r CAPPELLUS, LUDOVICUS, a celebrated Protestant theologian, born at Sedan in France, about the year 1579. After prosecuting his studies at Sedan, Oxford, and Saumur, he was appointed Professor of Divinity and Oriental languages in the University of Saumur, and wrote several learned critical and exegetical works. He is chiefly known from his controversy with the younger Buxtorf, in regard to the antiquity of the Masoretic pointing, which had been first called in question by Jacob Perez of Valencia, in his Commentary on the Psalms. His book Arcanum punctationis revelationum was written in reference to a passage in the Tiberias (viii. 8.) of the elder Buxtorf, and was answered in the De punctationum origine, &c. of the younger, in reply to which Capellus again published his Vindicatio arcani punctationis revelationum. The arguments which Capellus advanced from the existence of unpointed MSS., of unpointed alphabets, and unpointed quotations in Origen, Jerome, and the translators generally, have been confirmed by the researches of modern Hebraists, who have shown that the present elaborate system of pointing cannot be traced beyond the eleventh century. Capellus died about the year 1658. His brother James was also distinguished as a theologian and an astrologer.