Johannes Heinrich Ursinus (also known as Johannes Henricus Ursinus, Iohannes Henricus Ursinus, Johann Heinrich Ursin and even John Henry Ursinus) (26 January 1608 in

Speyer Speyer (, older spelling ; ; ), historically known in English as Spires, is a city in Rhineland-Palatinate in the western part of the Germany, Federal Republic of Germany with approximately 50,000 inhabitants. Located on the left bank of the r ...

– 14 May 1667 in

Regensburg Regensburg (historically known in English as Ratisbon) is a city in eastern Bavaria, at the confluence of the rivers Danube, Naab and Regen (river), Regen, Danube's northernmost point. It is the capital of the Upper Palatinate subregion of the ...

) was a learned German author, scholar,

Lutheran Lutheranism is a major branch of Protestantism that emerged under the work of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German friar and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practices of the Catholic Church launched ...

theologian, humanist and dean of Regensburg. Ursinus studied the Oriental roots of western philosophy and was the author of a scholastic encyclopaedia. He was a Rector in

Mainz Mainz (; #Names and etymology, see below) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, and with around 223,000 inhabitants, it is List of cities in Germany by population, Germany's 35th-largest city. It lies in ...

, preached in Weingarten, Speier and Regensburg, and had been a student in

Straßburg Strasbourg ( , ; ; ) is the prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est region of eastern France, in the historic region of Alsace. It is the prefecture of the Bas-Rhin department and the official seat of the European Parliament. The cit ...

His ''Arboretum Biblicum,'' which appeared in 1663, was the first attempt of note to create a concordance of botanical references in the Bible, and predated the ''Hierozoicon'', a zoological compendium of biblical animals, of

Samuel Bochart Samuel Bochart (30 May 1599 – 16 May 1667) was a French Protestant biblical scholar, a student of Thomas Erpenius and the teacher of Pierre Daniel Huet. His two-volume (Caen 1646) exerted a profound influence on seventeenth-century Biblical e ...

.''Palestine: The Bible History of the Holy Land, Volume 2'' - John Kitto
/ref> In all Ursinus published 137 works in 153 publications in 3 languages. The plant genus '' Ursinia'' was named after Ursinus by the German botanist,

Joseph Gaertner Joseph Gaertner (12 March 1732 – 14 July 1791) was a German botanist, best known for his work on seeds, ''De Fructibus et Seminibus Plantarum'' (1788-1792). Biography He was born in Calw, and studied in Göttingen under Albrecht von Haller. H ...

Selected works

* ''Musagetes, seu de studiis recte instituendis consilium'', Regensburg 1656, Nürnberg 1659, Leipzig 1678 * ''Atrium Latinitatis sive Commentarius locuples in Januam Comenianam'', Frankfurt 1657 * ''Progymnastices oratoriae epitome, praxin grammaticam, dialecticam, rhetoricam'', Nürnberg 1659 * ''Analecta rhetorica sive progymnasmata sacrae profanaeque eloquentiae libri II'', Nürnberg 1660 * ''De Zoroastre Bactriano, Hermete Trismegisto, Sanchoniathone Phoenicio eorumque scriptis et aliis contra Mosaicae scripturae antiquitatem exercitationes familiares'', Nürnberg 1661 * ''Tyrocinium historico-chronologicum sive in Historiam Sacram et Profanam Universalem Brevis Manuductio in Usum Iuventutis'', Frankfurt 166
online
* ''Epitome metaphysicae'', Nürnberg 1664 * ''Compendium Topicae generalis'', Nürnberg 1664 * ''Compendium Logicae Aristotelicae'', Regensburg 1664 * ''Encyclopaedia scholastica sive artium, quas vocant liberalium prima rudimenta'', Nürnberg 1665 * ''De fortuna, Christophorus Ursinus ad panegyrin solemnem qua Johannes Brunnemannus viro Christiano Wildvogeln publ. collaturus, humanitate invitat'', Frankfurt 1668

Bibliography

* ''Johannes Henricus Ursinus, Autobiographischer Lebenslauf, Regensburg 1666''; Neudr. von H. W. Wurster (Hg.), in: Zeitschrift für bayerische Kirchengeschichte 51, Nürnberg. 1982, S. 73 – 105.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ursinus, Johannes Heinrich German scholars 1608 births 1667 deaths