Creating a Reformed Book of Knowledge: Immanuel Tremellius, Franciscus Junius, and Their Latin Bible, 1580 – 1590 (original) (raw)

Chapter Five: Creating a Reformed Book of Knowledge: Immanuel Tremellius, Franciscus Junius, and Their Latin Bible, 1580-1590

In his Religio laici of 1682, John Dryden alludes to a recent English translation of Richard Simon’s Histoire critique du Texte du Vieux Testament as “a treasure, which if country curates buy, they Junius and Tremellius may defy”. 1{ }^{1} Dryden’s lines were a compliment to the controversial French scholar who scandalized Catholics and Protestants alike with his denial of the historical authenticity of the Hebrew scriptures. 2{ }^{2} Simon was especially damning of the Tremellius/Junius Testamenti veteris biblia sacra, a Latin translation of the Old Testament prepared in Heidelberg more than a hundred years earlier. That Bible enjoyed widespread popularity in the fragmented religious world of the seventeenth century, in particular within a diverse collection of educated British churchmen that included Puritans, Laudians, and Scots Presbyterians. John Milton, who read Hebrew well, greatly esteemed the translation and its accompanying annotations. 3{ }^{3} The Tremellius/Junius Old Testament emerged in print during the 1570s, first appearing in a complete Bible in 1579 (paired with Tremellius’ Syriac New Testament) to immediate acclaim. A London reprint the following year retained the Syriac but in 1581 it was replaced by Beza’s New Testament to create the

[1]

1. 1 On the English translation of Simon in the seventeenth century, see Justin A. I. Champion, “Pere Richard Simon and English Biblical Criticism, 1680 - 1700” in: James E. Force and David S. Katz, ed., Everything Connects: In Conference with Richard H. Popkin: Essays in His Honor (Leiden: Brill, 1999), pp. 39-61. A good review of Simon’s arguments is Martine Pecharman, “The Rules of Critique. Richard Simon and Antoine Arnauld” in: Rens Bod, Jaap Maat, and Thijs Weststeijn, ed., The Making of the Humanities I - Early Modern Europe (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2010), pp. 327-347. Simon’s commentary on the New Testament, published in 1705, had been recently translated: Richard Simon. Critical History of the Text of the New Testament. Wherein is Established the Truth of the Acts on which the Christian Religion is Based, trans., introduced, and annotated by Andrew Hunwick (Leiden: Brill, 2013).
   2 Oscar Kenshur, Dilemmas of the Enlightenment: Studies in the Rhetoric and Logic of Ideology (Berkeley: The University of California Press, 1993). See his chapter on Dryden, pp. 49-76. I am, however, broadly sympathetic to large parts of his interpretation of the Religo Laici, though I think he does not sufficiently understand Simon.
   3 Jeffrey Einboden, “Towards a Judaic Milton: translating Samson agonistes into Hebrew,” Literature and Theology 22 (2008), pp. 135-150. ↩︎

preeminent Protestant Latin Bible, an icon of Reformed learning. How this prominence was achieved is an investigation beyond the scope of this essay and the subject of a forthcoming book. What follows is a consideration of the dynamic character of this remarkable Bible, and how Franciscus Junius’ revisions took this book into the intellectual and ecclesiastical culture of post-reformation Reformed Christianity. 4{ }^{4}

