1727 De Legibus Hebraeorum Ritualibus et Earum Rationibus, Libri Quatuor.

Description

Leather Binding

Two volumes, complete. John Spencer, 1630 – 1693 , was an English clergyman and scholar, Master of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. An erudite theologian and Hebraist, he is now remembered as the author of De Legibus Hebraeorum, a pioneer work of comparative religion, advancing the controversial thesis that Judaism was not the earliest of mankind’s religions. He was educated at the King’s School, Canterbury, and Corpus Christi, Cambridge. He graduated B.A. in 1648, M.A. in 1652, B.D. in 1659, and D.D. in 1665. He was chosen a fellow of his college about 1655. After taking holy orders he became a university preacher. In 1667 he was unanimously elected master of Corpus Christi College, a post he held for twenty-six years. He was admitted, on the presentation of the king, to the archdeaconry of Sudbury in the church of Norwich in 1677; and was instituted to the deanery of Ely in 1677. "Benefaction and writing characterized the last decade of Spencer's life. In 1683–5 he issued at Cambridge the first edition of his great work De legibus Hebraeorum ritualibus et earum rationibus, comprising three books ‘on the ritual laws of the Hebrews, and the reasons for them’." In this work Spencer derived nearly all his data from classical writers of Greece and Rome, from the Christian Fathers, the works of Josephus, or from the Bible itself. (DNB) Leonard Chappelow, 1683 – 1768, was an English clergyman and orientalist. He was Sir Thomas Adams's Professor of Arabic at the University of Cambridge, from 1720, for life, and also Lord Almoner's Professorship of Arabic. Chappelow matriculated as a sizar at St John's College, Cambridge in 1709. After graduating M.A. in 1716, he was a Fellow from 1717 to 1731. Chappelow was ordained in 1716. “His first publication, in 1727, was a new edition of John Spencer's De legibus Hebraeorum ritualibus, which he annotated and supplied with an index.” (DNB) A good wide margined clean copy needing a little remedial work now to the original high quality binding.