Jesu, thy boundless love to me

Jesu, thy boundless love to me. Paul Gerhardt* (1607-1676), translated by John Wesley* (1703-1791). This is a translation of Gerhardt’s ‘O Jesu Christ, mein schönstes Licht’*, a very beautiful hymn of 16 verses based on a prayer in Johann Arndt*’s Paradiesgärtlein (1612). Wesley translated all 16 stanzas, turning Gerhardt’s 9-line stanzas into 6-line ones. He found the hymn in the Moravian Das Gesang-Buch der Gemeine in Herrnhut (1735), and translated it on the way home from Georgia, saying that it expressed the ‘cry of his heart’ (Companion to HP, 1988, p. 395). It appeared thus in Hymns and Sacred Poems (1739), headed ‘Living by Christ. From the German’.  It was shortened to nine stanzas...

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