The Tremellius/Junius Old Testament is generally regarded as a fixed text that sprang from the heads of its creators, as Philip Schaff once imagined Calvin’s Institutes. In truth, however, the Testamenti veteris evolved as a book, and possessed a Janus-like quality, looking to two generations of the Reformation, or, perhaps more accurately, to the transition to post-reformation Protestantism. Immanuel Tremellius (1510-1580) and Franciscus Junius (1545-1602) collaborated closely yet belonged to different eras of scholarship and ecclesiastical politics. Tremellius, an Italian Jewish convert and exact contemporary of John Calvin, had fled his native land to the Protestant churches of the north, where he played a crucial role in the development of Hebrew learning. 5{ }^{5} In exile Tremellius was courted by various churches and held chairs of Hebrew in the Empire, England, and France. Taciturn and self-effacing by nature, Tremellius remains for historians an elusive figure, and with good reason. During his rise to prominence he witnessed the emergence of Reformed academies and universities; in their lecture halls and libraries, and from his writing desk, his contributions to the Reformation were considerable. Yet, in his scholarly publications Tremellius retained a certain reticence about committing his theological views to print, a reluctance surely owing to early experiences of dissembling in Italy and his problematic status as a “Jewish Christian”. 6{ }^{6} In the eyes of sixteenth-century churches Jewish converts were never entirely converted.

Franciscus Junius, in contrast, was a robust exponent of Calvinist doctrine. He came from an established Reformed family and had been trained in law and theology; he experienced the religious wars of France and the theological challenge of Tridentine Catholicism. 7{ }^{7} He belonged to the emerging intellectual

[1]

1. 4 The research for this essay was supported by a major grant from the AHRC of the United Kingdom. A full study of these Bibles is forthcoming in Bruce Gordon and Matthew McLean, Protestant Jerome. Reformed Latin Bibles of the Reformation, in the series Library of the Written Word (Leiden: Brill).
   5 The authoritative account of Tremellius’ life is Kenneth Austin, From Judaism to Calvinism: The Life and Writings of Immanuel Tremellius (1510-1580) (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007).
   6 Kenneth Austin, “Immanuel Tremellius (1510-1580), the Jews and Christian Hebraica” in: Achim Detmers and J. Marius J. Lange van Ravenwaay, ed., Bundeseinheit und Gottesvolk. Reformierter Protestantismus und Judentum im Europa des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts (Wuppertal: Foedus, 2005), pp. 71−8871-88
   7 The literature on Junius is limited. For biographical information see: Christiaan de Jonge, De irenische ecclesiologie van Franciscus Junius (1545-1602) (Ph.D. diss., University of Leiden, ↩︎

culture of Reformed scholasticism, the revival of Aristotle, and the burgeoning fascination with natural science. As Tobias Sarx has recently and persuasively argued, Junius was no common grove polemicist. He was driven by an irenic spirit and sought to reconcile a fragmented church through scholarship and the harmony of biblical, classical, and contemporary learning. 8{ }^{8} His desire to demonstrate the unity of knowledge is evident in the revisions he made to the Old Testament translation.

The brief yet richly productive collaboration between Tremellius, a man who lived only to see the first complete edition in 1579, and Junius, to whom remained almost a quarter century of prodigious scholarship, resulted in an astonishing achievement of philological, literary, and theological craftsmanship, rightly praised in its day as a brilliant ornament of the Reformed churches. It was not, however, a monument hewn in stone. It lived, vivified by the best scholarship and open to further discoveries and insights, a labile text. The translators were unapologetically Reformed in their confession, and their Bible was unquestionably intended to serve and nurture the Calvinist churches, but as the best Latin Bible to be found. Time, the authors understood, would bring new learning, greater understanding of Semitic languages and their history, and enhanced theological clarity. The chief virtue of their Testamenti veteris biblia sacra was its progressive character; it explained in detail what was known and, like Calvin’s Institutes (a book with which the Tremellius/Junius Bible can be compared in various respects), pointed to the future. To achieve this, Junius believed, the scholar must never lay down his pen, for the Bible in translation was a book of adaptation and growth. Such was the labor into which he threw himself with furious energy, although his aspirations were only partially realized. In the end, Junius’ revision of the translation was limited to the first 25 chapters of Genesis, but his interpretation of creation and the patriarchs reveals his intention.

