O du Liebe meiner Liebe. [Passiontide.] Included in the Geistreiches Gesang-Buch, Halle, 1697, p. 203, in 7 stanzas of 8 lines, and in Wagner's Gesang-Buch, Leipzig, 1697, vol. ii. p. 870. Repeated in Freylinghausen's Gesang-Buch, 1704, and recently in the Berlin Geistliche Lieder, edition 1863.
It has been erroneously ascribed to J. Scheffler, to whose “Liebe, die du mich zum Bilde," it is a companion hymn: sometimes to A. Drese, equally without proof. In the Blatter für Hymnologie, 1883, p. 11, it is claimed for Elizabethe von Senitz [b. 1629 at Rankau, Brieg, Silesia; d. 1679, at Oels in Silesia].
Translations in common use:—
Thou Holiest Love, whom most I love. A good translation, omitting stanza iv., by Miss Winkworth, in her Lyra Germanica, 1st Series, 1855, p. 83 (2nd edition, 1856, altered, and with a new translation of stanza ii.). It was repeated in full in Schaff's Christ in Song, 1869, p. 185. Abridged in Flett's Collection, Paisley, 1871; Whiting's Hymns for the Church Catholic, 1882, the latter reading "most I prize." Two American hymnbooks, the Dutch Reformed, 1869, and the Baptist Praise Book, 1871, give centos beginning with the translation of stanza vi., "O Love! who gav'st Thy life for me."
Other translations are: (l) "O the love wherewith I'm loved," as No. 627 in pt. i. of the Moravian Hymn Book, 1754 (1886, No. 99). (2) “Love divine! my love commanding," by Miss Burlingham in the British Herald, Oct., 1865, p. 152, and Reid's Praise Book, 1872, No. 375. [Rev. James Mearns, M.A.]
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)
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