Martin Moller

Moller was born in Ließnitz (now Kropstädt near Wittenberg, Saxony-Anhalt) in 1547 and became cantor in Löwenberg in Lower Silesia in 1568.

Other well-known works of devotional literature written by Moller include Meditationes Sanctorum Patrum (1584–1591), Soliloquia de passione Jesu Christi (1587) and Mysterium magnum (1597).

All of these works show clearly how Moller was influenced by another German theologian with links to mysticism, Valerius Herberger.

His Meditationes Sanctorum Patrum, a bipartite collection of prayers purportedly based on writings of Augustine, Bernard of Clairvaux and Anselm of Canterbury (though actually these texts were probably pseudo-Augustinian and -Bernardian, written much later in the style of the Church Fathers), provided Johann Heermann with a basis for many of the hymns in his Devoti musica cordis.

Johann Sebastian Bach wrote two chorale cantatas on hymns by Moller or attributed to him, Ach Gott, wie manches Herzeleid, BWV 3, and Nimm von uns, Herr, du treuer Gott, BWV 101.