Erbarme dich

Peter’s denial, and the aria that follows.

Say Good Friday and most people think of Bach’s St Matthew Passion. It is no longer performed as part of the liturgy, as it was in Bach’s day, yet for many – inside the church and outside it – this music belongs to their own observance of Holy Week. This page dwells on one crucial passage: the denial of Jesus by Peter, followed by the aria Erbarme dich. Crucial in the architecture of the Passion, and for many listeners its high point: this cry out of the depths.

But first a chorale. Christ, already named the Lamb of God in the opening chorus, is allowed at the start of the Passion to be our shepherd for a moment.

Peter

Matthew paints Jesus as a lucid Jewish rabbi who is at the same time unusually sensitive to the fate of the people he meets. He does not judge, but neither does he explain anything away. He takes people as they are and tries, by his own commitment, to help them further along – or to set them going again. At first he is carried shoulder-high; but the further he goes on his way, the greater the resistance. The powers that be grow nervous at so much unconditional humanity. They try to silence him. And when, after being welcomed as a hero, he fails to provide his countless followers with enough spectacle, his popularity ebbs away fast. The many thumbs-up are followed by indifference, and soon those same thumbs will turn down in unison: hosanna today, crucify him tomorrow. Better not to live on the favour of the public.

But then there is Simon Peter – the rock, as Jesus had called him. On him the church can be built. Though all should forsake you, I will not! And he meant it. He would have gone through fire for Jesus, if it came to that. Well: you know the story.

Peter’s denial

Not him
he will not leave the master
on him Jesus can build
his loyalty goes as far as death

but then
a woman’s voice
a finger pointing:
he too belongs to that man
inside there, before the judge

and all his pride is gone
he shrinks
into the denial of himself
denial of his love
and swears he does not know the man

So deep the night
but already the cock is waking
and crows and crows –
so deep in the night
but Jesus seeks his eyes
and looks at him:
light striking inward
in which he is known
and knows himself:
shamed to death
yet loved to the death

Inge Lievaart, from Een stem van heel dichtbij (1990). Translated from the Dutch. Original on the Dutch sister page.

Erbarme dich

And then comes the aria Erbarme dich. But let me stop the action here for a moment. What made Bach insert that aria at this point? Matthew reports only that Peter went outside and wept bitterly. There are only tears, the darkness of his soul – and yet. Read once more the close of Lievaart’s poem quoted above:

deep is the night
but Jesus seeks his eyes
and looks at him:
light striking inward
in which he is known
and knows himself:
shamed to death
yet loved to the death

That look – of which you can read only in Luke – is Peter’s salvation: a look that knows, and loves at the same time. He is seen through, searched out, known, and yet not cast off. Out of the depth of his soul, de profundis, the primal cry now rises: Lord, have mercy, miserere mei, kyrie eleison – Erbarme dich. That is to say: with his mouth he says nothing (how could he? what comes out of it is not to be trusted, as he now knows himself), but his tears say everything. In the devotional literature of Bach’s day – and long before him – tears running down the cheeks are the outward sign of a heart that bleeds.¹

The soul, and the singing violin

The soul is feminine, and so the voicing of this cry of the heart is entrusted to a woman’s voice – as it is throughout Bach’s cantatas. And thanks to Bach’s setting, Peter’s cry takes on a universal ring. The music voices the pain of anyone who comes up against his own limits, who meets himself without mercy; who is stuck, who cannot go on and yet must, with his failures, his shortcomings, his pain. And the wonder happens: while the lament is being uttered, compassion and forgiveness are already streaming towards you from the other side. You sing out the grief, and in the singing you are consoled – for if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things (1 John 3:20).

In the clip below, from the documentary on Bach’s life, John Eliot Gardiner touches on this mystery when he points out that the secret of the aria may lie in this: that it has all been said already, before the singer has sung a note. It is the violin that speaks.

The text is elementary, and given the weight of the music not really essential. The primal cry has to be articulated, or it cannot be sung; but it is not the words, it is the crying itself that matters: Erbarme dich. Here the text is little more than a strip of sound that lends a voice to a lament that cannot be spoken. If you want to hear the whole aria, my advice is not to watch a singer, but to close your eyes and listen – for whoever shuts the eyes of the body opens the eyes of the soul, so that grace can stream in. Or, if you would rather keep your eyes open, you can look at a painting.

Memlinc

Grave and alone he stands
between the hollows of
heaven and earth, the man
who understands God’s words,

who knows the answer, but is silent still
as long as the question sounds,
who waits until the world goes under
and a star outshines the sun.

Hungering for eternity
he broke his life like bread,
tasted death in that food,
renounced, and holds himself ready.

Listening, silent, and
ready in devotion: truly,
this is no ending yet, but
a beginning begun for good.

Martinus Nijhoff, from Vormen (1924). Translated from the Dutch (a sonnet). Original on the Dutch sister page..

Epilogue

Enough meditation. Life goes on, in times of crisis too, and we try to make the best of it. That sounds flat, but it need not be flat: to make something good out of something bad seems to me not the worst thing one can do in dark times.

Text: Dick Wursten. Written at Easter 2020, during the first lockdown. With thanks to Frans Van Looveren and Gretel Beyers.

1. “Die Augen sind Fenster zum Hertzen. Wenn die Augen thränen, so blutet das Hertz im Leibe. Petri Thränen waren warhafftige Hertzens-Thränen, nicht durch Kunst gemachet, auch nicht aus weibischer Wehmüthigkeit vergossen… Soll uns Petrus seyn ein Trost-Bild, und diese Regel geben: Niemand verzage in seinen Sünden. Denn der Jesus, der Petrum wieder zu Gnaden hat angenommen, wird auch dich, mein Hertz, in deiner Busse nicht verstossen…” – Heinrich Müller, fourth Passion sermon. A full transcription, with translation, is here.↩