Consideration of Werckmeister’s writings in 'Paradoxal-Discourse' (1707) demonstrates the theological import given to well-temperament. Consider, for example, the chapter that compares incorrect temperament with false Christianity, in which Werckmeister discusses as follows:
"It is more than a century ago that a common mistake was made by musicians regarding temperament because they held onto the notion and kept thinking that all 3rds had to be pure and all 5ths should be out of tune by ¼ of a comma: this error had taken root so strongly that some would even have sacrificed their life to support it. It is, however, an eternal untruth which can be proven expressly to be false by using a monochord, the ‘circle of fifths,’ arithmetic, and then finally by using your hearing. For if all 5ths are out-of-tune by ¼ of a comma, then, when you go through the circle of 5ths, the final one will have come down too far by more than 2 commas. And just the same way that these mystics talk: “5ths that are out of tune by ¼ of a comma are being forced to carry a great burden while the 3rds are thought to be pure for this reason” so it is that many Christians, until now, have placed too much emphasis on the Spirit of Christ who is being imagined as the numbers 2 and 3 or the allegorical 5th and by insisting upon having the latter remain unchanged in their natural state in which they are thought to be pure enough – by thinking this way many Christians have damaged the sanctity of Christ and, at the same time, have made him become a sinner. And how musicians who are unable to recognize their mistake and are themselves groping about in the dark and for this reason are incapable of progressing further in their harmonic modulations and are thus forced to stay within the limits of the general type of diatonic scale: And this is also the way it was with the theologians who were clouded by their own dogmatic statements and anyone who wanted to make some headway and was inspired by God to find further explanations and wanted to publicize these things would be treated as a heretic and might even have been condemned to death by fire – So it is that they have recognized both types of thirds, the major and the minor (also the 6ths) to have that which is human and natural to be without shortcomings and blameless, yet, in contrast, they have placed upon that which is divine and perfect a burden and their own sin and impurity and have thereby always made Christ into a sinner. This happened unknowingly, however, because they have constructed their beliefs only upon the teachings and statutes created by human beings and have not called upon God’s spirit for enlightenment. This is the error which is still unknowingly being cultivated by them secretly.
I bring this up not to assert this as one of the principles and fundamental rules of music, but rather simply to point out how music is always a companion to theology and how the quality of theology is dependent upon us for the state of its purity; likewise, music also tends to be in the same condition, and just as the manner in which matters are governed, so will the state of music be also just as Plato has confirmed this.
Let us move on now and recognize that when the temperament is set up in such a manner that all 5ths will ‘schweben’ at 1/12 comma, the major 3rds at 2/3 of a comma and the minor 3rds at ¾ of a comma, and that a person with an ear for accuracy will know how to accomplish this and tune accordingly, then, certainly, there will be a well-tempered harmony going through the entire circle of 5ths and through all keys/tonalities. This can then serve as an example as to how all well-tempered human beings will be able to live and rejoice with God in an everlasting, continually the same and eternal, harmony. For God is the diapason, in him we actively live and exist. In an earlier chapter we learned how, for bringing about the continuation of harmony, the entire scale of consonances and dissonances are developed out of the proportion: the double 1 and 2 [or the duplication of 1 to make 2?] which is called the octave and the diapason.
It was explained how everything is contained within this most perfect of consonances which leads to the further reproduction of the other octaves: Thus it is that, in God and his eternal Word, Jesus Christ, everything is contained and has its source and being from the same, for everything that is made is made by the word (John 1:3.) And through his Word everything that still happens in this world is still maintained and kept alive in good harmony.
