WE may begin with Arias Montanus’s Prolegomena, before the Polyglot Bible of Antwerp, and with Brian Walton’s, which are before his Polyglot. These are excellent, and relate principally to the Languages and Versions of the Scripture. To these are added Chronological and Geographical Tables, Plans of the Temple, Treatises of Weights and Measures, and of the Hebrew Idioms.
Henry Heidegger was the Person by whose Procurement Walton’s Apparatus or Proelgomena were printed separately, in 1673, in fol. at Zurich. There has been a small Abridgment of them printed in French, at Lyons, 1699, in 8vo. If we may credit the Memoirs of Trevoux for the Months of March and April in 1701, John Pearson, Edmund Castel, and other learned Englishmen, were concerned jointly in these Prolegomena. We shall speak of Walton in the Article of Polyglots, Part III. As to the French Translation, it is not conformable to the Original; there are even some Faults in it; particularly in the Names of Cities, which are disfigured for want of Knowledge in sacred Geography.
Julii Bartolocci, de Antiquitate Linguæ Hebraicæ T. 3. Biblioth. Rab. p. 13.
The Prolegomena of Serrarius, Salmeron, and Bonfrerius, are very much esteemed. Those of Serrarius were printed at Mentz, in 1611, in fol. and afterwards at Lyons, in 1704, with what he had performed upon the Canonical Epistles. They contain eight and twenty Chapters, and every Chapter is divided into Questions, the Solution whereof is given by him.
The Prolegomena of Serrarius, which are in number forty three, make the first Tome of his Comments upon Scripture, in 16 Vols. in fol. The first is upon the Necessity, Authority, Dignity, and Usefulness, of the Holy Scripture; the second upon the Profoundness of the sacred Writings, De profunditate; the third of the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin Vulgate Editions; the fourth, of the Corruption of the Hebrew Text; the fifth and sixth of the seventy Interpreters; the seventh and eighth of the Double Sense of Scripture; the ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth, of Rules for discovering or giving the true Sense of it; the thirteenth, of the Usefulness of the three Languages towards a right Knowledge and Understanding of it; the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth of the Hebrew and Greek Phrases and Idioms; the nineteenth and twentieth, of the spiritual and mystical Sense: The following, excepting the three last, relate in particular to the four Gospels. In the thirty-eighth he treats of the Age of Jesus Christ; in the forty-first he gives a Description of Syria and Palestine; in the forty-second that of Jerusalem and the Temple; and in the forty-third he explains Daniel’s Seventy Weeks. These Prolegomena were printed separately at Brescia in 1601, and at Cologn in 1602, in fol. which it may be proper to mention for the use of those who may be glad to have them, without being at the Expence of purchasing the sixteen Vols. in fol.
Those of Bonfrerius are prefixed to his Comment upon the Pentateuch. See the first Part; we have already spoken both of it and him. We shall take notice here, that his Prolegomena contain 21 Chapters, divided into Sections, and that in these he treats, 1. Of the Holy Scripture in general: 2. Of the Canonical and Apocryphal Books: 3. Of the Hagiographa. 4. Of the Inspiration of Scripture, of the Obscurity, Style, and Idioms of it: 5. Of the Hebrew Texts: 6. Of the Latin Vulgate: 8. Of the Greek Versions, and Origen’s Hexapla: 9. Of the Interpretation of Scripture, and the Cabala.
The Prefaces of Cornelius à Lapide upon the Books of Scripture, may likewise serve for Prolegomena, as well as that of M. de Sacy, and theirs who have continued his Literal and Spiritual Comment upon the Old and New Testament.
The Treatise of John D’Espeires, or, rather, Despiers, entituled, Auctoritas Scripturæ Sacræ, and printed at Doway, 1651, in 4to.
M. Dupin’s Prolegomena. At first he published only a Preliminary Dissertation upon the Bible in the Beginning of his Bibliotheque Ecclesiastique; afterwards he wrote Prolegomena, which were printed separately at Paris, in two Vols, 8vo. 1701, and at Amsterdam, 1703, in 4to. one Volume, in French; wherein he treats of the Canon of Holy Scripture, of its Authority and Inspiration, of the Writers of the Old and New Testament, of the Hebrew Text, the Samaritan Pentateuch, the old Greek, Latin, and Oriental Versions; the Translations in the Vulgar Languages, of the Style, Sense, Interpretation and Division of the Books of the Bible. There was a new Edition of these Prolegomena in 1729. He has also published Historical, Chronological, Geographical and Critical Dissertations upon Scripture, printed at Paris, 1712, in 8vo. He has succeeded equally in this as in all his other Works. We shall speak of him upon the Pentateuch, in the Fourth Part.
