Of Vansleb's merits as a savant there could be no question. Before he left London, his reputation was already established as an oriental scholar, although his knowledge at that time was small compared with what he afterward acquired. Latin, Greek, and Hebrew he knew well, and he spoke and wrote correctly and fluently the German, French, Italian, English, Arabic, modern Greek, Turkish, and Ethiopian languages. His principal published works are,
1. Conspectus operum Æthiopicorum quæ ad excudendum parata habebat Wanslebius. Paris, 1671, in 4to.
2. Relazione Dello Stato Presente Dell' Egitto. In Parigi, MDCLXXI.
3. Nouvelle Relation d'un Voyage fait en Egypte par le P. Vansleb, R.D., en 1672 et 1673. Paris, 1677.[108]
4. Voyage du Caire à Chio, et de Chio à Constantinople, fait de 1673 jusqu'à 1675.
5. Histoire de l'Eglise d'Alexandrie, fondée par St. Marc, que nous appelons celle des Jacobites Coptes d'Egypte, écrite au Caire même en 1672 et 1673. Par le P. J. M. Vansleb, Dominicain du Convent de la Minerve à Rome. Paris, 1677.
The works on Egypt and on the Church of Alexandria, it will be remarked, were published on his return from the east, precisely at the period of his severest trials. There is quite an interesting chapter in the history of criticism connected with Vansleb's work on the Church of Alexandria, a work of great merit, which covered nearly the same ground as that of a History of Abyssinia written by Ludolf. This, of course, was, in Ludolf's eyes, only another and a greater crime added to those of which he had already accused Vansleb.
Although Moreri, Le Grand, Michaud, and Renaudot were all more or less misled as to Vansleb's personal character, they testify unanimously as to the positive merit of the work in question, and to its superiority over that of Ludolf. It is remarkable that Father Papebrock and his illustrious colleague Bollandus were led astray, and indeed deceived, by Ludolf. They had confidence in him as a brother savant, but leaned too much upon him. Their error was naturally shared by the Journal de Trevoux, and thence extended to other Jesuits.
Although Vansleb's works were at first freely used, they were not freely quoted. Gradually they sank out of sight. Only rare catalogues chronicled them, and his unpublished MSS. had totally disappeared. Occasional echoes of his name might, at intervals, be heard in the sanctuaries of science, and these, rarely repeated during two centuries, became at last so feeble as no longer to be perceptible.
But sleep is not death, nor is night an eternal eclipse. The day of reparation was at last about to dawn, and the memory of Vansleb to arise vindicated from the tomb.