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The Medieval Church · c. 790; manuscript c. 814
The Wessobrunn Prayer
Wessobrunner Gebet
Anonymous
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What it is
Nine alliterative lines and a prose prayer. Before there was earth or sky, before mountain or tree or sun or moon or sea, when there was nothing, there was one almighty God — and then a plain request for the strength to resist the devil.
Why it lasted
The earliest Christian poem in German, and its opening negations are the old Germanic creation formula turned to a Christian purpose. The same technique produced the Heliand a generation later.
Scripture it works from
Where to read it
Public domain and free to read in full, though not held here. The archives below have it.
These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.
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