Disquisitiones Biblicæ, by F. Frassen. They are of two sorts; some upon the Bible in general, printed at Paris, 1682, in 4to. and 1711, with many Additions and Emendations; others upon the Pentateuch, at Rohan, 1705, in 4to. and all in Latin. The first are divided into four Books; in the first whereof he treats of the venerable Antiquity of Holy Scripture; in the second, of the principal Editions of the Bible; in the third, of the Canon of Scripture, and of the Canonical Books; in the fourth, he reconciles the seeming Contradictions of the sacred Text. The Work is curious, useful, and methodical; the Style is clear, and very pure.
He was of Perone in Picardy, of the Order of St. Francis, and died in 1711. He is still more known upon the score of his Scholastick Divinity, in four Vols. in fol.
F. De la Haie’s Prolegomena to his Biblia Maxima, prefixed to the first Tome, and containing thirty Sections, every one whereof is divided into several Chapters. We shall speak of him, and his two great Bibles, in the Article of General Commentators who were Catholicks, Part IV.
M. Huet’s, or Huetius’s Demonstratio Evangelica. The Author’s Design was to shew the Agreement of the Old Testament with the New; which he has performed in a very learned manner. It is divided into six Books: In the first he proves the Antiquity of the sacred Writings; in the second he treats of the Canon of Scripture; in the third, of the Prophets; in the fourth he draws a Parallel between the Old and New Testament, in what relates to the Messiah: The fifth is a Disputation concerning the Sceptre of Judah, and the sixth upon Daniel’s Seventy Weeks. This excellent Work was printed at Paris, in 1679, and 1681, in fol. at Amsterdam, 1680, two Vols. in 8vo. The third, and last Edition revised and enlarged by the Author, is of 1691, in fol. at Paris; 1694, in 4to. at Lipsick. He has had his Adversaries and Defenders; for Toland, in his Jewish Antiquities, has been so rash as to attack this Work, pretending that there is not one exact Citation in it; but M. De la Faye, in his Defence of Moses and the Jewish Nation, vindicates it against Toland, proving the Usefulness and Solidity of it. M. Morin, of the Academy of Inscriptions, did likewise undertake the Defence of it, against the same Protestant, in a Letter addressed to M. Huet, and produced in the Journal de Trevoux of 1709, for the Month of September, p. 1588.
This learned Man was of Caen, was nominated Bishop of Soissons in 1686; but before he had obtained his Bulls, he was translated to Avranches, whereof he was consecrated Bishop the 24th of August, 1692. He resigned this Dignity in April 1699, was named Abbot of Fontenay, and died at Paris, the 25th of January, 1721, at the Age of 87 Years.
F. Alexander’s Dissertations on the Old Testament, are scattered throughout the Body of his Ecclesiastical History, in 8 Vols. fol. Notwithstanding we have already mentioned some, according to the different Subjects which they treat of, we shall here give an exact List of them. There are some both upon the Old and New Testament: The first he has distributed according to the Ages of the World, the others according to the Church Centuries.
The first Age contains ten Dissertations: The first upon the six Days Work; the second upon the terrestrial Paradise; the third upon Adam and Eve; the fourth upon Lamech’s Polygamy; the fifth upon the Translation and Prophecy of Enoch; the sixth upon the Food of Mankind before the Deluge; the seventh, of the Intercourse between the Sons of God and the Sons of Men, and upon the Giants; the eighth upon the Patriarchs Years before the Flood; the ninth upon the long Lives of the Patriarchs; the tenth upon Noah’s Ark, and the Flood.
There are but six belonging to the second Age: The first upon the Order of Noah’s Sons; the second upon Noah’s Precepts, delivered for the Benefit of his Posterity; the third upon his Drunkenness, and his Blessings to his Sons; the fourth upon Cainan the Son of Arphaxad; the fifth upon the Confusion of Languages; the sixth upon the Year of Abraham’s Birth, and Departure out of his own Country.
There are sixteen in the third Age: The first upon the 430 Years of the Hebrews Abode in Egypt; the second of the violent taking away of Sarah; the third of Melchisedech; the fourth concerning the Limits of the Promised Land; the fifth upon Abraham’s Conversation with Hagar; the sixth upon Circumcision; the seventh upon Lot; the eighth upon Abraham’s Sacrifice; the ninth of Jacob’s surprizing his Father, in order to procure his Blessing; the tenth on the Sin committed by his Sons on the score of their Sister Dinah; the eleventh upon the Story of Judah and Tamar; the twelfth upon the last Prophecy of Jacob, relating to the Sceptre of Judah; the thirteenth concerning the History and Book of Job; the fourteenth concerning the Murder committed by Moses upon the Egyptian; the fifteenth upon God’s appearing in the Burning Bush; the sixteenth upon the Jewish Passover.
