.

Cantata4 2: Am Abend aber desselbigen Sabbats
Cantata4 2, Am Abend aber desselbigen Sabbats [Buti nt he evening of the same Sabbath]w as composed for the Sundaya fter Easteri n1 725. It begins with a sinfonia,f ollowed by ar ecitatives etting of aq uotation from John 20:19: "But in the evening of the sameS abbath/When the disciples werea ssembled and the doors closed for fear of the Jews/Jesus came and stood in their midst." ¹³ The disciples'"fear of the Jews" is subsequentlyreiteratedinasecond recitative (no. 5): One can see af ine example/In what happened at Jerusalem: Forw hen the disciples had gatheredt ogether/In dark shadows/For Fear of the Jews/MyS aviour entered in their midst/Asawitness that He will be the defenceo fH is Church/Therefore let the enemies rage! Eric Chafe has recentlyoffered ah ighlys ophisticated discussion of this cantata in the context of the cantatas Bach composed in 1725 for the Sundays between Easter and Trinity against the backdrop of the version of his St John Passion performedthat year.Chafe situates the "fear of the Jews""in the context of the longestablished practice of drawingananalogybetween the situation of the disciples in first-century Jerusalema nd the place of the Christian church in the world." This trope, he argues, "dictated much of what follows in the remainder of the 1725 cantata sequence,which further alludes to the interactionofJews and Christians in the first century."¹⁴ He drawsaline from the final recitative of Bach'sSt John Passion, via Cantata4 2t ot he cantata composed for Trinityo ft hat same year,Cantata 176, Es ist ein trotzig und verzagt Ding [There is something contrary and despairing]. The referencet ot he disciples'" fear of the Jews" in Cantata 42, he explains, echoed the final recitative of the St John Passion, "whereweare told that Joseph of Arimathea kept his discipleship secret 'from fear of the Jews'." The first recitative of Cantata 176, in turn, refers to Nicodemus, "described earlier in the Gospela sa' higho fficial among the Jews' […]w ho was alsoa' secret' disci- This "evening of the same Sabbath" is the evening of the dayofthe resurrection, that is, it is actuallyaSundaye vening -which alreadyr epresents ab latantlys upersessionist moveo nt he part of the gospel text. The official translation was changedto"Am Abend aber desselben ersten Tagesder Woche" ["But in the evening of the same first dayofthe week"]inthe Luther Bible of 1912 and since1984 reads "Am Abend aber dieses ersten Tagesder Woche" ["But in the evening of this first dayo ft he week"].  Chafe, Johannine Theology,12.
The Legacy of Anti-Judaism in Bach'sS acred Cantatas ple, comingforth onlybynight."¹⁵ Nicodemus was widelyseen as "asymbol for earlyC hristianity in his eventual emergence from the 'darkness'" and, as Chafe points out, "in Bach'st ime the memory of such ancient associations bound up with the very origins of the church, was still very much alive."¹⁶ Cantata 42 maybeBach'sonlysurviving cantata expresslytomention the Jews. Yetthe disciples'" fear of the Jews" clearlyr everberated, and was meant to reverberate, throughout that entirel iturgicals eason stretching from Good Fridayt oT rinity in 1725.
