BICKELL, GUSTAV. - Orientalist, born into Protestantism on July 7, 1838, in Kassel, died on January 15, 1906, in Vienna. In 1862, he became a privatdocent in Semitic philology at Marburg; in 1865, he converted to Catholicism, and two years later was ordained a priest and appointed professor of Oriental languages at Münster. In 1874, he was called to Innsbruck, and in 1892 to Vienna. He conducted special research on Syriac ecclesiastical writers and on Hebrew metrics. Following Syriac metrics, B. counted syllables in Hebrew poetry as well, disregarding quantity and accent. Due to the many phonetic changes and textual corrections it entailed, his system did not gain widespread 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* (Mainz 1872); *S. Isaac Antiocheni Opera* (2 vols., Giessen 1873-77); *Kalila und Damnag* (Leipzig 1876); *Carmina Veteris Testamenti metrica* (Innsbruck 1882); *Dichtungen der Hebräer nach dem Versmaß des Urtextes* (3 parts, ibid. 1882-83); *Das Buch Job* (Vienna 1894). Arduino Klinshans