Christian Ravis was an itinerant German orientalist and theologian.

It has been questioned whether Ravis really mastered the languages he claimed to teach: whether his competence extended further than Turkish

Turkish language

Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...

. His reputation with Jacobus Golius

Jacobus Golius

Jacob Golius , was a Dutch Orientalist and mathematician....

 was undermined by Nicolaus Petri of Aleppo, who worked for Ravis copying manuscripts.

Life

He was son of John Raue, deacon of the Nikolaikirche at Berlin, and was born on 25 January 1613 at Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

, where he went to school at Berlinisches Gymnasium zum Grauen Kloster

Berlinisches Gymnasium zum Grauen Kloster

The Berlinisches Gymnasium zum Grauen Kloster is the oldest Gymnasium in Berlin and continues to this day as the Evangelisches Gymnasium zum Grauen Kloster. It is a private school with a humanistic profile and known as one of the most prestigious schools in Germany...

. In 1630 he began the study of theology and oriental languages at Wittenberg

Wittenberg

Wittenberg, officially Lutherstadt Wittenberg, is a city in Germany in the Bundesland Saxony-Anhalt, on the river Elbe. It has a population of about 50,000....

, where he graduated M.A. in 1636. The same year he visited Stockholm

Stockholm

Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...

, where he made the acquaintance of Peter, son of Hugo Grotius

Hugo Grotius

Hugo Grotius , also known as Huig de Groot, Hugo Grocio or Hugo de Groot, was a jurist in the Dutch Republic. With Francisco de Vitoria and Alberico Gentili he laid the foundations for international law, based on natural law...

, and in 1637 Hamburg

Hamburg

-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

, Upsala

Upsala

Upsala may refer to:*Upsala Glacier, a glacier in Argentina*Uppsala, a city in Sweden, English exonym spelling**Gamla Uppsala, Old Upsala a village near the modern city, important centre in Norse mythology...

, Copenhagen

Copenhagen

Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...

, Leyden, and Amsterdam

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

.

Crossing to England in 1638, he fixed his quarters at Oxford

Oxford

The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...

, and corresponded with Archbishop James Ussher

James Ussher

James Ussher was Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland between 1625–56...

, who made him an allowance of £24 a year towards the expenses of a projected journey to the Levant

Levant

The Levant or ) is the geographic region and culture zone of the "eastern Mediterranean littoral between Anatolia and Egypt" . The Levant includes most of modern Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian territories, and sometimes parts of Turkey and Iraq, and corresponds roughly to the...

 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

Samuel Hartlib

Samuel Hartlib was a German-British polymath. An active promoter and expert writer in many fields, he was interested in science, medicine, agriculture, politics, and education. He settled in England, where he married and died...

. At Smyrna

Smyrna

Smyrna was an ancient city located at a central and strategic point on the Aegean coast of Anatolia. Thanks to its advantageous port conditions, its ease of defence and its good inland connections, Smyrna rose to prominence. The ancient city is located at two sites within modern İzmir, Turkey...

 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

Edward Pococke

Edward Pococke was an English Orientalist and biblical scholar.-Early life:He was the son of clergyman from Chieveley in Berkshire, and was educated at Lord Williams's School of Thame in Oxfordshire and at Corpus Christi College, Oxford...

 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

John Selden

John Selden was an English jurist and a scholar of England's ancient laws and constitution and scholar of Jewish law...

. He taught at Utrecht

Utrecht University

Utrecht University is a university in Utrecht, Netherlands. It is one of the oldest universities in the Netherlands and one of the largest in Europe. Established March 26, 1636, it had an enrollment of 29,082 students in 2008, and employed 8,614 faculty and staff, 570 of which are full professors....

 (1643), Amsterdam (1645) where he met John Pell

John Pell

-Early life:He was born at Southwick in Sussex. He was educated at Steyning Grammar School, and entered Trinity College, Cambridge, at the age of thirteen. During his university career he became an accomplished linguist, and even before he took his B.A. degree corresponded with Henry Briggs and...

 and gave him an Arabic manuscript of Apollonius

Apollonius of Perga

Apollonius of Perga [Pergaeus] was a Greek geometer and astronomer noted for his writings on conic sections. His innovative methodology and terminology, especially in the field of conics, influenced many later scholars including Ptolemy, Francesco Maurolico, Isaac Newton, and René Descartes...

. Back in England in 1648, he was sponsored to give lectures in oriental languages for Sion College

Sion College

Sion College, in London, is an institution founded by Royal Charter in 1630 as a college, guild of parochial clergy and almshouse, under the 1623 will of Thomas White, vicar of St Dunstan's in the West....

. In Oxford, where he took the covenant

Solemn League and Covenant

The Solemn League and Covenant was an agreement between the Scottish Covenanters and the leaders of the English Parliamentarians. It was agreed to in 1643, during the First English Civil War....

, he was elected fellow of Magdalen College

Magdalen College, Oxford

Magdalen College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. As of 2006 the college had an estimated financial endowment of £153 million. Magdalen is currently top of the Norrington Table after over half of its 2010 finalists received first-class degrees, a record...

 and taught Hebrew. His book, A Generall Grammer for the Ebrew, Samaritan, Calde, Syriac, Arabic, and Ethiopic Tongue, published in London in 1648, was the first Hebrew grammar printed in English. 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

Laudian Professor of Arabic

The position of Laudian Professor of Arabic at the University of Oxford was established in 1636 by William Laud, who at the time was Chancellor of the University of Oxford and Archbishop of Canterbury. The first professor was Edward Pococke, who was working as a chaplain in Aleppo in what is now...

, 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

Kiel

Kiel is the capital and most populous city in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 238,049 .Kiel is approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the north of Germany, the southeast of the Jutland peninsula, and the southwestern shore of the...

.

In 1672 Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg

Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg

|align=right|Frederick William was Elector of Brandenburg and Duke of Prussia – and thus ruler of Brandenburg-Prussia – from 1640 until his death. A member of the House of Hohenzollern, he is popularly known as the "Great Elector" because of his military and political prowess...

 procured him a chair at Frankfort-on-the-Oder, where he died on 21 June 1677, and was buried in the Oberkirche.