He was son of John Raue, deacon of the
Nikolaikirche at Berlin, and was born on 25 January 1613 at
Berlin, where he went to school at
Berlinisches Gymnasium zum Grauen Kloster. In 1630 he began the study of theology and oriental languages at
Wittenberg, where he graduated M.A. in 1636. The same year he visited
Stockholm, where he made the acquaintance of Peter, son of
Hugo Grotius, and in 1637
Hamburg,
Upsala,
Copenhagen,
Leyden, and
Amsterdam. Crossing to England in 1638, he fixed his quarters at
Oxford, and corresponded with Archbishop
James Ussher, who made him an allowance of £24 a year towards the expenses of a projected journey to the
Levant in quest of manuscripts. He left England in 1639, and, passing through Paris, was introduced by Grotius to
Richelieu, whose offer of a post in the French diplomatic service he declined. His money from Ussher was forwarded by
Samuel Hartlib. At
Smyrna he lodged with the British consul,
Edward Stringer, while he acquired knowledge of the spoken languages of the Levant. He then proceeded to Constantinople, where
Edward Pococke procured him free quarters at the British embassy. He returned to Europe in 1642 with a collection of oriental manuscripts, and lectured at London (1642), where he was supported by Ussher and
John Selden. He taught at
Utrecht (1643), Amsterdam (1645) where he met
John Pell and gave him an Arabic manuscript of
Apollonius. Back in England in 1648, he was sponsored to give lectures in oriental languages for
Sion College. In Oxford, where he took the
covenant, he was elected fellow of
Magdalen College and taught Hebrew. His book,
A Generall Grammer for the Ebrew, Samaritan, Calde, Syriac, Arabic, and Ethiopic Tongue, was published in London in 1648. In this work he makes the eccentric argument that these six languages are in fact not merely related but all one language. Failing to obtain the
chair of Arabic at Oxford, he accepted an offer of employment from
Christina of Sweden, who appointed him professor of oriental languages at Upsala in 1650. Starting in 1669 he lectured on oriental languages at
Kiel. In 1672
Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg procured him a chair at
Frankfort-on-the-Oder, where he died on 21 June 1677, and was buried in the Oberkirche. ==Notes==