Jean Philippe, was a celebrated Protestant divine, to whom we are indebted for several important works, critical and exegetical, on the text of the New Testament. He was born at Frankfort-on-the-Maine, June 4, 1753. After having studied the ancient languages and their literature, as well as the philosophy of Wolf and the theology of Baumgarten, he resorted to the university of Jena. Being much dissatisfied with theology as then taught, Gabler was on the point of abandoning it altogether, when Griesbach, who was preparing for the publication of his New Gabriel Testament, and had just been appointed to a professorship at Jena, persuaded him to continue to pursue his theological studies. In 1780 he gave private lectures on theology at Gottingen, and soon got permission to open a public course. In 1783 he was nominated professor of philosophy at Dortmund, and two years after at Altdorf, where he became also deacon of the Protestant church in that town. He received the degree of D.D. in 1787, and in 1804 he became one of the professors of the faculty of Jena. Griesbach dying some years after, Gabler was appointed to fill his chair as first professor of theology; and, while still holding the rank of private, ecclesiastical, and consistorial counsellor, he died, Feb. 17, 1826.

The works which Dr Gabler has left show him to have been not only a man of consummate erudition, but a profound thinker. Rising above all prejudice, he gave expression to his ideas in the most candid and liberal manner. The principal of his works are: "Essai d'herméneutique du Nouveau-Testament," Altdorf, 1788; "Introduction Historico-critique au Nouveau-Testament," Altdorf, 1789; and "Nouvel essai sur l'histoire de la création de Moïse," Altdorf, 1795; a supplement to L'Histoire Primative by Eichhorn, of which he published an edition, much enhanced by a learned preface and notes. He took an active part also in the redaction of the Journal Théologique, Nuremberg, 1796–1811, in 16 vols.

GABRIEL SIONITA, a learned Maronite, was born near the end of the sixteenth century at Edden, a small town on Mount Lebanon. He was appointed professor of oriental languages at Rome, whence he was transferred in 1614 to Paris, in order that he might co-operate with Le Jay in the preparation and construction of his famous Polyglot. The Syriac and the Arabic texts were prepared by Sionita from copies which he made with his own hand from MSS. at Rome. The vowel points were added by himself as they still stand both in Le Jay and in the English Polyglot. His also is the Latin version which is in accordance with the punctuation of the texts. A dispute having arisen between him and Le Jay, he did not continue to superintend the Arabic and Syriac portions of the work to the end; in these Abraham Ecchell continued and completed the work. Sionita was the translator of the Arabic Geography of Abu-Abdallah-Mohamed Edrisi into Latin, and entitled Geographia Nubiensis, 4to, 1619. He published also an Arabic Grammar, which bore a high character in its day. He also translated the Psalms of David into Arabic; and soon after died in 1646 at Paris, where he had for some years been professor-royal of Syriac and Arabic.