Torat ha-Mashiah: Evangelium secundum Matthaeum in lingua Hebraica (The Gospel of Matthew in Hebrew) [BOUND WITH:] Enchiridion (Handbook of Hebrew and Aramaic) [AND:] Shilush leshonot: Dictionarium trilingue (A Trilingual Dictionary)

Basel: H. Petri, 1537. First edition. Hardcover. Very good-. Three works bound in one volume, published between 1523 and 1543, folio (30.4 by 19.5 cm). Later full paneled calf, ruled in blind with gilt fleurons; spine with raised bands and early paper label lettered in ink. Covers lightly scuffed; intermittent dampstain (often rather dark, but almost exclusively limited to blank top margin), else a very good, attractively bound collection, crisp and clean.

[1] - Münster, Sebastian (1489-1552). Torat ha-Mashiah: Evangelium secundum Matthaeum in lingua Hebraica, cum versione latina atq[ue] succinctis annotationibus. (Teaching of the Messiah: (truncated) The Gospel of Matthew in Hebrew, with a Latin Translation and Succinct Annotations) Basileae: (apud Henricum Petrum), M.D.XXXVII [1537]. Folio in fours: a4 A-S4 T6 (= 82 leaves). [8], 154, [1, errata], [1, printer's device] pp. Text in Latin and Hebrew (mostly in facing columns). Hebrew title within decorative woodcut borders; woodcut initials. Annotations: early ownership entries at title and endleaves. References: Adams B-1884; Burmeister 142; Darlow and Moule 5088; A. van der Heide (ed.), Hebraica Veritas (Antwerp, 2008), pp. 59-60; M. J. Heller, The 16th Century Hebrew Book, p. 187; P. Lapide, Hebrew in the Church (Grand Rapids, MI, 1984); Prijs 48; VD16 B-4898.

First edition of Sebastian Münster's Hebrew version of the Gospel of Matthew, with his Latin translation, preceded by an opening essay, De fide Christianorum et Judaeorum (On the Faith of the Christians and the Jews). With dedicatory to epistle to king Henry VIII. While Münster's version of Matthew was long believed to be based on the 14th-century Hebrew translation by the Jewish polemicist Shem Tov ben Isaac ibn Shaprut, more recent scholarship has called this attribution into question (Lapide). The celebrated polymath, cosmographer, astronomer, and scholar of Semitic languages, Sebastian Münster, was born in Niederingelheim, Hesse, the son of a hospital master. Apart from some private instruction in Latin and later studies at Freiberg, along with attendance at lectures given by the Franciscans, he had no university education. After entering the Minorite order in 1506 he was sent to study in Rufach under Konrad Pellikan, the first Christian scholar to edit an elementary Hebrew grammar (1504). Münster assisted Pellikan in teaching at Pforzheim and occupied the chair of Hebrew at the University of Heidelberg from 1524 to 1529. After converting to Protestantism in 1529, he moved to Basel where he would occupy the chair of Hebrew for twenty-three years. "Sebastian Muenster was one of the first Hebraists who, by his numerous publications, firmly embedded Hebrew in protestant theology. Although he did not travel as widely as Reuchlin, Widmanstetter and, later, Masius, his unremitting industry in his home town Basle produced an astounding series of publications which provide a good view of the breadth over which the subject manifested itself" (Heide). "From about 1525, Muenster was a student of Elijah Levita, translating and editing his grammatical works. Muenster also translated a number of other Hebrew works into Latin... His Jewish oeuvre, more than three-score publications, covered all aspects of Judaica, excepting Kabbalistic studies..." (Heller). Apart from his grammar books, Münster was the author of no fewer than five dictionaries in which Biblical Hebrew is usually combined with Aramaic and post-biblical Hebrew.

[2] - Pagnini, Sante (1470-1536). Enchiridion expositionis vocabulorum Haruch, Tharghum, Midrascim, Bereschith, Scemoth, Vaicra, Midbar Rabba, et multorum aliorum librorum (A Handbook of Vocabulary from the Arukh, Targum, Midrashic Collections, and Various other Works). Romae: Thomae Strozii Florentini, M.D.XXIII [1523]. Folio in sixes: A-O6 P8. 92 ff. Hebrew and Latin text reads from right to left. Title within elaborate woodcut borders, printer's device; printer's device within woodcut borders at verso P8. Imprint from colophon at recto P8.

First edition of this uncommon and very early work by the Dominican friar Sante Pagnini, “[o]ne of the leading philologists and Biblicists of his day. At sixteen he took the religious habit at Fiesole, where he studied under the direction of Savonarola and other eminent professors" (Cath. Enc.). Skillful in Semitic languages as well as Latin and Greek, Pagnini was appointed professor of classical languages at the College of Oriental Languages, founded by Pope Leo X. He dedicated twenty-five years to his famous translation of the Bible from the original languages into Latin, which was first published at Lyon in 1527-1528... While in Rome, Pagnini had already published in 1523 a Hebrew dictionary entitled Enchiridion expositionis vocabularium Haruch, which was partly based on the Arukh of Nathan ben Yechiel. Later, in 1526, he also compiled a Hebrew grammar based on the work of David Kimchi. In his various lexical works and manuals, Johann Buxtorf was later to draw heavily upon the pioneering work of Pagnini (Burnett).

References: Adams P-31; Burnett, From Christian Hebraism to Jewish Studies (Leiden, 1996), p. 122; CNCE 47200; Van der Heide, Hebraica Veritas 20: “Pagnini’s ‘manual’ of Hebrew and Aramaic words is, as the title suggests, based on the Arukh, the Targum, and classical rabbinical Midrash collections. Although it can be used for reading the Bible and for the Targumim and other rabbinical sources, its small size - as compared with the manuscript version - indicates that the Arukh was only used indirectly.” Steinschneider 2083.1; Steinschneider, Handbuch zur hebr. Sprachkund, 1509: “Sehr selten.”

[3] Münster, Sebastian; Shilush leshonot: Dictionarium trilingue, in quo scilicet Latinis vocabulis in ordinem alphabeticum digestis respondent Graeca [et] Hebraica: Hebraicis adiecta sunt magistralia [et] Chaldaica... Additis est [et] liber de Hebraeis urbium, regionum, populorum, fluminum, montium, [et] aliorum locorum nominibus. Basileae: apud Henricum Petrum, (M.D.XLIII. [1543]). Folio in sixes: A-Z6 Aa6 (= 144 leaves). 285, [1, colophon], [1, blank], [1, device] pp. Hebrew-Aramaic, Greek, and Latin text in three colomns. Elegant Hebrew title in large woodcut; woodcut initials. Publication date from colophon.

Second edition of Sebastian Münster's Trilingual Dictionary of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, printed in three columns and first published in 1530. It is augmented by a Hebrew gazetteer prepared by Matthaeus Aurogallus (1490-1543), professor of Hebrew at the University of Wittenberg, who assisted Luther in his translation of the Hebrew Bible.

References: Adams M-1928; Van der Heide, Hebraica Veritas, 38a (with an excursus on Levita's criticism); Prijs 65; Steinschneider, Handbuch, 1386.3; VD16 M-6665. (Inventory #: 53257)