Lyrics
Holy God, we praise Your name;
Lord of all, we bow before You;
All on earth Your scepter claim,
All in heaven above adore You;
Infinite Your vast domain,
Everlasting is Your reign.
Hark! The loud celestial hymn
Angel choirs above are raising;
Cherubim and seraphim,
In unceasing chorus praising,
Fill the heavens with sweet accord;
Holy, holy, holy, Lord!
Lo, the apostolic train
Join Thy sacred name to hallow;
Prophets swell the loud refrain,
And the white-robed martyrs follow;
And from morn to set of sun,
Through the Church the song goes on.
Holy Father, holy Son,
Holy Spirit, Three we name Thee,
Though in essence only one;
Undivided God we claim Thee,
And adoring bend the knee,
While we own the mystery.
Thou art King of glory, Christ;
Son of God, yet born of Mary;
For us sinners sacrificed,
And to death a tributary;
First to break the bars of death,
Thou hast opened heaven to faith.
From Thy high celestial home,
Judge of all, again returning,
We believe that Thou shalt come
On the dreadful doomsday morning,
When Thy voice shall shake the earth,
And the startled dead come forth.
Spare Thy people, Lord, we pray,
By a thousand snares surrounded;
Keep us without sin today;
Never let us be confounded!
Lo, I put my trust in Thee;
Never, Lord, abandon me.
Public domain hymn text (1774). Words by Ignaz Franz.
The Story Behind the Hymn
This hymn’s German text, ‘Grosser Gott, wir loben dich,’ was written by Ignaz Franz, a Roman Catholic priest working in Silesia — then part of Prussia, now largely in Poland.
It was first published in 1774, as part of a German Catholic hymnal Franz helped compile, at a period when the Catholic Church was beginning to encourage congregational singing in the vernacular German language, rather than exclusively in Latin.
Franz’s text is a close paraphrase of the ancient Latin ‘Te Deum laudamus’ (‘We praise Thee, O God’). That hymn of praise is traditionally attributed, though almost certainly incorrectly, to the fourth-century theologians Ambrose and Augustine.
It has been used for many centuries throughout Western Christianity, both Catholic and later Protestant, as a formal hymn of thanksgiving sung on occasions of major religious or civic celebration.
The tune commonly paired with Franz’s German text is an older traditional Austrian or German melody. It was itself already in use for other religious purposes, before being specifically attached to this particular text.
That gives the hymn a musical setting considerably predating Franz’s own eighteenth-century German words.
The hymn crossed from its original Catholic German-language context into widespread English-language Protestant use only later, through various nineteenth and twentieth-century English translations.
In the process, it became one of relatively few hymns in this collection to have originated specifically within Roman Catholic rather than Protestant congregational worship, before crossing denominational lines into the broader English-speaking hymn tradition represented throughout most of the rest of this hymnal.
