to the king, "Madislaus IV, of Poland. He was closely engaged in historical researches, and was looking for- ward to the enjoyment of years of literary industry, when his career was cut short. He died Aug. 20, 1639, of the plague, caught from a beggar to whom he had given alms. Opitz was more honored by his contem- poraries than almost any other poet ever was. Ger- man poetry, which had been neglected and despised, began again to be esteemed and cultivated. The pop- ularity of Opitz, and his relations with the chiefs of the Roman Catholic party, led to the adoption, through- out the whole of Germany, of the form given to the German language by Luther, which had previously ob- tained general acceptance only in the Protestant states ' (see Hallam, Introd. to the Lit. of Europe). His poetry is characterized by careful attention to language and metre, and by reflection rather than by brilliant fancy or deep feeling. There are several complete editions of his works (Breslau, 1690, 3 vols. ; Amsterdam, 1646, 3 vols.; Frankfort and Leipsic, 1724, 3 vols.); a selec- tion of his works was published by Midler (Leipsic, 1822) and Tiltmann (1869). "Opitz was essentially a clever, industrious literary man of the world, with the art of making himself everywhere agreeable, and was petted and caressed accordingh' more than was good for his work. Such a man would probably never have written religious poetry at all in ordinary times; but living as he did when grave thoughts and terrible struggles were in all men's minds, he, too, was influ- enced by his age, and he wrote a good deal of this kind — versions of all the Epistles for the Sundays of the year, of many of the Psalms, and of the Song of Solo- mon. Among his sacred poems, however, his hymns are by far the best, and some are really fine." One of his best is, 0 Licht geboi-en aus dem Lichle (Winkworth, Sinyers of Germany, "O Light, who out of Light wast born"). See Koch, Gesch. d. Kirchenliedes, iii, 6 and 9; Strehlke, Martin Opitz (Leipsic, 1856) ; Weinhold, Mar- tin Opitz von Boberfeld (Kiel, 1862) ; Palm, Martin Opitz (1862); Winkworth, Christian Singers of Ger- many, p. 173 sq. (J. H. W.)
Oppelt, Godfrey Sebastian, a well-known Ger- man Moravian missionary among the Indians of North America, was born March 20, 1763, at Gcirlitz, Silesia. In 1799 he began to preach to the converts in Canada, and in 1804 inaugurated an enterprise among the Dela- wares on the Pettquotting, now Huron River, Ohio. Subsequently, from 1810 to 1818, he was the agent of the " .Society of the United Brethren for Propagating the Gospel among the Heathen," incorporated in 1788, and lived in the Tuscarawas Valley, Ohio, administer- ing the grant of 12.000 acres of land made by Congress to that association in trust for the Christian Indians. He died at Nazareth, Pa., Aug. 9, 1832. (E. de S.)
Oppenlieim(ei), David ben -Abraham, a
noted German rabbi, was born at Worms in 1664 or 1667. At the age of twenty-two he \vas called to Brisk, to become the head of the Jewish community there. Four years later, in 1090, he received a call to the Jewish school at Nicolsburg, where he had received his own literary training, and in 1704 he was called as chief rabbi to Prague, where he died, Sept. 12, 1736. Oppenheimer is the author of a number of Talmudical works, and published an edition of the Pentateuch, with the commentaries of Samuel ben-Meir (a^ "O"^), Abr. ibn-Esra ("— X"i), etc., and the Targums, in five vols. (Berlin, 1705), to which he wrote a lengthy preface, and which edition, entitled mx-i'l ca'bl CS" C^^n D*i?31J'ini, has been noticed in the Peristylium libro- runi 710V01-U711, etc., xiv, 99 sq. While his writings will claim the attention of the student in Talmudic lore, Op- penheimer's fame mainly depends on his large collection of Hebrew works, which now constitutes the famous Oppenheimeriana in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, in England. It was this collection that gave Wolf the
OPPENHEIMER
388
OPTATUS
material for his famous Bihliotheca Helrcea (Hamburg, 1715-33, 4 vols. 4to), since he had 7000 volumes, in- clusive of 1000 MSS., at his disposal, and it was esti- mated at $30,000, but in 1829 was bought for 89000 by a Hamburg merchant of opulence, who caused a cata- logue of this collection to be published by Isr. Bres- selau : Katalog der beriihmteii Bibliotheh, etc. (Hamburg, 1783). Another catalogue had previously been pub- lished (Hanover, 1764), and a third was brought out by Eis. Metz (11'^ n^rtp, Katulog der David Oppenhei- merschen Bibliothek, etc.) at Hamburg in 1826. This catalogue gives a Ust of 1147 folios, 1708 quartos, 919 octavos, and 326 duodecimos, in all 4100 articles. A fourth one, edited by Jac. Goldenthal, furnishes an index to all books as given in Metz's catalogue (Leipsic, 1843). See Lebrecht, Die Oppenkeimei-'scke Bibliothek in Oxford, in the Magazinfilr Lifei-aftir des A uslandes, 1843, No. 135 sq. ; L. L. B. d. Or. 1844, c. 247-250, 271-278, 472, 473 ; Zunz, Zur Geschichte u. Literatur, p. 235 sq. ; Hart- mann, in the periodicaUe&//n, vol. vi (Berlin, 1820-21) ; Fiirst, Bibl. Jud. iii, 50 sq. ; Introduction to the same work, p. xlv sq. ; De Rossi, Dizionario siorico degli au- tori Ebrei, s. v. (Germ, transl. by Hamberger) ; Wolf, Bibl. Hehrcea, i, 290 sq. ; iii, 178 sq. ; Gratz, Gesch. d, Juden, X, 346 sq., 360 ; Jost, Gesch. d. Jud. u. s. Sekfen, iii, 281 ; Cassel, Leitfadeu fiir jiid. Geschichte u. Litera- tur (Berlin, 1872), p. 105 ; Dessauer, Gesch. d. Israeliten (Breslau, 1870), p. 450; Zunz, Literatur geschichte der synagogalen Poesie, p. 445 ; Lieben, G rabschi-iji u. Bio- graphic des D. Oppenh., in 'l"?;* D (Prague, 1856). (B. P.)