Logo DBNL
De Gulden Passer. Jaargang 68 (1990)

De Gulden Passer. Jaargang 68

(1990)– [tijdschrift] Gulden Passer, De–rechtenstatus Auteursrechtelijk beschermd

Vorige Volgende

Franciscus Raphelengius: the hebraist and his manuscripts*
Alastair Hamilton

Franciscus Raphelengius' greatest contribution to scholarship was his Arabic-Latin lexicon published posthumously in 1613. He has consequently gone down to history as one of the first European Arabists. Yet, like most of his contemporaries who studied Arabic, he began with Hebrew. In a short time he became a Hebraist with an international reputation, and as an editor, as a printer and as a professor he promoted the study of Hebrew with unceasing industry.

Raphelengius learnt Hebrew in Paris in the late 1550s under Jean Mercier1. In 1566 Christophe Plantin, for whom he had been working as a proof-corrector in Antwerp since 1564 and whose daughter Margaretha he had married, wrote of his proficiency in Latin, Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic2. Soon after he could add Syriac. By 1568 Raphelengius was one of a team of scholars known for their skill in Semitic languages who were engaged in editing the Biblia Regia, the Antwerp Polyglot Bible, under the supervision of the Spanish theologian Benito Arias Montano. The plan had been conceived by Plantin some years

earlier and the editors included Andreas Masius and the two Lefèvre de la Boderie brothers, Guy and Nicolas, both pupils of Guillaume Postel who had probably introduced Raphelengius to the study of Arabic.

Raphelengius' part in the undertaking was considerable. Although he was assisted by his fellow editors he was largely responsible for preparing and emending the Latin translation of the Old Testament made by the Italian Hebraist Sanctes Pagnini and first printed about forty years previously.3 The translation, unprecedentedly literal and reliant on some of the Jewish medieval commentaries, frequently conflicted with the Vulgate. Initially it had been welcomed as a major advance in Hebrew studies and approved by the ecclesiastical authorities. In the course of the sixteenth century, however, it was criticized increasingly. The quality of the Latin, the rendering of the Hebrew, and above all the orthodoxy of the translation were called in doubt. Arias Montano insisted on its inclusion in the Polyglot - it appeared in the sixth volume with his introduction - but to publish it at all after the deliberations of the Council of Trent was a bold enterprise and an obstacle in gaining official approval when Plantin completed the Bible's publication in 1572.

Of the various editions of Pagnini's Old Testament since its appearance in 1528 the one in the Biblia Regia was the first to be bilingual. In his introduction Arias Montano stressed the importance of the translation for students of Hebrew. Pagnini's Latin was thus printed from right to left above the interlinear Hebrew text. The emendations, printed in italics with Pagnini's version in the margin, were mainly intended to give a more literal or a more accurate rendering of the original and, sometimes, to improve the elegance of the Latin.

Besides the laborious preparation of Pagnini's work Raphelengius made a number of contributions to the critical

apparatus in the last two volumes of the Bible. He is said to have compiled the Greek glossary4. He edited Pagnini's Hebrew grammar and dictionary which were based on the writings of the great rabbinic philologist David Kimhi. The Hebrew dictionary was also issued by Plantin as an independent publication and in the fourth edition, which he himself published in Leiden in 1588, Raphelengius expanded the Aramaic wordlist at the end. Indeed, it was arguably in the field of Aramaic studies that he made his most important mark as a Hebraist. He was extolled by Guy Lefèvre de la Boderie for improving the vocalization of the targums, the Aramaic paraphrases of the Old Testament printed in the Biblia Regia beneath the Hebrew and the Vulgate5. For the critical apparatus he composed the Variae Lectiones et Annotatiunculae, quibus Thargum, id est, Chaldaica Paraphrasis infinitis in locis illustratur et emendatur. Here he provided variant readings of words in the targums taken from two manuscripts brought respectively from Rome by Masius and from Spain by Arias Montano, and from the two standard printed versions, the Venice edition published by Daniel Bomberg in 1518 and the one in the Complutensian Polyglot Bible of 1517 on which the text in the Biblia Regia was largely based. In his brief tract, which ended with a list of passages he regarded as redundant, Raphelengius displayed a considerable acquaintance with rabbinic sources and gave indications, clear and criticially responsible, of his own preferences.

