'Arba'ah 'avnei ha-Gilyonim meha-Torah ha-Hadasha: Quatuor Evangelia Novi Testamenti ex Latino in Hebraicum sermonem versa (The Four Stones of the Revelations: The Four Gospels of the New Testament Translated from Latin into Hebrew)

Rome: Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, 1668. First edition. Hardcover. Good+. Four parts, folio in fours (35 by 23 cm): [pi]4 2[cross]-3[cross]4 4[cross]2, A-3B4 3C6 (= 212 leaves; blank 3C6). [28], 395, [1, blank] pp. Half title; main title in Hebrew and Latin, set within elaborate letterpress border; four half-page woodcut portraits of the Evangelists with their symbols; lettrines, woodcut and letterpress ornaments. Eighteenth-century speckled boards, recently rebacked and recornered in black morocco, endleaves renewed. Intermittent mild to moderate foxing and toning; occasional light stains; touches of worm tracing at inner margin (truncated) throughout (not affecting text). A good or better copy, with very ample margins.

First edition of this Hebrew rendering of the Gospels. Published at the expense of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, and dedicated to Clement IX, scholars generally consider this to be "the best and most fluent of all Hebrew translations of the New Testament up to [Jona's] time" (Lapide). References: Darlow and Moule 5136; P. Lapide, Hebrew in the Church (Grand Rapids, MI, 1984), passim.


Full title and imprint: ארבעה אבני הגיליונים מהתורה החדשה : אשר נעתקו מלשון רומי ללשון עברי Quatuor Evangelia Novi Testamenti ex Latino in Hebraicum sermonem versa... נדפסו פה רומה בדפוט של הקהילה הקדושה פרופאגנדא פידה שנת אלף ושש מאות וששים ושמונה לביאת משיחנו
Romae: typis S. C. Prop. Fidei, Anno MDCLXVIII [1668]. (Inventory #: 53254)