Abstract
At key points in the liturgical year, early modern Lutheran worshipers heard confessional polemics and warnings about persecution, past and present. Lutherans of Bach’s age worried about persecution from rival confessions. Although Luther’s Reformation had met with early successes, by 1600 Catholic Reform had begun to reverse many Protestant gains in central Europe. Persecution against Protestants, as Thomas A. Brady Jr. has noted, “became far more systematic and purposeful among the Catholics,” in part because Catholics had a uniform program of reform and the advantages of better political and ecclesiastical organization.¹ Even during Bach’s lifetime, Lutherans still feared that their