JABLONSKI, PAUL ERNEST, an eminent German orientalist, was born at Berlin in 1695. His father, who was a Pole by birth, and a minister of the Protestant Church by profession, was desirous to see his son treading in his own footsteps. Accordingly the young Jablonski, after going through the usual course at the University of Frankfort-on-the-Oder, devoted himself to the study of the Eastern tongues—Coptic in particular. For these pursuits he showed such aptitude that at the age of twenty-one he was sent at the expense of the Prussian government to carry them out in the great libraries of Oxford, Paris, and Leyden. Returning home with vast stores of learning, and rich extracts from the best Coptic manuscripts, he was in 1720 made pastor of the Protestant church of Liebenberg; and two years later, professor of theology at Frankfort-on-the-Oder, and pastor of the Calvinistic church in that city. Shortly afterwards he became a member of the Academy of Sciences of Berlin. The remainder of his life he devoted to his favourite studies, sending forth treatise upon treatise in rapid succession. Before his death, which took place Sept. 13, 1757, he had published in all fifty different works, of which a complete list is given in Meusel's Dictionary.
Of these the principal are,—Disquisitio de Lingua Lycaonica, Berlin, 1714, in 4to; Thirty-nine letters full of erudition, in the Theaurus Epistoliceus Larroianus, tom. I., p. 163 et seqq.; Excerptatio Historico-theologica de Nestorianismo, Berlin, 1724, in 8vo; Resphah Egyptiorum Deus ab Israelitis in deserto cultus, Frankfort, 1731, in 8vo; Dissertationes Academice vii. de terra, Gosen, ibid. 1735, 1736, in 4to; De ultimis Pauli Apostoli laboribus a B. Luca pretermissis, ibid. 1746, in 4to; Pantheon Egyptiorum, sive de Dilectorum Commentarius, cum Prolegomenis de Religione et Theologia Egyptiorum, ibid. 1750, 1752, in 3 vols. 8vo; De Memnone Graecorum et Egyptiorum, hujusque celeberrima in Thebaide notitia, ibid. 1753, in 4to, with figures; Institutiones Historice Christiane antiquioris, ibid. 1754, in 8vo; Institutiones Historice Christiane recentioris, ibid. 1758, in 8vo; Remarks on the Canon of the Kings of Thabor, by Eratosthenes, inserted in the Chronology of Deysnorts; Different Memoirs or Extracts in the Miscellanea Berolinensia, the Nova Miscellanea Lipsiensia, and other periodical collections; and Opuscula quibus Lingua et Antiquitas Egyptiorum, digesta Librorum Sacrorum loca, et Historico Ecclesiasticum capita illustrantur, novam partem nunc primum in lucem protracta edidit Jan. Guiliel. Te-Water, Leyden, 1804, 1813, in 4 vols. 8vo.
Of all these the most valuable by far is the Pantheon Egyptiorum, which long held its ground as the most valuable essay on the subject which it discusses, and even still can hardly be regarded as quite superseded, though a great advance has been made in many matters of detail.