The New International Encyclopædia/Drusius, Johannes

DRUSIUS, drōō′sĭ-ŭs, Johannes (Jan van der Driesche) (1550-1616). A Flemish Protestant clergyman and scholar, born at Oudenarde. He studied at Ghent, Louvain, and Cambridge, and in 1572 was appointed professor of Oriental languages at Oxford. In 1577 he obtained a similar chair at Leyden, and from 1585 until his death held the professorship of Hebrew at the University of Franeker. His fame attracted thither students from England and the Protestant countries of the Continent. He was employed by the States-General to annotate the Old Testament, and his edition is to be found in the Critici Sacri (London, 1660; Amsterdam, 1698). His reputation for Hebrew scholarship is justified by his published works. Consult: Niceron, Mémoires des hommes, vol. xxii. (Paris, 1733), and Diestel, Geschichte des alten Testaments in der christlichen Kirche (Jena, 1869).