Matthias Loy

Matthias Loy was born on March 17, 1828, in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, to German immigrant parents and died on January 26, 1915, in Columbus, Ohio. After an apprenticeship in the printing trade and study at Harrisburg Academy, he graduated in 1849 from the German Theological Seminary of the Ohio Synod in Columbus. He entered the Lutheran ministry that year and served congregations before becoming professor of theology at the seminary associated with Capital University in 1865.

Loy was a major leader of the Evangelical Lutheran Joint Synod of Ohio and Other States. He served for many years as synod president, edited the Lutheran Standard from 1864 to 1890, helped establish the Columbus Theological Magazine, and served for nearly a decade as president of Capital University. His books addressed justification, the church, prayer, and the Lutheran confessions, while his hymns and translations helped English-speaking Lutherans inherit German chorale theology.

Loy's ten-stanza translation of Scheidt's hymn was published in the Evangelical Lutheran Hymnal at Columbus in 1880. The 1908 edition with music retained the complete translation. The Lutheran Hymnal of 1941 printed a seven-stanza cento described as a composite translation, and several later hymnals altered that received form; Loy should therefore be credited as the foundational English translator, not as the sole author of every modern wording.