Six and twenty Dissertations in the fourth Age: The first upon the Departure of the Israelites out of Egypt; the second upon the moral Precepts of the Jewish Law; the third upon the Ceremonial Laws; the fourth upon the Judicial Laws; fifth, upon the Golden Calf; sixth, upon the Brazen Serpent; seventh, upon the Ass, and Balaam’s Prophecy; eighth and ninth, upon the Death and Books of Moses; tenth, upon the Antiquity of Moses and the other Prophets; eleventh, upon the Divinity of the Books of the Old Testament; twelfth, upon the Preservation of the City of Gibeon; thirteenth, upon the Sun stopp’d by Joshua; fourteenth, upon the Sabbatical and Jubilee Years; fifteenth, upon the Time of Joshua’s Government; sixteenth, upon his Book; seventeenth, upon the Years of Interregnum and Bondage; eighteenth, upon Deborah; nineteenth, upon Jephthah’s Vow; twentieth, upon the Repentance and Death of Samson; twenty-first, upon the Book of Judges; twenty-second, upon the History of Ruth; twenty-third, upon the Apparition of Samuel; twenty-fourth, upon the Psalms of David; twenty-fifth, upon the Books of Samuel; twenty-sixth, upon the Beginning of Solomon’s Reign.
Eleven in the fifth Age: The first, upon Solomon’s Temple; the second, upon the Queen of Sheba; the third, upon the eternal Salvation of Solomon; the fourth, upon his Books; the fifth, upon the Idolatry of Jeroboam and the Ten Tribes; the sixth, upon the Prophet Elijah; the seventh, upon Naaman; the eighth, of the Retrogradation of the Sun; the ninth, upon the Reconcilement of the Books of Kings with St. Matthew and St. Luke, relating to the Genealogies of the Kings of Judah; the tenth, upon the Prophets who appeared under the Kings of Judah and Israel; the eleventh, upon the Story and Book of Tobit.
Eight in the sixth Age: 1°. upon the Prophets who prophesied during the Captivity of Babylon; 2°. upon Daniel’s Seventy Weeks; 3°. upon the Epoch of the same Captivity; 4°. upon Esdras; 5°. upon the King of Persia who permitted the building of the Second Temple; 6°. upon the Prophets who appeared after the Captivity; 7°. upon the other Books of the sixth Age of the World; 8°. upon the Version of the Septuagint. All which are in the first six Tomes in 8vo. of his Ecclesiastical History, printed at Paris, 1689, and the two first in fol. 1703.
In the first Century there are six Dissertations which relate to Scripture: The first, upon the Books of the New Testament; the second, upon the Years of Jesus Christ’s Birth, Baptism, and Death; the sixth, upon the Use of Lots in Elections; seventh, upon the choice of seven Deacons; tenth, upon Abstinence, de Sanguine & Suffocatis; eleventh, upon St. Paul’s reproving St. Peter. There is besides an Historical Observation, wherein he enquires, whether there were but one Woman who anointed the Feet of Jesus Christ.
In the second Century, the eleventh Dissertation is upon the different Versions of the Scripture, made use of by the Church during the first four Centuries, and upon the Seventy Interpreters.
We shall speak of this learned Author in the Fifth Part, upon the four Gospels, and upon St. Paul.
F. Petit. Dedier’s Dissertations on the Old Testament, printed at Toul, 1699, in 4to. They are Critical, Historical, and Chronological. They concern only the Old Testament. He began something of the like nature upon the New; but other Studies, and the principal Offices of his Congregation, which have been hitherto filled by him, have interrupted this Work.
Treatises made for and against the Antiquity of the Vowel Points; others proving the Hebrew Text to be authentick and entire. See the seventh of Walton’s Prolegomena, and the Authors cited by him, such as, Lewis Capellus’s Critica Sacra, & arcanum punctuationis revelatum; and John Buxtorf’s Treatises on the Original and Antiquity of the Points.
Morini Exercitationes Biblicæ. We have already given our Opinion of this Work: All that we shall say here is, that he was of Blois, Priest of the Oratory, and died in 1659. He understood the Oriental Languages.
Simon de Muis against Morinus, under the Title of, Castigatio Animadversionum Morini. in 8vo. Paris, 1639. And afterwards Assertio veritatis Hebraicæ, adversus Exercitationes Joan. Morini, Paris, 1631. in 8vo. He likewise composed Assertio altera, &c. at Paris, 1634. All this is to be met with at the End of his large Comment on the Psalms. See Part IV.
