Hackspan, Theodor

Hackspan, Theodor an eminent Lutheran theologian and Orientalist, was born in 1607 at Weimar, and died at Altorf Jan. 19,1659. He was educated at Jena, where he studied philosophy, and then went to Altorf; to profit by the instructions of the able Orientalist Schwenter and thence to Helmstadt, where he studied theology under the famous Calixtus. In 1636 he returned to Altorf, and for many years filled the chair of Hebrew in its university, where he was the first to publicly teach the Oriental languages. In 1654 he was appointed professor of theology in that institution, retaining at the same time the chair of Oriental languages. His close application to study and to the duties of his professorships so impaired his health that he died in the fifty-second year of his age. Hackspan is said to have been the best scholar of his day in Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, and Arabic. The liberality of Jodocus Schmidmaier, an advocate of Nuremberg, who established in his own house a press, with supplies of types in the different languages, enabled him to publish most of his learned works. Among these we name Tractatus de usu Iibrorum Rabbisicorum: — Sylloge Disputationun theologicarum et philololgicarum: — Interpres Errabundus: — Disputationes de locutionibus sacris (Altorf, 1648): — Observationes Arabico-Syriacae in quaedam loca Veteris et Novi Testamenti (ibid. 1639): — De Angelorum daemonumque noninibus (ibid. 1641): — Fides et Leges Mohhammedis, etc. (ibid. 1646): — 1iscellaneorum Sacrorum Libri duo (ibid. 1660): — Exercitatio de Cabbala Judaica (ibid. 1660): — Note philolgico-theologicae. 1 varia et. difcilia Scripturce loca (ibid. 1664, 3 vols.).Rose, Nouv. Géneralé Biog. Dict.8, 169; Hoefer, Nouv. Biogr. Géneralé, 23, 34. (J. W. M.)