Opitz (Opitius), Heinrich

Opitz (Opitius), Heinrich a German Lutheran divine, was born at Altenberg, in Misnia, in 1642, and became professor of the Oriental languages and theology in Kiel, where he died in 1712. We have many Latin works of his on Hebrew antiquities, and he was deservedly reckoned one of the most learned men of his age; but what peculiarly marks him is an attempt (a very strange one surely) to show the relationship between the Greek and the Oriental languages, and the connection which the dialects of the one have with those of the other. This chimerical scheme of subjecting the Greek language to the rules of the Hebrew induced him to publish a small work entitled Graecismus facilitati sue restitutus, methodo nova, eaque cun proeceptis Helmiis Wasmuthianis (for it seems that Wachsmuth was the originator of this theory) et suis Orientalibus quam proxime harmonica, adeogue regulis 34 succincte absolutus.