Some people are probably going to wonder about the fact that I am giving as an example a temperament in which all 5ths are at 1/12 of a comma, the major 3rds at 2/3, the minor 3rds at ¾ so that all the consonant intervals have the same ‘Schwebung’, a temperament which I had not expressly introduced in my book/illustration of the monochord. My answer to this is that I had already considered this temperament 30 years ago when I looked at the circular disc by Theophil Staden in Harsdörffer’s book “Philosophical Hours of Refreshment.” I then took it upon myself to investigate this erroneous temperament in which it was prescribed that all 5ths should be tuned ¼ comma and the major 3rds should be pure. There, with God’s help, I became the first to discover this incorrectness: and I went about mitigating/relieving the extremely terrible-sounding dissonances, in particular the ‘B’ and the ‘D#’ which were out of tune by more than 2 commas, and I gave most of the pure sounds to the diatonic category, for that considerable reason because very few organists are able to play their chorales in the so-called semitones or extended church modes; and since I ended up allowing the 3rds of the diatonic scale/type to be out of tune by approximately ½ or 2/3 of a comma, oh, how some of the ignoramuses persecuted me and how I had to suffer when I reported in my musical ‘Memorial’ on pp. 35-36 and in other writings as well on this temperament and suggested for the first time that all consonances [consonant sounds/intervals] could mechanically have the same or equal amount of ‘Schwebung’ and that all 5ths could be reduced by only 1/12 of a comma, etc., and that I had tried out this tuning theoretically on my monochord and carried it out in practice and discovered that it was good, for how could I have otherwise known about and written about the fact that the major 3rds should be tuned [“schweben”] by 2/3 comma and the minor 3rds by ¾ comma; so it is impossible for me to keep the truth a secret any longer, particularly since God has awakened other upright people to recognize this temperament as being correct and I have had the same made public and caused it to appear in print, as, for instance, Mr Georg Neidhardt, a student of theology, has presented with great clarity as a praiseworthy effort the entire process of tuning this way. On my monochord, the illustration of which I had printed, the same temperament could be mechanically marked on it quite easily if it were longer, for those commas already marked on it and separated into 3 or 4 parts, could just as easily be divided to show the 1/12 part of a comma the same way that the ¼ part of a comma is already shown, so that, as you move from one 1/5 to another, all you have to do is take away 1/12 of a comma the same way that you did with the ¼ of a comma By doing this you will find out how much the 3rds 6ths, 4ths, etc. ‘schweben’ [are out of tune.] And these latter intervals will all be very tolerable since no single 3rd will ‘schweben’ at a whole comma, but rather as already indicated. I had wanted to have this 1/12 comma temperament marked accordingly in print, but because the engraver complained (he really wasn’t properly trained to do this) about the narrow spaces that would be necessary when dividing the comma up into 12 parts, I simply had to let this matter go. For my whole monochord covering 5 octaves from the lowest C to the highest C is only 2 feet long. Since, however, the previous generation of tuners tolerated the terrible ‘wolf’ in their ‘B’ and ‘D#’, I went about and ‘crippled’ it a bit so that it would not be raging as gruesomely and so that the damage which it had caused in earlier times would be replaced. But in this completely grave situation, had I then given all the 3rds of the diatonic type such a strong ‘Schwebung’ as the 1/12 comma division would have required, I would then have been eaten up alive by the ignoramus-wolves. For this reason it is difficult to remove an error quickly and suddenly and I am grateful that some upright people have seconded my efforts. Meanwhile, I still feel inclined to, and will continue to allow, the diatonic 3rds to be somewhat purer than those which are seldom used – it provides for a pleasant change – these are the temperaments contained in my book on the monochord - but be forewarned, not everybody is able to make these temperaments sound good. Since Faber Stapul and Glareanus had ordinary 3rds of the diatonic type which were too big by 1 comma, and thought they were pleasant enough to listen to, so I certainly will be excused as well if I let some 3rds like C# and F, and G# and C ‘schweben’ over/beyond themselves by one comma or only ¾ comma, so that these 3rds which constantly occur might remain all the more pleasant to listen to. You don’t want to take an old building with solid columns and tear it all down at once. I thank God that I found this general error which almost everybody had previously considered to be correct: they had believed that all 5ths on a keyboard instrument should ‘schweben’ downward by 1 comma and that all 3rds would have to be pure – something which is basically false and completely wrong and misleading.
In addition, I will now remind the reader in passing about a statement that I have already made previously that on my monochord the commas could be divided mechanically (physically?) because another small proportion falls into the mathematical division in the case of the comma, a small proportion which can not be understood by means of the circle [of 5ths] alone since sight and hearing can not perceive it – more about this in my description of the monochord on pp. 93 and 96."
Given the above, potential theological allusions in the WTC glyph are of interest. Consider, for example, the reconciliation the sacred choir-pitch of the church (Cornet-Ton 'C') on the one hand, its worldly manifestation (Cammerton 'D') on the other.
With regard to the decoration of the ‘D’, Prautzsche offers a potentially relevant interpretation of a similar artefact in the title of BWV 31 ‘Der Himmel lacht! die Erde jubilieret’. Here, he regards the diagonal line as a beam/ray that cuts through the sign for Death and Devil (the double dots).
Accordingly, with the decoration of the Cammerton ‘D’, the author perhaps represents symbolically that with the clear light of reason, the devilish problems that have beset musicians during the 16th and 17th centuries have been overcome. The musical scale has been conquered, allowing the use of all tonalities; while sacred (Chorton/Cornet-ton "church pitch") and secular (Camerton "chamber pitch") have been reconciled.