"" (literally: O Jesus Christ, true light) is a Lutheran hymn by the German Baroque poet, Lutheran minister and hymn-writer Johann Heermann. The text was first published in 1630 during the Thirty Years' War. It is a prayer for enlightenment of those who are ignorant, and of those who turned away. It was associated with a melody from Nürnberg, dating to 1676. The hymn is part of modern German hymnals, both Protestant and Catholic. It was translated to English as "O Christ, our true and only light". History The Lutheran theologian and pastor Johann Heermann, the hymn's poet, was influenced by the tract (Book of the German poetry) by Martin Opitz's, published in 1624, which defended German poetry and set guidelines on how German poetry should be composed. Heermann lived in Köben, Silesia, when he wrote the hymn, an area which suffered under the war. The town was plundered four times. Several times, he lost his possessions and had to flee for his life. He and his congregation also suffered under the Counter-Reformation. Nonetheless, in 1630 in Breslau (now Wrocław, Poland), Silesia, he published a volume of hymns, Devoti musica cordis, Hauss-und Herz-Musica (Latin, German: "music for a devout heart, house and heart music"), including . "" appears among "Songs of Tears" in a section "In the Time of the Persecution and Distress of Pious Christians". The collection also contained "Herzliebster Jesu, was hast du verbrochen", which Johann Sebastian Bach chose as the first chorale in his St Matthew Passion. Heermann's hymns have been described as "the first in which the correct and elegant versification of Opitz was applied to religious subjects, ... distinguished by great depth and tenderness of feeling, by an intense love of the Saviour, and earnest but not self-conscious humility". Although "" was written as a "song of tears" for difficult times, it can be understood as a song for Epiphany. In Heermann's time, a sermon for Epiphany would recall the narration of the Three Kings but also call for the enlightenment of the heathen, the hymn's topic. The first of several translations to English was made of the first two stanzas, "O Thou, the true and only Light", by W. Ball in 1836, which entered the Robinson's Church Psalter & Hymn Book in 1860, and other hymnals. Catherine Winkworth translated the hymn to "O Christ, our true and only Light", published in her Lyra Germanica