HOTTINGER, Johann Heinrich (1620-1667), a Swiss philologist and theologian, was born at Zurich, 10th March 1620. He studied at Ghent, Groningen, and Leyden, and after visiting England was in 1642 appointed professor of church history in his native town. To the duties of that chair those of Hebrew at the Carolinuni were added in 1643, and in 1653 he was appointed ordinary professor of logic, rhetoric, and theology. Noth withstanding this plurality of offices he found time to publish a number of pamphlets, chiefly on the original text of the Old Testament, which gained him such a reputation as an Oriental scholar that the elector palatine in 1655 appointed him professor of Oriental languages and biblical criticism at Heidelberg. In 1661 he, however, again returned to Zurich, where in 1662 he was chosen principal of the university. In 1667 he accepted an invitation to become professor in the university of Leyden; but on the journey thither he was drowned along with three of his children by the upsetting of a boat while crossing the river Limmath.

Hottinger was the author of a variety of learned theological works, the principal of which are Historia ecclesiastica, 9 vols., 1651-67; Thesaurus philologicus seu clavis Scriptural, originally published in 1649; Etymologicon orientale, sire Lexicon harmonicum heptaglotton, 1661. He also wrote a Hebrew and a Chaldee grammar.