As a result of his participation in the Biblia Regia Raphelengius could also exploit his knowledge of Syriac. The Syriac bible printed in Hebrew characters by Plantin in 1575 has a seven-page appendix drawn up by Raphelengius, Variae Lectiones ex Novi Testamenti Syrici Manuscripto Codice Coloniensi. This appendix contains variants derived from a two-volume Syriac manuscript of the New Testament, the first volume, dating from the twelfth or thirteenth century, with the Gospels and a liturgical section, and the second, dating from the early sixteenth century, with Acts and the Epistles. The

codex was acquired by Postel in Constantinople and brought to Venice at the expense of the younger Daniel Bomberg in 1550. Bomberg subsequently sent it from Cologne to Antwerp at Plantin's request. In Antwerp it was used by Guy Lefèvre de la Boderie who collated it with Widmanstadt's 1555 edition when he was preparing his version of the Syriac New Testament for the Polyglot. At the same time Lefèvre de la Boderie edited the liturgical section from the ‘codex Coloniensis’ for publication by Plantin in 1572, D. Severi Alexandrini quondam Patriarchae de Ritibus Baptismi, et sacrae synaxis apud Syros Christianos receptis, liber. That the manuscript should now be in Leiden University Library (Cod. Or. 1198 a-b) suggests that it may have remained in Raphelengius' possession after the completion of the Biblia Regia and that he brought it from Antwerp to Leiden. There is insufficient evidence to establish this with any certainty, however.6

With the Biblia Regia Raphelengius made his name as a Hebraist. His scholarly ability and the pains he took in correcting the proofs of the Bible drew the highest praise from Arias Montano, who clearly felt an affection for Raphelengius which all the scholars who knew him seem to have shared. In the preface to the Polyglot the Spanish theologian spoke of him with an enthusiasm he expended on few of his other collaborators, referring to his ‘extreme industry’, his ‘incredible diligence’, his

‘perspicacious mind and superior judgement’.7

Plantin commented on his son-in-law's learning in a more reserved tone:

Quant à mes gendres [he wrote to Philip II's secretary Gabriel de Zayas in 1572] le premier n'a oncques rien prins à cueur que la cognoisance des langues latine, grecque, hébraicque, chaldée, syrienne, arabe (èsquelles chaicun qui familièrement confère avec luy afferme qu'il n'y est pas mal versé) et des lectres humaines et à bien, léalement, soigneusement et fidèlement corriger ce qui luy est enchargé sans mesmes se vouloir ostenter, monstrer ou venir en cognoissance de plusiers car il est fort solitaire et assidu aux labeurs qui luy sont commis.8

Shy and retiring, Raphelengius showed little interest in the business side of the Officina Plantiniana. He continued to live with his family, in cramped conditions, on his father-in-law's premises. He went on correcting proofs in the company of his two most assiduous colleagues, the translator, etymologist and lexicographer Cornelis Kiliaan and the poet Bernardus Sellius.9 Above all, encouraged by a widening circle of scholary friends, he pursued his own studies, concentrating now on Arabic.

By the time he left Antwerp for Leiden in January 1586 Raphelengius had become one of the most competent Arabists of his day. Arabic, however, was a new subject; Hebrew had an accepted place in the university curriculum. So, within six months of his arrival in Leiden, following the departure of Johannes Drusius for Franeker, he was appointed professor extraordinary of Hebrew and in February 1587 he was given a full professorship, the first in the subject at the recently founded university. Although he also gave instruction in Arabic his chair

remained in Hebrew until his death in 1597.

The principal purpose of Raphelengius' settling in Leiden was to manage the local branch of the Officina Plantiniana opened by his father-in-law in 1583. March 1586 he was nominated printer to the university. Here too his interest in Hebrew studies was evident. Even if he was to leave the management of the firm more and more to his sons, he was at least partially responsible for the thirteen books which the Officina published in Hebrew before his death. Together with the single Hebrew publication produced by Plantin in Leiden in 1585 these were the first books to be printed with Hebrew moveable type in the Northern Netherlands. Of exemplary typographical quality, they remained models for later printers.10

To say that Raphelengius approached Arabic as a Hebraist is not to do justice to his achievements as a lexicographer. Compared to many of his contemporaries Raphelengius was remarkably sensitive to the independence of Arabic.11 Yet, because of the works he used to study Arabic, Hebrew intrusions were inevitable. The first book he read in Arabic was the polyglot Pentateuch printed in Hebrew characters in Constantinople by Gerson Soncino in 1546. The texts are in Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic and Persian, and the effect on Raphelengius of the alphabet can be seen not only in certain mistranscriptions in his lexicon but also in the Persian glossary he compiled from the Pentateuch. It was copied by his colleague in Leiden, Joseph Justus Scaliger,12 and the Persian is left in

Hebrew characters. In his Arabic lexicon, moreover, Raphelengius made frequent use of the Hebrew works of the rabbinic philologists. He refers again and again to David Kimhi, Abraham ibn Ezra, and, above all, to Nathan ben Jehiel's Arukh, in order to establish similarities between Arabic and Hebrew and to provide Hebrew equivalents of Arabic words.

