Theodore Brown Hewitt · 80 of 194
200: O Jesu Christ, mein schönstes Licht.
O Jesu Christ, mein schönstes Licht.--(Goed. 200.)
[Love of Christ.]
Cf. Koch IV, 402, VIII, 294. Included in the 5th ed., Berlin, 1653, and the Frankfurt ed., 1656, of Crü. Praxis, in 16 stanzas of 9 lines; in Wackernagel: no. 45; Bachmann: no. 73; Unv. L. S.: 1851, no. 771. This is one of the finest hymns on the Love of Christ. It is founded on Prayer V of Class II in Johann Arndt's Paradiszgärtlein, 1612.
English Versions:
(A.) Wesley.
1. Jesus, Thy boundless love to me.
A full and very fine translation by J. Wesley in Hymns and Sacred Poems, 1739 (P. Works, 1868-72, vol. I, p. 138). In the Wesleyan Hymn Book, 1780, it was reduced to 9 stanzas.
Centos of the Wesley version are:
(1.) O Love, how cheering is Thy ray. (Stanza III.)
Bk. of Hymns, Boston, U. S. A., 1848.
(2.) My Savior, Thou Thy love to me. (Stanza V.)
Moravian H. Bk., 1789.
(3.) More hard than marble is my heart. (Stanza VI.)
American H. Bk., 1858.
(4.) O draw me, Savior, after Thee. (Stanza IX.)
Snepp's Songs of G. and G. Pennsylvania Luth. Ch. Bk., 1868.
(5.) O draw me, Father, after Thee. (Stanza IX altered.)
Bk. of Hymns, Boston, U. S. A., 1848. Amer. Unitarian H. Bk., 1869.
(6.) Still me, O my Savior stand.
This stanza is taken from a hymn "Peace, doubting heart, my God's I am," by C. Wesley. To this is added in Snepp's Songs of G. and G., stanzas XII, XIV, XVI, and in J. L. Porter's Collection, 1876, stanzas XII, XV, XVI, of this translation of J. Wesley.
(7.) Thou Friend of Sinners! Who hast bought.
This is stanzas V, IV, XVI, rewritten by E. Osler and published in the Mitre H. Bk., 1836.
(B.) Other English versions:
1. O Christ, my sweetest Life and Light.
In the Suppl. to German Psal., ed. 1765, p. 29, and the Moravian H. Bk., 1754 (and with slight change in the ed. of 1789, and 1849), viz: In the 1746 ed. in part II there appear as a separate hymn stanzas V-VII, beginning "Thou cam'st in love to my relief." In the 1789, and 1849 ed., it begins "O Christ, my only Life and Light."
2. O Jesus Christ! my fairest Light.
J. Kelly, 1867, p. 122.
3. O Christ, my Light, my gracious Savior.
In the Moravian H. Bk., 1886.
Selected Stanzas:
In the Moravian Hymn Book, 1754 (author's name not given).
J. Wesley, 1739, in the 1754 ed., Part I, of the Moravian Hymn Book.
J. Wesley, 1739, in Snepp's Songs of and Glory, 1872. It is stanza 2 of a hymn beginning "Still me, O my Savior stand" in Snepp, and Gerhardt's stanza XII: "Was ists, o Schönster, dasz ich nicht / In deiner Liebe habe?" etc.