Education
He studied Oriental languages in Amsterdam (Athenaeum Illustre) and Leiden.
Orientalist theologian university professor
He studied Oriental languages in Amsterdam (Athenaeum Illustre) and Leiden.
He was the father of theologian Louis Gerlach Pareau (1800–1866). At Amsterdam, his instructors included Pieter Burman the Younger, Herman Tollius, Daniel Albert Wyttenbach and Henry Albert Schultens. In Leiden he was a student of David Ruhnken and Lodewijk Caspar Valckenaer.
In 1810 he became a professor of theology at the University of Utrecht, where in 1815 he was appointed professor of Oriental languages, a position he maintained until 1830.
In 1831 he was awarded with the title of "professor emeritus". In 1822/23 he served as university rector.
Pareau was a member of the "Maatschappij der Nederlandse Letterkunde" (Society of Dutch Literature) and an early member of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences (1808–1833).