So great a student of Hebrew might be expected to have owned a collection of Hebrew manuscripts as singular as his collection of Arabic ones.13 Six Hebrew codices are listed in the only reliable indication of what Raphelengius possessed, the sale catalogue of the manuscripts belonging to his heirs and put up for auction by Elzevier in Leiden in 1626.14 Of the six it has been possible to trace three in Leiden University Library.

These Hebrew manuscripts experienced the same fate as Raphelengius' entire Arabic collection.15 They were undoubtedly all consulted by Scaliger who arrived in Leiden in the summer of 1593 and died in 1609, leaving his manuscripts to the university. Contrary to the accepted belief Scaliger never owned the codices collected by Raphelengius. They appear nowhere in the lists Scaliger drew up of his own holdings or in the 1612 catalogue containing a description of his bequest to the Leiden library. After Raphelengius' death in 1597 his collection became the property of his heirs, and it was his two youngest sons, Frans the Younger and Joost, who put it up for sale in 1626. After the auction held by Elzevier on 5 October all the Arabic manuscripts and the three traceable Hebrew ones must have been purchased, directly or indirectly, by Leiden university. The librarian, Daniel Heinsius, was increasingly negligent. He probably placed the Raphelengius manuscripts in the bookcase containing the Scaliger bequest, and failed to include them in his cata-

logues of 1636 and 1640. Over thirty years later Frederik Spanheim the Younger, the compiler of the next catalogue, found the manuscripts in the Scaliger bookcase and assumed they had belonged to him. They thus appear in the catalogue of 1674 under ‘Manuscripti legati Scaligeriani’. In 1741 David van Royen, who acted as interim librarian for three months, stuck into them the slip of paper which they still bear with the words ‘Ex legato illustris viri Josephi Scaligeri’. Just as Raphelengius' nine Arabic manuscripts include some of the most impressive items Scaliger has been credited with having collected, so Raphelengius' three Hebrew works are among the prize exhibits of the Hebrew ‘Manuscripti Scaligeriani’.

Perhaps the most intriguing of the Raphelengius Hebrew codices is Ms. Scal. Hebr.8 (Cod. Or. 4725), the Psalterium Hebraycum, a Hebrew Psalter with fine illuminated initials and Latin glosses which has been studied by G.I. Lieftinck.16 It was copied by a Christian17 in England in the middle of the twelfth century and, over the years, it was used as a means of learning Hebrew. By the fourteenth century it was in the library of St Augustine's Abbey in Canterbury after belonging to John of Sturrey, a precentor of St Augustine's. In all likelihood it was removed from the abbey library by that ardent collector Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. After the Duke's death in 1447

it found its way, together with a number of Duke Humphrey's other manuscripts, into the library of Henry VI's new foundation, King's College, Cambridge. By the second half of the sixteenth century the manuscript had again changed hands and had been presented to Thomas More's son-in-law William Roper.

How and when Raphelengius acquired the manuscript remains open to speculation. If Lieftinck's hypothesis is correct Raphelengius would have obtained it before his arrival in Antwerp in 1564, possibly during his stay in England in 1562-3. It would then be a unique testimonial of Raphelengius' scarcely documented English visit, even suggesting an acquaintance with Roper. Yet Roper died in 1578, after an honourable career as protonotary of the king's bench all the more remarkable because of his avowed Roman Catholicism. Had Raphelengius received the manuscript directly from Roper this would indeed have been a generous gesture on the part of a man who can hardly have known Plantin's future son-in-law well - certainly less well than his Arabic teacher Guillaume Postel and his fellow editor of the Polyglot Bible Andreas Masius who presented Raphelengius with some of his most precious Arabic manuscripts. So it is conceivable that Raphelengius only received the manuscript after Roper's death, when he was living in Antwerp or even in Leiden. The owner's marks on the first leaf with the names of Raphelengius and his two sons, Frans the Younger and Joost, appear to have been designed by the letter-founder Thomas de Vechter in Leiden and can be dated between 1589 and 1597.

