ABSTRACT
The year 1739 was important in Leipzig: it marked the bicentenary of the introduction of the Reformation into the city. Luther's visit to Leipzig in May 1539 led to two interrelated activities: a reformation of belief (doctrine) and a reformation of practice (worship). In the worship of the Leipzig churches, stemming from the sixteenth century, liturgical forms and doctrinal considerations, as expressed in Luther's catechism, were intertwined. For example, Bach's contemporary, Carl Gottlob Hofmann, then the pastor of the Petrikirche in Leipzig, reprinted the sermon in full in his 1739 account of the Reformation in Leipzig. Trinitarian associations are to be found in abundance throughout the whole set. The doctrine of the Trinity was no theological abstraction to orthodox Lutheran theologians. The small settings of the catechism melodies are on a more limited scale, but it would do them an injustice to call them simple.
