O esca viatorum

[2] The authorship of this hymn is unknown; the widespread attribution to Saint Thomas Aquinas is definitely wrong.

What is certain is that the earliest, extant publication of the text dates to 1647, and there is no evidence of an earlier genesis.

The hymnologist Ernest Edwin Ryden supposes a German Jesuit to be the author.

In the third verse, the singer's longing becomes eschatologic, and goes for the vision of Christ's face unveiled, whose hidden presence he adores in the eucharistic species.

Heinrich Isaac's Innsbruck, ich muss dich lassen is often performed with the words of O esca viatorum and translations, such as the German "O heilge Seelenspeise" (O holy food for the soul).