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THREE EXTREMELY RARE WORKS, ENTIRELY OR PARTLY IN HEBREW
HULSIUS, Antonius. Behinat ha-Zeker Seu Scrutinium Memoriae. Generosioribus dicatum ingeniis quae lingarum Reginam, non in limine [sic] cum theologastrorum vulgo sed in intimis penetralibus salutare gestiunt.
Breda, A. Subbinck, [ca. 1660].
WITH: ERPENIUS, Thomas and Constantijn L'Empereur de Oppijck. Grammatica Chaldaea ac Syra.
Amsterdam, H. Laurentius, 1628.
WITH: [BIBLE]. Duodecim Prophetae Minores.
Güstrow, Heirs of Johann Jäger, 1634.
3 works in 1 volume, 12mo (13 x 8 cm). With printer's device on 2nd title-page, the 3rd work entirely in Hebrew, the other 2 with much Hebrew type. Contemporary vellum.
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Three extremely rare works all in one volume. The first work is an extremely rare Hebrew work (no copies traced in the Netherlands) printed in Breda, a town not famous for its book production, let alone Hebrew printing. Antonius Hulsius (1615-1685) was professor of Hebrew at the University of Leiden in 1676, and from 1644 till 1668 he worked as pastor in the French Church in Breda. He was reknowed for his knowledge of Hebrew and wrote several polemical works with Jewish and Roman Catholic opponents. The present work contains a Hebrew dictionary of three-letter stems (7-75 pp.), a list with four-letter stems (75-79 pp.) and an Aramaic wordlist (80-84 pp.). The words in the Hebrew dictionary have been arranged alphabetically but without printing the entire word. Rather all the words beginning with an aleph are grouped together, and the first paragraph of this section has a beth printed in the margin. The paragraph itself opens with a beth (i.e. forming the word aleph-beth-beth), followed by its Latin translation arista virens... (blossoming ear); a daleth (i.e. the word aleph-beth-daleth), followed by periit (he lost), etc.
The STCN lists a total of five complete copies of the third, fourth and fifth editions, all printed in Utrecht in 1674, 1679 and 1683. It is not clear whether the present undated edition is the first or the second. The printer Abraham Subbinck flourished 1652-1666. The relationship between the present work and Hulsius's other Hebrew dictionary, Sefer Kol Leshonot ha-Miqra, sive Nomenclator biblicaus hebraeo-latinus (Breda, J. v. Waesbergen, 1650; 1 copy in STCN in Royal Library in The Hague), is not entirely clear either.
The equally rare Grammatica Chaldaea ac Syra is in its first edition. Thomas Erpenius (1584-1624) was a brilliant orientalist and professor the Leiden University from 1613 till 1624, when he died suddenly from the plague. His notes on the Syriac grammar were edited by Constantijn L'Empereur de Oppijck and published in 1628 in a book that runs, interestingly, from right to left. We could trace one copy at the GB-L library, and three copies via the Karlsruher Virt. Kat. .
The third work, a Hebrew edition of the twelve Minor Prophets, is extremely rare. So far we could trace the copy of the Württembergischen Landesbibliothek, because Steinschneider merely mentions the edition without having seen it. The work opens with a half-title with the word "Hosea" written in Hebrew, followed by the title-page (verso blank), a leaf with an introduction and a list of printing errors, signed by Gotfried Gesiu in Rostock , 26 November 1634. This leaf has been bound in reversely. The text-part consists of 188 pages with Hebrew text, all interleaved.
The title- and introduction-leaf are somewhat shorter than the other leaves and appear to be derived from another copy. They also are not part of the sheet of the final gathering.
The ownership annotations show an interesting provenance. There is an ink annotation 1736 on first endleaf, an ink ownership entry "Casparus Renatus Gregorius, Lipsiae Kalendis Januariis d'P CCCLXXV" on inside rear cover, and an ex dono "John Christlieb Curtiss from Samuel Ives Curtiss with in Hebrew "be a blessing"" on another endleaf. Samuel Ives Curtiss (1844-1904) graduated from Amherst in 1876 and studied during four years for a Ph.D. in theology in Leipzig. There he cooperated closely with Franz Delitzsch. In 1878 he became professor of Biblical literature and history at the Chicago Theological Seminary. He brought to Chicago from Germany the first critical, scholarly Old Testament library to be set up in America (DAB IV, p. 621). A scholar like Curtiss would certainly know how to value these extremely rare works and his stay in Leipzig explains the ownership entry from that town.
As mentioned the title- and introduction-leaf to the Twelve Minor Prophets are not printed on a sheet that matches any of the other gatherings. They are also somewhat shorter and may be derived from another copy. In binding the three works into one volume, the outer edge of the Grammatica has been cut short which causes slight shaving to the letters on the title-page and very slightly to some letters in the book; some underlinings; marginal wormhole to first four leaves Bible. Despite these defects, excellently preserved copies of these extremely rare works of Judaica.
