[1411] Id. 156.
43. Notwithstanding the bigoted veneration for Hippocrates that most avowed, several physicians, not at all adhering to Paracelsus, endeavoured to set up a rational experience against the Greek school, when they thought them at variance. Joubert of Montpelier, in his Paradoxes (1566), was a bold innovator of this class; but many of his paradoxes are now established truths. Botal of Asti, a pupil of Fallopius, introduced the practice of venesection on a scale before unknown, but prudently aimed to show that Hippocrates was on his side. The faculty of medicine, however, at Paris condemned it as erroneous and very dangerous. His method, nevertheless, had great success, especially in Spain.[1412]
[1412] Sprengel, iii. p. 215.
Sect. IV.—On Oriental Literature.
Syriac version of New Testament. 44. This is a subject over which, on account of my total ignorance of eastern languages, I am glad to hasten. The first work that appears after the middle of the century is a grammar of the Syriac, Chaldee and Rabbinical, compared with the Arabic and Ethiopic languages, which Angelo Canini, a man as great in oriental as in Grecian learning, published at Paris in 1554. In the next year Widmanstadt gave, from the press of Vienna, the first edition of the Syriac version of the New Testament.[1413] Several lexicons and grammars of this tongue, which is in fact only a dialect not far removed from the Chaldee, though in a different alphabetical character, will be found in the bibliographical writers. The Syriac may be said to have been now fairly added to the literary domain. The Antwerp Polyglot of Arias Montanus, besides a complete Chaldee paraphrase of the Old Testament, the Complutensian having only contained the Pentateuch, gives the New Testament in Syriac, as well as Pagnini’s Latin translation of the Old.[1414]
[1413] Schelhorn, Amœnitates Literariæ, xiii. 234. Biogr. Universelle. Andrès, xix. 45. Eichhorn, v. 435. In this edition the Syriac text alone appeared; Henry Stephens reprinted it with the Greek and with two Latin translations.
[1414] Andrès, xix. 49. The whole edition is richer in materials than that of Ximenes.
Hebrew critics. 45. The Hebrew language was studied, especially among the German protestants, to a considerable extent, if we may judge from the number of grammatical works published within this period. Among these Morhof selects the Erotemata Linguæ Hebrææ by Neander, printed at Basle in 1567. Tremellius, Chevalier, and Drusius among protestants, Masius and Clarius in the church of Rome, are the most conspicuous names. The first, an Italian refugee, is chiefly known by his translation of the Bible into Latin, in which he was assisted by Francis Junius. The second, a native of France, taught Hebrew at Cambridge, and was there the instructor of Drusius, whose father had emigrated from Flanders on the ground of religion. Drusius himself, afterwards professor of Hebrew at the university of Franeker, has left writings of more permanent reputation than most other Hebraists of the sixteenth century; they relate chiefly to biblical criticism and Jewish antiquity, and several of them have a place in the Critici Sacri and in the collection of Ugolini.[1415] Clarius is supposed to have had some influence on the decree of the council of Trent, asserting the authenticity of the Vulgate.[1416] Calasio was superior probably to them all, but his principal writings do not belong to this period. No large proportion of the treatises published by Ugolini ought, so far as I know their authors, to be referred to the sixteenth century.
[1415] Drusius is extolled by all critics except Scaliger (Scaligerana Secunda), who seems to have conceived one of his personal prejudices against the Franeker professor, and depreciates his moral character. Simon thinks Drusius the most learned and judicious writer we find in the Critici Sacri. Hist. Critique du V. T., p. 498. Biogr. Univ. Blount.
[1416] Clarius, according to Simon, knew Hebrew but indifferently, and does little more than copy Munster, whose observations are too full of Judaism, as he consulted no interpreters but the rabbinical writers. Masius, the same author says, is very learned, but has the like fault of dealing in rabbinical expositions, p. 499.