Liebe, die du mich zum Bilde

Author: Angelus Silesius

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Liebe die du mich zum Bilde. J. Scheffler. [The Love of Christ.] No. 107, in Bk. iii., 1657, of his Heilige Seelenlus (Werke, 1862, i. p. 180), in 6 stanzas of 6 lines, entitled, "She [the Soul] surrenders herself to the Everlasting Love." Included as No. 35 in the Berlin Geistliche Lieder, ed. 1863, with an additional stanza as iv., "Liebe die du Kraft und Leben," added when the hymn was given in the Geistreiches Gesang-Buch, Halie, 1697, p. 184.

"It is one of the most beautiful and profound hymns of the spiritual love of the soul to her Saviour," says Lauxmann in Koch, viii. 290. Wetzel, in his Analecta Hymnica, ii. 111-116, relates that one evening in 1722 Benjamin Schultze, a German missionary at Madras, sang it from Freylinghausen, and was so delighted with it that he determined that his Malabar scholars should share his pleasure. That evening he translated verse after verse, not resting till he had finished it two hours after midnight. The success he attained led him to translate 103 hymns from the German which are still sung in South India.

Translations in common use:—
1. Lord, Thine image Thou hast lent me. By J. C. Jacobi, in his Psalter Germanica, 1720, p. 1, in 7 stanzas. It is one of his best translations. It was slightly altered in his edition 1722, p. 33, and again in his ed. 1732, p. 56; and thence in the Moravian Hymn Book, 1754, Lady Huntingdon's Selection, 1780, and Dr. Pagenstecher's Collection, 1864. Stanzas i., iii., iv., vii., were included in the Pennsylvanian Lutheran Church Book, 1S68, and the Ohio Lutheran Hymnal, 1880. In the Moravian Hymn Book, 1789 (1849, No. 21), it was considerably altered, and began,"In Thine image, Lord, Thou mad'st me." A cento in 5 stanza of 4 lines, beginning, "Love divine! I would adore Thee," is in the Roxburgh Place Collection, Edinburgh, 1824; and stanzas i.-iv., slightly altered from the 1826 Moravian, are in the Dalston Hospital Hymn Book, 1848.
2. In Thine image Thou didst make us. As No. 54 in the Cooke-Denton Hymnal, 1853, in 3 stanzas of 6 lines, and a doxology. It is based on Jacobi, but is entirely rewritten by Canon Cooke. This was repeated, unaltered, in the Salisbury Hymn Book, 1857, New Zealand Hymnal, 1870 Parish Hymn Book, 1875, and, slightly altered, in the Sarum Hymnal, 1868.
3. 0 Love, Who formedst me to wear. An exceedingly good translation in 7 stanzas by Miss Wink worth in her Lyra Germanica, 2nd Ser., 1858, p. 96, and as No. 47 in her Chorale Book for England, 1863. This has come into extensive use, and is included in full in the New Zealand Hymnal, 1870, and in Schaff’s Christ in Song, 1869, p. 414. In 1861 it was included, slightly altered and with the omission of st. iv., v., in Hymns Ancient & Modern, and repeated in the revised edition of 1875, and other hymnals. Other centos are in the People's Hymnal, 1867; Horder's Congregational Hymnal, 1884, &c.
Other translations are:—(1) "Love divine! 'neath human feature," in the Christian Treasury, 1858, p. 155. (2) “Loved One! who by grace hast wrought me," by Mrs. Findlater, in Hymns from the Land of Luther, 1862, p. 40 (1884, p. 207).
(3) "Love, Who in the first beginning," by Miss Cox, 1864, p. 201; repeated in the Moravian Hymn Book, 1886.
(4) "Love, which in Thine image made me," by R. Massie, in the British Herald, Nov. 1865, p. 168, and Reid's Praise Book, 1872. [Rev. James Mearns, M.A.]

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

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