Joseph Augustus Seiss

Joseph Augustus Seiss was an American Lutheran pastor, theologian, editor, and hymn translator born in Graceham, Maryland, in 1823. Raised in a Moravian family, he studied for a time at Pennsylvania College in Gettysburg and completed much of his theological preparation through private study. He was licensed to preach in 1842 and ordained to the Lutheran ministry in 1844. After pastorates in Virginia and Maryland, he served St. John’s English Lutheran Church in Philadelphia and later the Church of the Holy Communion.

Seiss was a prolific religious author and editor whose publications included The Evangelical Psalmist, Ecclesia Lutherana, Lectures on the Gospels, and numerous theological works. He also participated prominently in nineteenth-century American Lutheran church life.

In 1873 Seiss published a separate English rendering of the German hymn under the title Beautiful Savior in The Sunday School Book for the Use of Evangelical Lutheran Congregations. His translation should not be confused with the anonymous 1850 Fairest Lord Jesus version. In many later hymnals, however, a concluding stanza derived from Seiss was appended to the earlier anonymous translation, creating the familiar composite English form sung today.