Nun bitten wir den Heiligen Geist

"Nun bitten wir den Heiligen Geist"
Hymn by Martin Luther
Portrait of Luther, 1525
English	"We now implore the Holy Ghost"
Catalogue	Zahn 2029a
Language	German
Based on	Chant
Meter	9.9.11.10.4
Published	1524 (1524)

"Nun bitten wir den Heiligen Geist" ("We now implore the Holy Ghost")^[1] is the title of several hymns in German. The first is one of the oldest hymns in the German language: a 13th-century leise. Subsequent versions expanded upon the leise; the original hymn became the new version's first stanza, and it now used melodies derived from its medieval tune. The Protestant reformer Martin Luther expanded the leise in 1524, and different Catholic versions were published between 1537 and 1975.

The text of the original 13th-century leise alludes to the Latin sequence for Pentecost, Veni Sancte Spiritus (translated as "Come, Holy Spirit"). The leise was widely known and performed, especially as a song sung when someone was dying, during a procession, and in sacred plays.

The leise contained an appeal for the right faith which especially suited Luther's theology; he wrote three additional stanzas, first published in Wittenberg in 1547 as part of Johann Walter's choral songbook Eyn geystlich Gesangk Buchleyn. His version's themes of faith, love and hope made the hymn appropriate for general occasions and funerals.

Alternate versions of the hymn have appeared in Catholic hymnals, countering the Reformation, first in 1537 in a collection published by Michael Vehe. Over the following centuries, Protestant versions remained in use, adapted to changes in religion and philosophy, but restored to Luther's version by the 19th century's restoration of chorales. Catholic use was discontinued after the Baroque period, but the hymn reappeared in a modified version in Heinrich Bone's Cantate! hymnal in 1847. It became used more after the 1938 collection Kirchenlied included it in a version based on Vehe's. Maria Luise Thurmair wrote three stanzas for the 1975 Gotteslob which appeared combined with one stanza from the Vehe version.

Luther's chorale is sung by several Christian denominations in different languages, having received various English translations. It has inspired vocal and organ music from the Renaissance to contemporary by composers such as Johann Crüger, Johann Sebastian Bach, Hugo Distler and Ernst Pepping.