Raphelengius' second Hebrew codex in the Leiden library is Ms. Scal. Hebr. 2 (Cod. Or. 4719).18 It is an immense folio volu-

me, striking for both its size, 425 × 293 mm., and its content. The manuscript, which Raphelengius must have obtained in about 158019 when he was still in Antwerp, dates from the second half of the fourteenth century and was composed in Spain. It contains twenty medical treatises which have been described and discussed by Moritz Steinschneider.20 The majority of the works are Hebrew translations of Arabic texts - treatises by, and commentaries on, some of the greatest scholars and physicians, Avicenna, Averrhoes, Rhazes, ‘Ali ben Riḍwān and Maimonides. The rarest pieces, however, are Hebrew versions of Arabic translations of the Greek physicians Hippocrates and Galen. The Greek had been translated into Arabic by Ḥonain ben Isḥāq in the ninth century and the Hebrew renderings were made by Natan Hamati in the early thirteenth century and Kalonymos ben Kalonymos a hundred years later. Of the Galenic works four were only known in this particular manuscript.21 It consequently aroused the interest of the Leiden medical faculty. Under the supervision of Pieter Pauw, the professor of anatomy, Raphelengius undertook the translation of Galen's

treatise on clysters and colics.22 To his Latin version of Kalonymos ben Kalonymos' Hebrew he added aphorisms by Maimonides taken from the same manuscript. CL. Galeni Pergameni De Clysteribus et Colica Liber: A Iohannito a Graeca in Arabicam, et inde a Kalonymo in Hebraeam linguam, translatus was published by the Officina Plantiniana in Leiden in 1591 and affectionately dedicated to the editor's son Joost. The text was subsequently incorporated in the 1625 Venetian edition of Galen's works.

The third Hebrew manuscript in Leiden belonging to Raphelengius is a thick quarto volume measuring 180 × 115 mm. and consisting of some 860 leaves. lts identity has defeated all the cataloguers of the Leiden manuscripts but is clearly stated in the 1626 auction catalogue.23 Ms. Scal. Hebr. 16 (Cod. Or. 4733) is basically a copy of Sanctes Pagnini's Aramaic dictionary, the Enchiridion Expositionis Vocabulorum Haruch, Thargum, Midrascim, Berescith, Scemoth, Vaicra, Midbar Rabba, Et Multorum aliorum Librorum published in Rome in 1523. Compared to the printed edition the manuscript lacks the epistle dedicatory and the list of abbreviations at the end. Otherwise it contains Pagnini's text but also numerous additions and is written in at least two unidentified hands. There is no indication of when Raphelengius acquired it. We know of his admiration for the Italian Hebraist, some of whose writings he edited for the Polyglot Bible, and we know that Raphelengius had learnt Aramaic by 1566. To do so he may well have used the Pagnini manuscript.

There remain three Hebrew codices in the auction catalogue which do not appear to be in any Dutch library. The first is a manuscript of the Mahzor, the Jewish festival prayerbook, but the rite is not specified.24 Then there is a small folio volume of medical tracts, a common enough type of manuscript of which Scaliger himself owned two.25 Finally there is a collection of extracts from the Scriptures with an interlinear translation which Benito Arias Montano had used to study Hebrew.26 This can be regarded as a gift the editor of the Biblia Regia may have given to his younger colleague when he was in Antwerp in the late 1560s.

Certainly Raphelengius' collection of Hebrew manuscripts is meager in comparison to his Arabic one. It can only be a faint reflection of the works he possessed in Hebrew, most of which must have been printed. Nevertheless the three codices in Leiden are of rarity and importance. That Raphelengius should have collected the first two of them is to his credit as a scholar. At the same time a study of Raphelengius' Hebrew and Arabic manuscripts shows that at least twelve of the Oriental manuscripts ‘ex legato illustris viri Josephi Scaligeri’ never belonged to Scaliger and did not enter the Leiden library before 1626. This has consequences for the history of Leiden university and for the history of scholarship in Europe.

 

Theologisch Instituut Universiteit van Amsterdam

Summary

Franciscus Raphelengius made his name as a pioneer in Arabic studies. But he started out as a Hebraist and some of his most important achievements, as an editor, a publisher and a teacher, were in the domain of Hebrew studies. This article gives a survey of Raphelengius' activities as a Hebraist. It then discusses his three Hebrew manuscripts at the Leiden University Library. Like Raphelengius' Arabic manuscripts these were mistakenly believed to have belonged to Scaliger, but were in fact not obtained by the library before 1626, seventeen years after Scaliger's death and the acquisition by the library of his bequest. They are still amongst the most important items in its Hebrew holdings.


Vorige Volgende

Over dit hoofdstuk/artikel

auteurs