O Jesu Christ, meins Lebens Licht. [For the Dying.] His finest hymn. First published in a collection entitled Christliche Gebet, 1610, and then in his Zehen Sterbegebet, appended to his Centuria secunda, 1611 (see above), in 14 stanzas of 4 lines, entitled "Prayer fora happy journey home, founded upon the sufferings of Christ." Thence in Wackernagel, v. p. 235, Noldeke, 1857, p. 79, and the Unverfalschter Liedersegen, 1851, No. 835. The translations in common use are:—
1. Lord Jesus Christ, my Life, my Light. A very good translations by Miss Winkworth in her Lyra Germanica, 2nd Series, 1858, p. 213, stanzas v., x. being omitted and viii., ix. combined as one stanza. In her Chorale Book for England, 1863, No. 190, she omitted her stanzas v., vi., and united her stanzas iv., vii. as iv. This translations is included more or less abridged in Wilson's Service of Praise, 1865, and in America in the Baptist Hymn Book, Phil, 1871, the Methodist Episcopal Hymnal, 1878/and the Ohio Lutheran Hymnal, 1880, &c.
2. Lord Jesus Christ, my soul's desire. A good and full translation by Dr. John Ker in the Juv. Miss. Mag. of the United Presbyterian Church, May, 1858, p. 25. Stanzas i., iii, v., vii. form No. 49 in the Ibrox Hymnal, 1871.
--Excerpt from John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)
Behm, Martin, son of Hans Behm [Bohme, Boehm, Behemb, Behem, Boheim, Bohemus or Bohemius], town-overseer of Lauban in Silesia, was born at Lauban, Sept. 16, 1557. During a protracted famine, 1574, Dr. Paul Fabricius, royal physician at Vienna, a distant kinsman, took him to Vienna, where he acted as a private tutor for two years, and then went to Strassburg, where, from Johann Sturm, Rector of the newly founded University, he received much kindness. Returning home at his mother's request after his father's death, May, 1580, he was, at Easter, 1581, appointed assistant in the Town School, and on Sept. 20, ordained diaconus of the Holy Trinity Church. After his senior had been promoted to Breslau the Town Council kept the post nominally vacan… Go to person page >
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