Bible. Old Testament. Hebrew and Greek.

Estimate

400 - 500 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

Hexaplorum Origenis quae supersunt, multis partis auctiora, quam a Flaminio Nobilio & Joanne Drusio edita fuerint. Ex manuscriptis & ex libris eruit & notis illustravit D. Bernardus de Montfaucon, monachus benedictinus e Congregatione S. Mauri... Tomus primus (-secundus). Paris: Louis Guerin, Jean Boudot & Charles Robustel, 1713

2 volumes, folio (392 x 250mm.), engraved and woodcut initials, head- and tailpieces, contemporary calf with gilt arms on covers, spines gilt in compartments, speckled edges, lacking engraved frontispiece, small hole in l3 (without loss), a few small wormholes in margins of vol.2, Ff3-4 torn without loss, small rusthole in Tt4, without final blank leaf, bindings worn, joints broken

Provenance

St Mary Magdalene, Rouen, inscription on title-page dated 1721; Bequeathed to the Bishopric of Cornwall by the Rev. Franke Parker, M.A., Rector of Luffincott, Devon, 1883, bookplate

Literature

Darlow & Moule 4729a

Catalogue Note

Origen's Hexapla was a lost third-century compilation of different Greek versions of the text of the Bible, supposedly used by St Jerome for the Vulgate. Origen (c. 185-254), the head of the Christian school in Alexandria, is considered to be the first biblical scholar, and the Hexapla was an attempt to reach a purer version of the text by comparing four different translations into Greek with the Hebrew and a transliteration of the Hebrew into Greek. This edition "represents the first serious attempt to collect all the extant fragments of Origen's Hexapla" (Darlow & Moule, p.622).