1712 - 1783 Person Name: J. Nitschmann, g. 1712 † 1783 Hymnal Number: 548 Author of "Aeltster deiner seligen Gemeine" in Gesangbuch der Evangelischen Brüdergemeinen in Nord Amerika (Neue vermehrte Aufl.) Nitschmann, Johann, brother of Anna Nitschmann, was born Sept. 25, 1712, at Kunewald, and came to Herrnhut in 1725. In 1726 the Count von Promnitz took him into the Orphanage at Sorau, and in 1728 sent him to study theology at Halle. In 1731 he became a tutor in the Orphanage at Herrnhut, in 1732 went to Halle to study medicine, but returned to Herrnhut in 1733, and spent a year as private secretary to Count Zinzendorf. Thereafter up to 1745 he was principally engaged in mission work in Swedish Lapland, and in forming communities in Livonia. He was then appointed, in 1745, diaconus and Gemeinhelfer at Herrnhaag in Wetteravia, and in 1750 to the same position at Herrnhut. Consecrated Bishop of the Brethren's Unity in 1758, he took in 1761 the superintendence of the communities in England and Ireland. In 1766, he was appointed to the charge of the new settlement of Sarepta on the Volga in Asiatic Russia, and died there June 30, 1783 (Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie xxiii. 714; manuscript from Diaconus J. T. Muller, Herrnhut, &c). His hymns are few in number, and not of much importance. Only one has passed into use outside the English Moravian Hymn Book. It is:—
Du blutiger Versühner. The Lamb of God. Appeared as No. 1210 in Appendix vi., c. 1737 to the Herrnhut Gesang-Buch, 1735, in 5 st. of 6 1. In the Brüder Gesang-Buch, 1778, it is No. 575, and in the Historische Nachricht thereto st. iv. is ascribed to N. L. von Zinzendorf.
Another translation is “Dear Lamb, from everlasting slain," as No. 21 in the Moravian Hymn Book, 1742. In the 1789 and later eds. (1849, No. 441), it begins "Gracious Redeemer, Who for us." [Rev. James Mearns, M.A.]
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)
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