Philipp Nicolai

Philipp Nicolai was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian, controversialist, hymn writer, and chorale composer of the late Reformation era. Born at Mengeringhausen in Waldeck in 1556, the son of a Lutheran pastor, he studied at Wittenberg and Erfurt and entered the ministry in 1583. Political and confessional conflict forced him from his first pastorate at Herdecke; he later served at Alt-Wildungen, where he was also court preacher, and received the doctorate in theology at Wittenberg in 1594.

In 1596 Nicolai became pastor at Unna in Westphalia. A severe plague struck the town in 1597, and his pastoral work amid widespread death helped shape his sustained meditation on Christian hope and eternal life. Those reflections were published at Frankfurt in 1599 as Frewden-Spiegel deß ewigen Lebens. Its appended hymns included his two enduring chorales, Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern and Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme. Both texts are saturated with Scripture and combine Lutheran doctrine with vivid bridal, eschatological, and devotional imagery.

Nicolai became chief pastor of St. Catherine’s Church in Hamburg in 1601 and served there until his death in 1608. Although much of his prose writing belongs to the confessional controversies of his age, his lasting international reputation rests chiefly on these chorales and their melodies, which were repeatedly arranged by later composers, including Johann Sebastian Bach.