O heilige Dreifaltigkeit, O hoch gelobte Einigkeit

Author: Martin Behm

Behm, Martin, son of Hans Behm [Bohme, Boehm, Behemb, Behem, Boheim, Bohemus or Bohemius], town-overseer of Lauban in Silesia, was born at Lauban, Sept. 16, 1557. During a protracted famine, 1574, Dr. Paul Fabricius, royal physician at Vienna, a distant kinsman, took him to Vienna, where he acted as a private tutor for two years, and then went to Strassburg, where, from Johann Sturm, Rector of the newly founded University, he received much kindness. Returning home at his mother's request after his father's death, May, 1580, he was, at Easter, 1581, appointed assistant in the Town School, and on Sept. 20, ordained diaconus of the Holy Trinity Church. After his senior had been promoted to Breslau the Town Council kept the post nominally vacan… Go to person page >

O Heilige Dreifaltigkeit. [Morning.] First published in his Kriegesman, Leipzig, 1593, in 7 stanzas of unequal length, repeated in 1608, in 8 stanzas of 4 lines. Both forms are in Wackernagel, v. p. 197; and the second in Noldeke, 1857, p. 53; and, omitting stanzas vi.-viii., as No. 1126 in the Berlin Geistliche Lieder, ed. 1863. In 1593 it was entitled "The ancient Sancta Trinitas et adoranda (Jnitas in German)" but it is rather a versification of the Prayer for Wednesday evening in J. Habermann's Gebet Buck (Wittenberg, 1567). The translations in common use, both of the second form, are:— 1. O Thou most Holy Trinity. A very good translation of stanzas i., iii.-v., by A. T. Russell, as No. 2 in his Psalm and Hymns, 1851, and thence in Kennedy, 1863, and Dr. Thomas's Augustine Hymn Book, 1866. 2. O holy, blessed Trinity, Divine. A good translation of stanzas i.-v. by Dr. C. H. L. Schuette, as No. 295 in the Ohio Lutheran Hymnal, 1880. 3. O holy, holy, holy Three, by H. J. Bucholl, 1842, p. 21. -- Excerpt from John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)