Koitsch, Christian Jacob

Koitsch, Christian Jacob a Lutheran theologian of Germany, was born in 1671 at Meissen. He studied at Halle, was inspector of the Royal School there from 1700 to 1705, head master of the grammar-school at Elbing, in Prussia, from 1705 to 1725, and died in 1735. Koitsch was a man of eminent piety, and his love to Jesus finds expression in his hymns, of which a few are preserved. The most beautiful of his hymns, O Ursprung des Lebens, O ewiges Licht, is found in an English translation in the Moravian Hymn-Book, No. 540. See Koch, Geschichte des deutschen Kirchenliedes, 4:370 sq. (B.P.)