11 September 1584 A.D. Obscure Hero of Reformation—Erpenius, Orientalist Scholar
H/t to Andy. Of note, in our header-page, we have featured his two last publications for order on Kindle.
Underhile, Andy. “Obscure Heroes of the
Reformation—Erpenius.” Contra Mundam. 9 Sept 2011. http://andycontramundum.blogspot.com/2011/09/obscure-heroes-of-reformation-erpenius.html. Accessed 17 Jul 2014.
Thomas Erpenius was born in Gorcum, in Holland in
1584. He went to school in Leyden and was admitted to the university was he was
18. He took his M.A., when he was 25. He took up the study of theology and
languages under Joseph Scalinger. From there he travelled to England, France,
Italy and Germany.
When he returned to Paris, he became acquainted
with Casaubon. Together they travelled to Saumur and Thomas studied Arabic. He
then went to Venice and with the help of some learned Jews and Turks, he
learned Turkish, Persian and Ethiopian. His skill was such that he was offered
a great deal of money to stay in Venice and translate some Arabic books into
Latin. He continued travelling for four more years, travelling through Paris
and purchasing Arabic books wherever he went. He finally returned to Leyden in
1612. There were plans to bring him to England and pay him a large salary to
teach, but in 1613 he was appointed Professor of Oriental Languages at the
university in Leyden.
Erpenius married in 1616 and had three children. In
1616 he was made Professor of Hebrew also. It was reported of him that whatever
task he worked at, he worked with such fervency that you would have thought
that he had nothing else to attend to.
In 1620 the prince of Orange sent him to France to
procure the services of Peter Moulin and Andrew Rivet to be professors of
Divinity at Leyden. Initially, he was unsuccessful, but the next year he was
able to bring Rivet with him back to Leyden.
Erpenius was so famous that the king of Spain offered
him great rewards if he would come to Spain and translate some ancient writings
that no one had ever been able to do before. The king of Morocco was so
impressed with the quality of Erpenius’ Arabic that he showed off letters from
Erpenius to Arabic scholars and noblemen as if they were some sort of miracle.
The prince of Orange frequently sought his services to translate Arabic letters
from royalty in Africa and Asia.
Erpenius
fell sick due to the plague in 1624 and died at the age of 40.
No comments:
Post a Comment