Bangius, Thomas

, doctor and professor of divinity in the university of Copenhagen, was born in 1600, and was educated first in the college of Ottensee in the isle of Funen, and then at Copenhagen. Caspar Brochmand, professor of divinity and bishop of Selande, made him tutor to his son and he was preceptor at the same time to Christian Friis, eldest son to the chancellor of Denmark. After he had continued in that employment above five years, he obtained a pension from the king, and went to Rostoch, from whence he returned to Copenhagen, when the emperor’s troops drew near to the Baltic sea. He finished his course of divinity under professor Brochmand, and afterwards went | to Franeker, where he learned rabbinical and Chaldee learning under Sixtinus Amama, by whom he was greatly esteemed. He studied afterwards at Wittemberg, and received there, in 1630, a letter from the rector and academical council of Copenhagen, with an offer of the professorship in Hebrew, which he accepted, on condition that he should be permitted to employ the revenue of that place in studying for some years the Arabic and Syriac tongues under Gabriel Sionita. He discharged the professorship with great advantage to students till 1652, when he was raised to the professorship of divinity, vacant by the death of Mr. Brochmand. He was promoted to the doctorship in the same faculty in 1653, in the presence of the king and queen. In 1656 he was* appointed librarian of the academy. He died Oct. 27, 1661, of an illness of only six days, leaving a widow atid fourteen children. He was the author of several learned works on the Hebrew language and criticism, among which are, “Observationes Philologicce,Copenhagen, 1640, 8vo a treatise on the origin of diversity of Languages, and on the excellence of the Hebrew, 1634, 8vo; and a “Hebrew Lexicon,1641, 4to. 1

1 Moreri. Gen. Dict. —Saxii Onomasticon.