BICKELL, GUSTAV. - Orientalist, born Protestant on 7 July 1838 at Kassel, died on 15 Jan. 1906 at Vienna. In 1862 he became lecturer in Semitic philology at Marburg; in 1865 he became Catholic, and after two years was ordained priest and appointed professor of Oriental languages at Münster. In 1874 he was called to Innsbruck and in 1892 to Vienna. He carried out particular research on Syriac ecclesiastical writers and on Hebrew metre. Following Syriac metrics, B. also counted syllables in Hebrew poetry, disregarding quantity and accent. Since it entailed many phonetic alterations and textual emendations, his system found no acceptance.
His principal works are: Ephraem, Carmina Nisibena (Leipzig 1866); Grundriss der hebräischen Grammatik (2 vols., ibid. 1869-70); Conspectus rei Syrorum litterariae (Münster 1872); Messe und Pascha (Magnza 1872); S. Isaaci Antiocheni Opera (2 vols., Giessen 1873-77); Kalila und Damnag (Leipzig 1876); Carmina Veteris Testa-
menti metrice (Innsbruck 1882); Dichtungen der Hebräer nach dem Versmass des Urtextes (3 parts, ibid. 1882-83); Das Buch Job* (Vienna 1894). Arduino Kleinhans