(John James), a very learned German divine, born at Basle in 1693. On his admission to the ministry, he maintained a thesis De varia Novi Testamenti Lectio, in which he showed that the great variety of readings of the New Testament afford no argument against the authenticity of the text. He had made these various readings the object of his attention; and travelled into foreign countries to examine all the MSS. he could come at. In 1730, he published Prolegomena ad Novi Testamenti Graeci editionem accuratissimam, &c. Some divines, dreading his unfurling the present text, procured a decree of the senate of Basle against his undertaking, and even got him prohibited from officiating in the ministry; on which he went to Amsterdam, where the Remonstrants named him to succeed the famous Le Clerc, then superannuated, as professor of philosophy and history. At last he published his edition of the New Testament, in 2 vols folio, 1752; in which he left the text as he found it, placing the various readings, with a critical commentary, underneath; subjoining two epistles of Clemens Romanus, till then unknown to the learned, but discovered by him in a Syriac MS. of the New Testament. He also published some small works; and is said to have been not only an universal scholar, but to have abounded in good and amiable qualities. He died at Amsterdam in 1754.

WESTERAVIA, the southern division of the Landgraviate of Hesse in Germany, lying along the northern bank of the river Maine, comprehending the counties of Hanau and Nassau.