Marissen discusses Cantata4 2u nder the heading, "Fearing the Jews, Then and Now."¹⁷ In the cantata, he argues, "Jews are the persecutinge nemieso f the disciples of Jesus, and 'the Jews' of the Gospel of John are emblematico f the truec hurch'sp ersecutors ever since." Not least,B ach "would have encountered similar statements about Jews as the archenemies of Christians in Johannes Müllers Judaismus oder Jüdenthumb,"¹⁸ astandard work of anti-Jewishpolemic.¹⁹ Chafe disagrees with this assessment. "The text does not say",h ei nsists, "that the enemies in question would still be the Jews, even in eighteenth-century Leipzig;and it would be amisinterpretation to so understand it." Even so, Chafe does concede that "they [i. e., the Jews] werecertainlyviewed as among the opponents of Christianity" and "following soon after the St. John Passion […]itseems likely that the librettist intended as much."²⁰ Cantata4 2i st he onlyo ne from this series of cantatas "beginning with an instrumental movement rather than with the dictum itself"-suggesting that, to Bach'sm ind, therew as something special about this work. Bach "preceded the opening dictum of Cantata 42 with an extended instrumental sinfonia […] and followed it by an even more extended aria […]T his decision, which must have been Bach'sa lone, places ag reat deal of emphasis on the dramatic situation," Chafeexplains. Forhim, the drama lies in "Jesus'sappearing 'in the midst' of the fearfuldisciples, calming theirfear."²¹ Indeed, he suggests that "the motto [i. e., the quotation from John 20:19] is virtually swallowed up by two extended movements," that is, the preceding sinfonia and subsequent aria.²² Iw ould suggest the exacto pposite. There can be little doubt that Bach's setting of the first recitative does agood job of conveying asense of fear and apprehension. Hans-Joachim Schulze, in his one-volume commentary on Bach's cantatas of 2006,e mphasizes that Bach'ss etting givesasense of "the sort of trepidation whereo ne'sh eart is in one'sm outh."²³ The grand old man of Bach cantatac ommentary,t he late Alfred Dürr,n oted the "throbbingc ontinuo semiquavers, which are no doubtd esigned to depict the disciples' fear of 'the Jews'",a nd stressedt he "stark contrast" between the recitative and the aria that follows it.H is characterization of thata ria as radiating "heavenlyc alm" has repeatedlyb eenc ited in the literature.²⁴ Chafe refers to it as "an oasis of Trost [consolation]." This, Iw ould suggest,i ss pot-on: the luxuriant nature of the aria that follows the first recitative -which, in recordings,r uns to somewhereb etween ten (Philippe Herreweghe) and more than thirteen minutes (Masaaki Suzuki) -indicates the measure of consolation required following the disciples' traumatice xperience of having to lock themselvesa way "for fear of the Jews." Schulze adds to this the notion thatt he shift from the Dm ajor of the introductory sinfonia -which itself runs to another six (Elliot Gardiner)t os even minutes (Herreweghe) -to the corresponding bm inor of the first recitative "effects an abrupt shift from bucolic tranquilitystraight to an actuallyorapparently dangerous situation,"²⁵ suggesting that the recitative indeed necessitatedconsolation of considerable proportions bothbefore and after.Inhis older two-volume commentary,William Gillies Whittaker -the first incumbentofthe Gardiner Professorship in Music at Glasgowc urrentlyh eld by John Butt -characterized the aria following the reiteration of the disciples'" fear of the Jews" in the second recitative as "almost extravagantly joyful," likewise suggesting ah eightened need for consolation to deal with the "fear of the Jews"-about which Whittaker has nothing to say, despite quoting both recitativesi nf ull.²⁶ Schulze, as we saw, was evidentlytrying to soften the blow.Hewroteof"an abrupt shift from bucolic tranquility straight to an actually or apparently dangerous situation" (emphasis added).²⁷ He also claimedthatthe "fear of the Jews" is reallyonly "mentioned in passing" in the gospel text.²⁸ About the reiteration of the "fear of the Jews" in the second recitative,hehas nothing to say. Ultimately, this all looks more likea na ttempt to evade rather than confront the problem, but at least he does not ignore it entirely. Thelate Martin Petzoldt, in the relevant volume of his big commentary on Bach'sc antatas, published in 2007,d id just that.H en oted that the recitative quotes John 20,19w ithout Jesus'sa ssurance of peace at the end, hence placing "the thematic emphasis on the assemblyo f fearfuld isciples." This, he pointso ut,was certainlyatodds with the interpretation presented in the widelyr ead contemporaneous Bible commentary by Jo-hannesAndreas Olearius (1639 -1684). Olearius paidlittle attentiontothe disciples' fear and instead stressed the fact of Jesus'sm iraculous entry despite the locked doors.²⁹ The fifth movement,inwhich the introductory narrative is repeated and its meaningspelled out,Petzoldtcharacterizes as an expression of "profound Biblical thinking."³⁰ At this point,t he fear of the disciples is no longer even mentioned, and nowhered oes Petzold comment on the ostensible cause of thatf ear identifieds oe xplicitly( and twice) in the cantata.
