(CE:1951b-1952a)
PETRAEUS, THEODOR (1624-1672), Danish Orientalist. He studied Oriental languages in Leiden (1650) and visited Syria, Palestine, and Egypt (1656), where he continued his linguistic studies, adding Coptic. From Egypt he brought Coptic manuscripts (among them scalae) to Europe, which are now in the Prussian State Library in Berlin. Petraeus published the first Psalm in Coptic with Arabic and Latin translation: Psalterium Davidis in Lingua Coptica seu Aegyptiaca Una cum Versione Arabica nunc Primum in Latinum Versum et in Lucem Editum a M. Theodoro Petraeo (Leiden, 1663).
MARTIN KRAUSE