Description
Listen to the beginner piano arrangement of Jesus Lives and So Shall I.
Christian Gellert was born on July 4, 1715. In 1734, he entered the University of Leipzig as a student of theology, and after completing his course served as an assistant Pastor to his father. But sermons were supposed to be delivered from memory, without the aid of notes, and as his memory was treacherous he found himself compelled to try some other profession. In 1741 returned to school. He graduated with an M.A. in 1744; became in 1745 a private tutor; and, in 1751 was appointed professor of philosophy, lecturing on poetry and rhetoric, and then on moral philosophy, numbering Goethe and Lessing among his pupils. He wrote “Jesus Lives and So Shall I” in 1757, the same year a collection of 54 of his hymns was first published. His hymns won universal admiration, and speedily passed into the hymnbooks in use over all Germany, Roman Catholic as well as Lutheran. He was only 35 years old when he died at Leipzig, on December 13, 1769.
* This hymn arrangement is also available in our books:
