It was during this period that the most touching of all Good Friday hymns, “O sacred Head, now wounded,” was written. It is ascribed to Bernard of Clairvaux, preacher of the Second Crusade, and one of the most brilliant of Latin hymn-writers.
Although composed in the twelfth century, the hymn did not achieve unusual fame until five centuries later, when it was rendered into German by the greatest of all Lutheran hymnists, Paul Gerhardt. Lauxmann has well said: “Bernard’s original is powerful and searching, but Gerhardt’s hymn is still more powerful and profound, as re-drawn from the deeper spring of evangelical Lutheran, Scriptural knowledge and fervency of faith.”
Gerhardt’s version in turn was translated into English by James W. Alexander of Princeton, a Presbyterian. Thus, as Dr. Philip Schaff puts it: “This classic hymn has shown in three tongues—Latin, German and English—and in three confessions—Roman, Lutheran and Reformed—with equal effect the dying love of our Saviour and our boundless indebtedness to Him.”
Yet another Lutheran, none other than John Sebastian Bach, “high priest of church music,” has contributed to the fame of the hymn by giving the gripping tune to which it is sung its present form. Strangely enough, this remarkable minor melody was originally a rather frivolous German folksong, and was adapted by Hans Leo Hassler in 1601 to the hymn, “Herzlich thut mich verlangen.” It was Bach, however, who moulded the tune into the “Passion Chorale,” one of the world’s masterpieces of sacred music.
Many touching stories have been recorded concerning this famous hymn. In 1798, when Christian Schwartz, the great Lutheran missionary to India, lay dying, his Indian pupils gathered around his bed and sang in their own Malabar tongue the last verses of the hymn, Schwartz himself joining in the singing till his voice was silenced in death.
Of Bernard of Clairvaux, the writer of the hymn, volumes might be written. Luther paid him an eloquent tribute, when he said: “If there has ever been a pious monk who feared God it was St. Bernard, whom alone I hold in much higher esteem than all other monks and priests throughout the globe.”
Probably no preacher ever exerted a more profound influence over the age in which he lived than did this Cistercian monk. It was the death of his mother, when he was twenty years old, that seemed to have been the turning point in his life. The son of a Burgundian knight, he had planned to become a priest, but now he determined to enter a monastery. He did not go alone, however, but took with him twelve companions, including an uncle and four of his five brothers!
When he was only twenty-four years old, in the year 1115, he founded a monastery of his own, which was destined to become one of the most famous in history. It was situated in a valley in France called Wormwood, a wild region famous as a robber haunt. Bernard changed the name to “Clara Vallis,” or “Beautiful Valley,” from which is derived the designation “Clairvaux.”
Among his pupils were men who afterwards wielded great influence in the Roman Church. One became a pope, six became cardinals, and thirty were elevated to the office of bishop in the church.
As abbot of Clairvaux, the fame of Bernard spread through all Christendom. He led such an ascetic life that he was reduced almost to a living skeleton. His haggard appearance alone made a deep impression on his audiences. But he also was gifted with extraordinary eloquence and deep spiritual fervor.