Edwin Hatch

Edwin Hatch was an English Anglican priest, theologian, classical scholar, and historian of early Christianity. Born at Derby in 1835 into a Nonconformist family, he joined the Church of England before entering Pembroke College, Oxford. He was ordained deacon in 1858 and priest in 1859. His academic career included teaching classics at Trinity College in Toronto, leadership of the High School in Quebec, and service from 1867 as vice-principal of St Mary Hall, Oxford. He later became rector of Purleigh and university reader in ecclesiastical history.

Hatch achieved an international scholarly reputation through work on early Christian institutions, biblical Greek, and the Septuagint. His 1880 Bampton Lectures, published as The Organization of the Early Christian Churches, attracted considerable attention and were translated into German by Adolf von Harnack. His later studies included The Growth of Church Institutions and Essays in Biblical Greek.

His hymn writing was limited, which makes the survival of Breathe on Me, Breath of God especially striking. He privately printed the text in 1878 in Between Doubt and Prayer. His widow later included it under the title Spiritus Dei in the posthumous collection Towards Fields of Light.