Petzoldtisingood company. In the two-volume Bach cantata handbook edited by Reinmar Emans and Sven Hiemke and publishedbyLaaber in 2012,Christina Blanken merelypointsout thatBach, with simple musical means "illustrates the fear of the disciples of persecution by the Jews" and has nothing more to say on the matter.³¹ Most recently,Konrad Klek, aProfessor of churchmusic at Erlangen, in the third and final volume of his Bach cantata commentary,h as shown himself entirelyu ntroubled by the disciples'" fear of the Jews." He notes that "the librettist accentuates the fear of the Jews and, by analogy, perceiveso ft he Christian congregation as a 'little band' (movement 4) that is threatened by 'enemies' (movement 5) and 'persecution' (movement 6). But the liturgical presence of Christ serves as aprotective shield." Bach, he adds, implemented the libretto's "accentuation of fear" with the appropriate musicalmeans. Klek also emphasizes the stark contrast between the recitative and the "uniquelycalming music" of the subsequent "overlyl ong" aria, music to which one could chill ("Musik zum 'Chillen'"). All he has to saya bout the second recitative,i nw hich the disciples' "fear of the Jews" is reiterated and interpreted, is that it assures the congregation of Christ'sp rotection.³² Ever since Alfred Dürr did so back in the 1950s,³³ far from showing anyconcern, authors have repeatedlysingled out Cantata 42 as aparticularlyapt casein point for Bach'ss uperlative ability to compose cantatas that reallya re musical sermons and render their message "real in the present." The erstwhile Professor (in various combinations) of ComparativeR eligion, Old Testament,a nd Hebrew at the Protestant theological faculties in Brussels, Bochum, and Marburg, and prominent interfaith activist (though with ag reater interest in Islam than Judaism), Johan Bouman, for instance, wrotei natext republished in 2000: followingt he reading on Jesus'sa ppearance and encounter with the doubtingT homas,i n the Cantata Butinthe Evening of the Same Sabbath (John 20:19-29) the applicatio sounds as follows: 'One can see afine example in this, from what tookplaceinJerusalem; for when the disciples had gatheredi nt he dark shadow,out of fear of the Jews,a tt hat my Saviour entered amongst them, as testimonythat he wants to be his Church'sprotection. So let the enemies rage!' This convergenceo fc antata and sermon has the task of actualizing the exegetical message and stimulatingo ne'so wn faith and piety.³⁴ We will shortlyencounter another fan of the cantata'squalities as amusicalsermon.
Exceptions to this enduringp attern of oblivion to the disciples'" fear of the Jews" are few and farb etween. Unsurprisingly,D agmar Hoffmann-Axthelm, who first pioneered the studyo fa nti-Judaism in Bach'sw orks,³⁵ is one of them. In program notes for Cantata 42 published in 2012,s he describes as "depressingfrom today'sviewpoint" the fact that anti-Judaism went without saying The Legacy of Anti-Judaism in Bach'sS acred Cantatas for Bach and his peers and congregants.³⁶ TheE mmanuelM usic ensemble, which is affiliated with the Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Boston and has "a 46-year tradition of presentingw eeklyB ach cantatas in al iturgical setting,"³⁷ is another noteworthyexception. They suggest twowaysofdealing with the disciples'"fear of the Jews" in the two recitatives. In the first instance, they pick up on ar emarkablypopulary et nonsensical exegetical claim thatt he gospel verse, in fact,refers not to the Jews but to the Judaeans, that is, not to "the Jews" per se but merelyt othose from the Romanprovinceo fJ udaea (whichc overed roughly the area of the erstwhile southern kingdom of Judah).³⁸ As as econd,m ore radical solution, they propose that one might omit the reference to 'the Jews' altogether and refer instead to "Verfolgung/persecution."³⁹ The latteri sc ertainlya suggestion worthyo fc onsideration though it,i nt urn,r aises the question of whether simple erasure is reallyana ppropriate wayofd ealingwith this legacy. There in fact seems to have been some controversy on this matter within the ensemble. Itsf oundingd irector,Craig Smith, in his program notes for Cantata 42, while being rather reticent in his commentary on the first recitative,when discussing the second recitative,inwhich the disciples'"fear of the Jews" is reiterated and interpreted, characterized it as presenting "one of the most distasteful examples of ak ind of knee-jerk anti-Semitism in all of Bach." The ensemble'sl ongstanding principal guestc onductor John Harbison, in 2004,a ppended remarks specificallyonthis "uncomfortable" issue. "It has been often the practice at Emmanuel to changethis text and similar referenceinthe final bass recitative," he explains, and continues: Here ares ome reasons not to do so:1)t he text of anym usical work represents its original sources, the artist'sconception, and the historical moment of its creation. Witnesses to the work must be trusted to interpret it according to their own belief and culture. 2) The mention of the Jews is at the least paradoxical, since every person in that room,includingJesus, soon to appear,lived and died as devout,practicingJ ews.3)Throughout the book of John, to magnify the significanceofthe message,the author downplays what is (merely) factional  Dagmar Hoffmann-Axthelm, "'Am Abend aber desselbigenS abbats' (BWV4 2). 'Nund anket alle Gott' (BWV192)," in Wieschön leuchtet der Morgenstern: Johann Sebastian Bachs geistliche Kantaten. Werkeinführungenu nd Dokumented er Basler Gesamtaufführung, eds.A lbert Jan Becking, Jörg-Andreas Bötticher,a nd Anselm Hartinger( Basel: Schwabe, 2012): 200 -4, here at 201.  http://www.emmanuelmusic.org/who/who_history_mission.htm#pab1_2 (8 November 2017).  On the illogical nature of this suggestion, see Marissen,B ach &G od, 128 -9.  http://emmanuelmusic.org/notes_translations/translations_cantata/t_bwv042.htm (8 Novem-ber2 017). or doctrinal, among Jews.S till it is helpful to remember how manys pecific enemies are identified as money-changers, chief priests,o rP harisees.⁴⁰ What makes these comments somewhat disconcerting is the fact that they are, at least in part,mutuallyattenuating. Suffice it to saythat,weretherenot aserious problem at stake, one would not need to emphasize one'st rust in the ability of the audience/congregation to interpret thatp roblem away.T he subsequent attempt to minimize the measure or substance of the problem in the first place seems rather at odds with that emphasis.

The Cantataa saSermon in itsO wn Right
That the congregation should, as Harbison suggests, "be trusted to interpret" the disciples'"fear of the Jews""accordingtotheir ownbelief and culture" is aplausible suggestion within the remit of liberaltheology. Yet, among neo-traditionalists, the notion that cantatas are musical sermons that render their theological message "real in the present" is still (or again) in rude good health and,i fa nything,advancing. From this point of view,one might just as well saythat it does not reallymatter what is preached from the pulpits todaybecause the congregation can also "be trusted to interpret" the sermons they hear "according to their own belief and culture."⁴¹ It is by no means just people like the late Renate Steiger,Blankenburg'slongstanding and starklydoctrinaire successor at the helm of the International Working Group for Theological Bach Research, who stress this crucial homiletic function of the cantata. She discussed this,for instance,inconnection with the complex penultimatemovement of Cantata 67,composed ayear earlier (1724) for the same Sundaya sC antata 42.T echnicallys peaking ab ass aria, the movement combines two distinct elements. On the one hand, there is adeeplycalming setting of Jesus'swords at the very end of John 20:19 -the aforementioned verse in which the disciples have locked themselvesaway "for fear of the Jews"-"Peace be unto you." The other element,i ns tark contrast, is the rather frantic grappling,i nt he first instance presumably of the disciples but ultimatelyo fa ll those in need of divine grace, buffeted as they are (or feel) by adversity,w ith the news of Jesus'sr esurrection, sung by the sopranos, altos and tenors of the  http://www.emmanuelmusic.org/notes_translations/notes_cantata/n_bwv042.htm (8 Novem-ber2 017).  http://www.emmanuelmusic.org/notes_translations/notes_cantata/n_bwv042.htm (8 Novem-ber2 017).
