Johann Heinrich Hottinger

Hottinger studied at Geneva, Groningen and Leiden. After visiting France and England he was appointed professor of church history in his native town of Zürich in 1642. The chair of Hebrew at the Carolinum in Zürich was added in 1643, and in 1653 he was appointed professor ordinarius of logic, rhetoric and theology.

He gained such a reputation as an Oriental scholar that the Elector of the Palatinate in 1655 appointed him professor of Oriental languages and biblical criticism at the University of Heidelberg. While in Heidelberg he also worked to reestablish the Collegium Sapientiae, a Reformed theological seminary. In 1661 he returned to Zürich, where in 1662 he was appointed principal of the University of Zürich. In 1667 he accepted an invitation to succeed Johann Hoornbeck (1617–1666) as professor in the University of Leiden. Before he could take up this position he drowned with three of his children after the upsetting of a boat while crossing the river Limmat. He was succeeded upon his death at the chair of theology in Zurich by his fellow Zurich-native younger namesake and former student at Heidelberg, Johann Heinrich Heidegger.

His chief works are Historia ecclesiastica Nov. Test. (1651–1667); Thesaurus philologicus seu clavis scripturae (1649; 3rd ed. 1698); Etymologicon orientale, sive lexicon harmonicum heptaglotton (1661). He also wrote a Hebrew and an Aramaic grammar.

5 Ducat Austrian gold coin (1720) depicting Johann Heinrich Hottinger

His son, Johann Jakob Hottinger (1652–1735), who became professor of theology at Zürich in 1698, was the author of a work against Roman Catholicism, Helvetische Kirchengeschichte (4 vols, 1698–1729); and his grandson, Johann Heinrich Hottinger (1681–1750), who in 1721 was appointed professor of theology at Heidelberg, wrote a work on dogmatics, Typus doctrinae christianae (1714).

• Historia ecclesiastica Novi Testamenti 9 vols. (1651–1667)
• Historia orientalis (Zurich 1651)
• Cippi Hebraici (The Hebrews), (1662, 2nd edition)
• Thesaurus philologicus, Clavis scripturae (Philological Thesaurus, Key to Scripture), Zurich 1649, 3rd edition 1669)
• Etymologicon orientale, sive Lexicon harmonicum heptaglotton (Heidelberg 1661)

• Friedrich Wilhelm Bautz (1990). "Johann Heinrich Hottinger". In Bautz, Friedrich Wilhelm (ed.). Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL) (in German). Vol. 2. Hamm: Bautz. cols. 1079–1080. ISBN 3-88309-032-8.
• Wilhelm Gaß (1881), "Hottinger, Johann Heinrich", Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB) (in German), vol. 13, Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, pp. 192–193
• Hottinger, Johann Heinrich, in Johann Jakob Herzog, ed. Real-Encyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche, 6. Band, Stuttgart und Hamburg 1856, pp. 287–290.
• Jan Loop, Johann Heinrich Hottinger (1620-1667) and the Historia Orientalis, Church History and Religious Culture 88 (2008): 169-203.
• Rudolf Pfister (1972), "Hottinger", Neue Deutsche Biographie (in German), vol. 9, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, pp. 656–657
• Heinrich Steiner, Der Zürcher Professor Johann Heinrich Hottinger in Heidelberg. Zurich 1886.

• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Hottinger, Johann Heinrich". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

• Publications by or about Johann Heinrich Hottinger at VD 17
• Rosmarie Zeller: Johann Heinrich Hottinger in German, French and Italian in the online Historical Dictionary of Switzerland.