Arnoldi Bootii Animadversiones super Textum Hebraicum vet. Test.
Item, Epistola de Textus Hebraici certitudine contra Capellum. Ejusdem vindiciæ Apologeticæ pro Hebraica veritate, contra Morinum & Capellum.
The Animadversions of Arnold Boot were printed at London, in 1644, in 4to. He wrote likewise an Examination of John Morinus’s Preface upon the Greek Bibles, at Leyden, 1636, in 12mo. His Letter above-mentioned was printed at Paris, 1650, in 4to. His Apology, ibid. 1653, in 4to. He was a Fleming, a Calvinist, and Doctor of Physick. He died in 1650.
Defensio veritatis Hebraicæ contra Lindanum, per Joan. Isaacum Levitam. Colon. 1558.
Anticritica, seu vindiciæ Hebraicæ, Basil. 1653, in 4to.
Petrus Galatinus, de arcanis Catholicæ veritatis, printed at Basil in 1561, with Reuchlin. de verbo mirifico, l. 3. in fol. It is to be observed that Galatin is a Plagiary, and has copied Raymond Martin’s Pugio Fidei.
Leonis Castrii Apologeticus, prælectione Vulgatæ, translatione lxx. &c. printed at Salamanca, 1585, in fol.
M. De Flavigny’s Letters concerning the Certainty and Authenticalness of the Hebrew Text, printed at Paris, 1646, in 8vo. He was of Picardy, Doctor of the Sorbonne, and Royal Professor of Languages at Paris. He died in 1674.
Davidis Clerici Quæstiones Sacræ, & diatribæ Stephani Clerici cum notis Joan. Clerici, Amstelod. 1685. Capellani Mare Rabbinicum infidum.
Usher wrote a Syntagma upon the Septuagint, which was printed at London, in 1655, and 1695, in 4to. In it he pretends to prove that their Greek Version is almost lost, and that there is very little of it remaining. Valesius’s judicious Reply to him is at the End of his Edition of Eusebius’s History.
Isaaci Vossii Dissert. de lxx. Interpretibus, printed at the Hague, 1661, in 4to. He made afterwards an Appendix, to answer the Objections of some Divines, printed at the same Place, 1663, in 4to. and many other Dissertations, which we shall take notice of in another Place.
Humfridi Hody, Historia Versionis lxx. Interp. The History of this Translation by Hody, was printed at Oxford in 1705, fol. He had before written something in this way against Vossius, ibid. 1682, in 8vo. He was an Englishman, and Hebrew Professor. He died in 1704.
Antonii Vandale, Dissert. super Aristea & lxx Interp. Amstel. 1705.
It may be necessary to see F. Montfaucon’s Preface to Origen’s Hexapla.
Julii Bartolocci de lxx. Interp. & Aristea, t. 1. Bibl. Rab. p. 437.
Upon the Inspiration of the Sacred Writings, see the Censure of Lessius’s and Amenius’s Theses, for the Year 1586, by the Universities of Louvain and Doway, in 1587, and 1588, and Lessius’s Answer, in 1588, and the Justifications of the Censures declared by the afore-mentioned Universities.
Difficulties proposed to M. Steyaert by M. Arnaud, and printed in 1692, in 8vo. four Vols. in French. There is a fifth, published in 1693.
The Opinions of some Dutch Divines, concerning M. Simon’s Critical History.
M. Simon’s Critical History of the New Testament, c. 23, 24. These have been before spoken of.
M. Dupin’s Preliminary Dissertations on the Bible.
M. Jaquelot, M. Jaquelot, concerning the Inspiration of the sacred Books.
Our Dissertation on the same Subject, before the canonical Epistles.
A Treatise on the Inspiration of the sacred Writings of the New Testament, by M. De la Mothe, M. D. Amsterd. 1695, in 12mo.
Joan. Henrici Maii. Dissert. de Inspirat. Libb. SS. against Rich. Simon, &c. printed at Frankfort, 1699, in 4to.
Concerning the different Senses of the Scripture, see the Authors of the several Prolegomena mention’d in the Beginning of this Article; such as Salmeron, Bonfrerius, Serrarius, and La Haie.
Upon the Hebrew, Septuagint, Vulgate, and Samaritan Bibles, the Targums, and different Translations of the Scripture, see Walton, F. Le Long’s Bibliotheca Sacra, and the Articles Bible, Septuagint, Targums, &c. in our Dictionary.