The Legacy of Anti-Judaism in Bach'sS acred Cantatas choir. "The resurrected Lordappears to them -todayinthis cantata," Steigerexplained, "in his wordand assures them -i. e., us, the listeners -of his peace. The musicald epiction of the event represents not ar eport but as ermon, thati s, it renders that of which it speaks real in the present and dispenses it."⁴² Jochen Arnold, one of the most senior officials responsible for church music in Germany'smainstream Protestant church, the EKD,makes the sameargument in his post-doctoral thesis (Habilitation), VonG ottp oetisch-musikalisch reden. Gottes verborgenes und offenbares Handeln in Bachs Kantaten [Speaking of God with Poetical and Musical Means.G od'sH idden and Revealed Action in Bach's Cantatas], arguablythe most important recent work on the theologyand contemporary liturgical context of Bach'ssacred cantatas. Arnold is clearlynot interested in, and feels no need to displays ensitivity towards, concerns in the realm of Jewish-Christian relations.Tellingly,n either DagmarH offmann-Axthelm nor Michael Marissen feature in his bibliography( whichi na ny case includes only 6non-German titles). To be sure, he claims that "the aesthetics of affect characteristic of Bach'sm usic […] render real in the present Jewish, Reformation and Protestant-Baroque forms of experience of Godand the world thatcan open up for us ap ersonal encounter with God."⁴³ Yet, by 'Jewish,' he principallym eans the Old Testament,a nd his understanding of the Christian relationship to the Old Testament constitutes at extbook case not just of supersessionist appropriation but of comprehensive expropriation of the Tanakh. Not onlydoes the Old Testament in general, and the Psalter in particular, "prefigure" the New Testament narrative.⁴⁴ In the cantatas that begin with ap salm setting,t he subsequent movements "realize the lead of the psalm," rendering the "performative quality of the divine word" open to experience with poetic and musicalmeans.⁴⁵ Discussing the psalm setting at the beginning of Cantata 110,composed for Christmas Day1725, for instance, Arnold explains that the librettist "effectively blocked out the promise to Israel of areturn from exile in order to transfer it in ageneralized form to the Christian church. The 'we' of the earlypost-exilic Israel becomes the 'we' of the Christian congregation at Christmas."⁴⁶ As he subsequentlyreiterates:  RenateS teiger, Gnadengegenwart: Johann Sebastian BachimK ontext lutherischer Orthodoxie und Frömmigkeit (Stuttgart-BadC annstatt: frommann-holzboog,2 002),19.  Jochen Arnold, VonG ott poetisch-musikalisch reden: Gottes verborgenes und offenbares Handeln in Bachs Kantaten (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &R uprecht,2 009), 427.  Ibid., 424.  Ibid., 427-8.  Ibid., 317.
The promise associated with the returnf romBabylonian exile: "our mouths shall be filled with laughter" (Ps 126,2) is moved to the liturgical presenceofsalvationa tChristmas,that is, it is resolutelyrendered real in the present: Mayour mouth be full of laughter means:at Christmas mayo ur mouth be 'full of laughter' now,h erea nd today.
