[1] He received his early training at the Gelehrtenschule des Johanneums in Hamburg and the Gymnasium Illustre in Bremen; he then studied theology at the university of Rinteln.

On leaving Rinteln, he tutored the sons of a Hamburg merchant, accompanying them to the University of Rostock, where he himself studied Hebrew, mathematics, and medicine.

He had already, in 1645, been admitted, under the name Daphnis aus Cimbrien, to the literary order of Pegnitz, and in 1647 he became, as Der Rüstige, a member of the Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft ("Fruitbearing Society").

Christiana Mariana von Ziegler included its ninth stanza in her libretto for Bach's cantata Er rufet seinen Schafen mit Namen, BWV 175.

[3] Rist's 1641/1642 hymn "Ein trauriger Grabgesang" is notable for being an early occurrence of the phrase "God is dead" in German culture, this time in an explicitly theistic, Protestant Christian context.