04 April 2023
In this issue in Brill’s series Church History and Religious Culture several papers have been published related to Dutch liturgical formularies in the making.
Klaas-Willem de Jong
This article introduces five contributions written by participants in the project “The Dynamics of the Classical Reformed Liturgy in the Netherlands: its Texts and their History.” After an overview of research on the Classical Reformed Liturgy in the past 125 years, this introduction offers an overview of the research taking place as part of this project. It gives a brief description of each of the articles and lists the main results. To reach further depth, research on liturgical practice appears to be especially important. Points of attention for follow-up are the relationship to other traditions (Mennonite, Lutheran, Walloon, Remonstrant) and the impact of the Dutch Reformed Liturgy abroad.
Klaas-Willem de Jong
About 125 years ago, the question of whether a synod established the handed-down classical Reformed Liturgy, and if so, which one, was hotly debated. The answer to this question was important in determining which text should be considered authoritative in the church. It is now clear that the answer has only limited relevance. On the one hand, the text of the Liturgy has certainly been handed down in a broadly correct manner. On the other hand, there is a large number of variations, most of which, however, are of minor importance. The influence of church assemblies on all this is only one factor. This article, therefore, chooses to ask what factors influenced the shape of the Liturgy as it developed in the second half of the sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth centuries. It names six factors in addition to the (both provincial and national) synods, namely the government, some prominent pastors, local church councils, printers, buyers’ tastes, and local practice.
Wim Moehn
The Liturgy of the Dutch Reformed Church came about in several steps from Petrus Dathenus’s 1566 edition of the Psalms to the National Synod of Dordt (1618–1619). During the Post-Acta sessions of Dordt in 1619, it was finally decided to draw up a form for baptism of adults (“de bejaerde”), in addition to the already existing form for infant baptism. This essay shows that the church in the Netherlands could not fall back on texts that were already in use elsewhere in Europe. Both the provincial synods of North- and South-Holland and that of Zeeland provided material that was incorporated into the new form, which gradually replaced the so-called “Corte ondersoeckinge” in the years after the Synod of Dordt.
Erik de Boer
During the Protestant Reformation of the Churches in the Low Countries the sacrament of extreme unction and rituals surrounding burial were eliminated. The ever-present reality of illness and approaching death, however, kept demanding pastoral care and comfort for the dying. In the 1570s a text was published, Den Siecken Troost (Comfort for the Sick), which found its way into the Reformed books of liturgy. This article researches the author’s identity and itinerary, and also the publication history of his booklet. Although no ecclesiastical body seems to have consented to the inclusion in the liturgical book, its lasting presence until the twenty first century begs the question how the ‘Comfort for the Sick’ came to such prominence.
Anne Lorein
In this article, the historical and social context of Petrus Dathenus’s Form for the Solemnisation of Marriage at the end of the sixteenth century and the early seventeenth century in the province of Holland is examined, in order to grasp the meaning of this Marriage Form of the Dutch Reformed Church. In order to do so, the Dutch Classical Reformed Form is related to information of primary and secondary sources about matrimony. A discussion of the marriage banns, parental consent, engagement, the wedding location, the views on marriage, husbands and wives’ responsibilities, and divorce, demonstrates that examination of the historical developments and contemporary rules and manners improves our understanding of the Form. Nevertheless, being a liturgical document, the Form did not always represent the social context, but rather interacted with the social context as a normative source.
Wouter Kroese
The Reformed Dutch baptismal form in the Dathenus Psalter (1566) is a translated adaption of the form in the Palatinate Church Order (1563). In the Palatinate Church Order (1563), this baptismal form is accompanied by a text “On holy baptism.” The present article researches the sources of the baptismal texts in the Palatinate Church Order (1563), with a special focus on the phrase “children having the Holy Spirit.” It builds upon the critical edition of J.F. Gerhard Goeters (1969), and uses an extra type of sources: the so-called Lasconian catechisms.