And yet, giventhatthereisnoexplicit Christological referenceinthis movement, Arnold suggeststhis psalm setting could be performed separately "at anyC hristian or even Jewish celebration."⁴⁷ Psalms ettingsi nB ach cantatas, Arnold argues, are "nearlya lways[ … ]performative milestones." They ensure "that at the end nothing is as it was at the beginning."⁴⁸ Perhaps Arnold also assumesh ei sd ealing with Jewisht radition when he emphasizes representations of the lawi nB ach'sc antatas. This would amount to asortofblack-faceapproach to Jewish-Christian relations: an attempt to reintegrate Christianity'sJ ewish roots by dressingu pa so ne'so wn cliché of what Jewishr eligion is supposedlya bout.O nt his issue,A rnold seems determined to have his cake and eatit. On the one hand, he insists that the marvel of divine gracec annot be fullya ppreciatedu nless contrasted to the burden of the law. Consequently, the prevailing one-sided emphasis on God'slovet othe detriment of his wrath dilutes the messageofthe gospel. The law, then, is not extraneous to Christianitybut integraltoit-and consequentlynot,aswidespread conventional wisdomwould have it,atenet exclusive to Judaism. Yetthe crucial point is still the "shift from the accusatory voice of the lawt ot he acquittal of the gospel."⁴⁹ Much as Augustine insisted thatGod had ordained the abjection of the Jews to show others what layinstorefor those who refused to acknowledge the divinity of Christ,A rnold insists that the law -and its representation in Bach'sc antatas -is there to throw all the more sharplyi nto relief the marvel of the divine gracethatrenders the lawobsolete. To be sure, Arnold pays lip service to the actual dialectic of lawand gospel in Christianitybut,aswewill see, what prevails in his account is not that dialectic but the "objection to [divine] judgment in Bach'sc antatas."⁵⁰ ForA rnold, then, Bach'sc antatas have at ransformative capacity;i ndeed, they "preach and proclaim the Gospel in their own right." To illustrate this,t he example that immediatelys pringst oA rnold'sm ind is none other than Cantata 42, Buti nt he Evening of the Same Sabbath. It opens, he explains,  Ibid., 424.  Ibid., 430.  Ibid., 235.  Ibid.
The Legacy of Anti-Judaism in Bach'sS acred Cantatas spirit of music. This is clear to anyone who knows about racialdistinctions [Rassenunterschiede]." To be sure, there werea ssimilated Jews who could make a valuable contribution, but Schoenberg's "personal and racial [rassenmäßig]" development had led in ad ifferent direction. He was ar ootless fanatic who consciouslyd isavowed tradition. The Germanness of German music wasa lready weakened, and Schoenberg'sa ppointment would set the recovery backb yd ecades. Evidently, then, it was entirelypossible for one and the same musicologist to admire Bach's "harsh old-testamentarian fervour" and the works of "rooted" Jewishc omposers and yete ngagei na ntisemitic polemics against Schoenbergag ood indication of some of the complexities that can be involved in understanding non-Jews' attitudes to Judaism, the Old Testament and the Jews.
Maybe Arnold has sound empirical evidence to demonstrate definitively that Lutheran congregants who associate, say, the juxtaposition of lawa nd gospel with the juxtaposition of Christianitya nd Judaism no longer exist.I fs o, this would reflect afairlygroundbreaking turn of events, and his decision not to publish the relevant research would be astonishingi nt he extreme. If not,o ne can onlyassume that he considers it both useful and desirable for today'sL utherans to be exposed to the horrors inflicted by the (Jewish) God of the Old Testament and 'the Jews' to help them understand fullythe superiority of Christianity. Given Arnold'ss tatus in the EKD,this, surely, is deeplyt roubling.
 Arnold, VonG ott poetisch-musikalisch reden, 221.  Ibid., 227. When Bach composed two-part cantatas,the first part would be performed before, the second after the sermon. It would thereforeb eh ighlyu nusual to consider performing the first part during the Eucharist,rather than beforethe sermon, hence Arnold'sreference to Part II (rather than the whole cantata) in this instance.
The Legacy of Anti-Judaism in Bach'sS acred Cantatas