JAHN, JOHA.NN, a distinguished Roman Catholic orientalist and biblical critic, was b. at Tasswitz, in Moravia, Jane 18, 1750, received his early education at Znaim and Ohntitz, and in 1772 entered the Premonstratensian convent of Bruck, where he took his vows in 1774, and was appointed professor of oriental languages and biblical criti cism. On the suppression of this convent, in 1784, Jahn was transferred to the same professorship in Obinfitz, and finally to the university of Vienna, where he also under took the chair of dogmatic theology. So far as regards the Roman Catholic literature of Germany, Jahn may be regarded as the father of biblical criticism. But the boldness of some of his opinions having aroused the alarm of the ecclesiastical authorities, he was honorably removed from his chair in the university, by being promoted to a canonry of St. Stephen's at Vienna, in 1803. He continued, however, to pursue the same studies with great reputation till his death in 1816, and published many works in boili departments, the most important of which, passing over his grammars, lexicons, and elementary books of the Hebrew, Syriac, Chaldaic, and Arabic languages, are Ins Introduction to the Old Testament, 2 vols. 1792, and again in 4 vols., Biblical
Archteology, 5 vols., 1797-1805, of both which works a compendium appeared in 1804, and again In 1814; a Manual of General Hermeneutics, 1812; an appendix of dissertations to this work, 2 vols., in 1813-15; and an edition of the Hebrew Bible, 4 vols., 1806. Five years after his death a collection of posthumous Remains was published at Tilbin gen, 1821, the genuineness of which, although seemingly without reason, has been called in question. His works have gone through many editions in Germany, and have been translated into several languages.