ERPENIUS (original name VAN ERPE) , THOMAS (1584 1624), Dutch Orientalist, was born at Gorcum, in Holland, on Sept. II, 1584. He studied at Leiden, and by the advice of Scaliger took up oriental languages whilst taking his course of theology. He afterwards travelled in England, France, Italy and Germany. During his stay at Paris he contracted a life-long friendship with Casaubon and took lessons in Arabic from an Egyptian, Joseph Barbatus, otherwise called Abu-dakni. At Ven ice he perfected himself in the Turkish, Persic and Ethiopic lan guages. After a long absence, Erpenius returned to his own coun try in 1612, and in 1613 was appointed professor of Arabic and other oriental languages, Hebrew excepted, in the University of Leiden. There he caused new Arabic characters to be cut at a great expense, and erected a press in his own house. In 1619 the curators of the University of Leiden instituted a second chair of Hebrew in his favour. He was preparing an edition of the Koran with a Latin translation and notes, and was projecting an oriental library, when he died on Nov. 13, 1624. Among his works may be mentioned his Grammatica Arabica, published originally in 1613 and often reprinted ; Rudimenta linguae Arabicae (162o) ; Gram matica Ebraea generalis (162I) ; Grammatica Chaldaica et Syria (1628) ; and an edition of Elmacin's History of the Saracens.