O faithful God, O pitying heart

Author: Paul Gerhardt

Gerhardt, Paulus, son of Christian Gerhardt, burgomaster of Gräfenhaynichen, near Wittenberg, was born at Grafenhaynichen, Mar. 12, 1607. On January 2, 1628, he matriculated at the University of Wittenberg. In the registers of St. Mary's church, Wittenberg, his name appears as a godfather, on July 13, 1641, described still as "studiosus," and he seems to have remained in Wittenberg till at least the end of April, 1642. He appears to have gone to Berlin in 1642 or 1643, and was there for some time (certainly after 1648) a tutor in the house of the advocate Andreas Barthold, whose daughter (Anna Maria, b. May 19, 1622, d. March 5, 1668) became his wife in 1655. During this period he seems to have frequently preached in Berlin. He was appoint… Go to person page >

*Ach! treuer Gott, barmherzigs Herz. P. Gerhardt. [Cross and Consolation.] Founded on a prayer "for patience under great trial," No. xxv. in Class iii. of J. Arndt's Paradies-gartlein, 1612. Appeared in Crüger's Praxis pietatis melica, Frankfurt, 1656, No. 381, in 16 stanzas of 7 lines, and included in many subsequent hymn-books, as recently in the Unverfälschter Liedersegen, 1851, No. 693; also in Wackernagel's edition of his Geistliche Lieder, No. 57; Bachmann's ed., No. 80.
Translations in common use:—

2. 0 faithful God! 0 pitying heart, a good translation, omitting stanzas iii., ix., xi., xiii., xv., in the 2nd Ser. 1858, of Miss Winkworth's Lyra Germanica. p. 182, and thence, in the Gilman-Schaff, Library of Religious Poetry, ed. 1883, p. 837. The translations of stanzas x., xii., xiv., xvi., beginning, "O Thou, who diedst to give us life," appear as No. 327, in Church Praise, 1883.
[Rev. James Mearns, M.A.]

--Excerpts from John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)