The Bach cantatas are among the highest achievements of Western musical art; yet studies of individual Bach cantatas that are both illuminating and detailed are few in number. In this book Eric Chafe combines theological, historical, analytical, and interpretive approaches to the cantatas to offer the reader and listener the richest possible experience of the works in the light of the composer's intentions and of the enduring and universal qualities of the works. Concentrating on a small number of representative cantatas, mostly from the Leipzig cycles of 1723-24 and 1724-25, and in particular on Cantata 77, Chafe illustrates how Bach strove to mirror both the dogma and the mystery of religious experience in musical allegory.