Paul gerhardt wiki

Paul Gerhardt: preacher and hymn-writer

Derek J. Lewis

The year marked the th anniversary of Paul Gerhardt’s birth, on 12 March , when a series of events celebrating this illustrious pastor and hymn-writer took place in Germany. A commemorative CD of recitations and singing of his hymns was also released.

Most English language hymnbooks include translations of Gerhardt’s hymns, for example, ‘Commit thou all thy griefs’, ‘All my heart this night rejoices’, ‘O sacred head sore wounded’ and ‘Jesus, thy boundless love to me’. John Wesley translated several of these, while many more were translated by Catherine Winkworth () and others during the nineteenth century.

Winkworth had met Christian Karl Josias Bunsen, a German diplomat working in London in , who had published Gesang und gebetbuch, a compilation of hymns in This contained over one hundred of Paul Gerhardt’s hymns, over half of which are to be found in Winkworth’s mainly biographical Paul gerhardt hymns!