The revisions of Genesis for the 1590 Geneva edition of the Testamenti veteris belonged to a broader effort to adapt Reformed scholarship to the scholastic methods of their academies and the needs of students, who required enhanced textual apparati. To meet this need, summaries, marginal notes, and doctrinal

[1]

1. 1980); Biografisch Leixkon voor de geschiedenis van het Nederlandse protestantisme (Kampen: Kok, 1978), 2:275-278. More recent work on Junius is found in W.J. van Asselt, “The fundamental meaning of theology: archetypal and ectypal theology in seventeenth-century Reformed thought,” Westminster Theological Journal 64 (2002), pp. 319-335; and Roelf Theodoor te Velde, “Eloquent silence: the doctrine of God in the Synopsis of Purer Theology,” Church History and Religious Culture (92) 2012, pp. 581-608.
   8 Tobias Sarx, Franciscus Junius d.Ä. (1545 - 1602): Ein reformierter Theologe im Spannungsfeld zwischen späthumanistischer Irenik und reformierter Konfessionalisierung (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2007). ↩︎

loci were provided to assist readers. 9{ }^{9} It is no coincidence that in the same year the Tremellius/Junius Bible was printed in Geneva the definitive edition of Calvin’s Institutes appeared from the press of Le Preux. Nicholas Collodan, Edmund Bunny, Caspar Oelevianus, and William Delaune (and others) labored to provide Calvin’s bulky 1559 Institutes with a critical apparatus that would assist readers while remaining faithful to the Frenchman’s words and arguments.

Protestant Latin Bibles

For Reformed Protestants of the sixteenth century, Latin translations of the Bible were essential to the theological and pedagogical needs of their emerging churches. 10{ }^{10} The case for scripture in the vernacular had been emphatically made from the earliest days of the Reformation - Luther and Zwingli had won that battle - but the necessity of Latin is perhaps less obvious to our modern eyes. 11{ }^{11} Protestant reformers, however, knew exactly what was needed. Latin was a sacred tongue - but not of equal status with Hebrew and Greek - as well as the international language of learning and theology. 12{ }^{12} The Latin Bibles Reformed churchmen labored to produce over the sixteenth century had several concurrent purposes. Scholarship of the highest order, these translations were deeply indebted to medieval, humanist, and rabbinic conceptions of the relationship of text and commentary. Yet they were very much products of their age as early modern books, reflecting both philological and theological develop-

[1]

1. 9 The work on Calvin’s Institutes is examined in Olivier Fatio, “Presence de Calvin de l’Orthodoxie réformée. Les abrégés de Calvin a la fin du 16e et au 17 siecle” in: W. H. Neuser, ed., Calvinus Ecclesiae Doctor (Kampan: Kok, 1980), pp. 171 - 207. See also: Richard Muller, The Unaccommodated Calvin: Studies in the Foundation of a Theological Tradition, Oxford Studies in Historical Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 64-68.
   10 Josef Eskhult, “Latin Bible Translations in the Protestant Reformation: Historical Contexts, Philological Justification, and the Impact of Classical Rhetoric on the Conception of Translation Methods” in: Bruce Gordon and Matthew McLean, ed., Shaping the Bible in the Reformation. Books, Scholars and Their Readers in the Sixteenth Century (Leiden: Brill, 2012), pp. 167-185; and Bruce Gordon, “The Authority of Antiquity: England and the Protestant Latin Bible” in: Polly Ha and Patrick Collinson, ed., The Reception of Continental Reformation in Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 1-22.
   11 Johann Anselm Steiger, Philologia Sacra: zur Exegese der Heiligen Schrift im Protestantismus des 16. bis 18. Jahrhunderts (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchen-Vluyn, 2011). The literature on Latin translation is vast, but recommended is Paul Botley Aarhus, Latin Translation in the Renaissance: The Theory and Practice of Leonardo Bruni, Giannozzo Manetti and Desiderius Erasmus, Cambridge Classical Studies (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 184 - 187.
   12 Peter Stolz, “Heinrich Bullinger (1504-1575) and the ancient languages” in: Emidio Campi, et al., ed., Scholarly Knowledge: Textbooks in early modern Europe (Geneva: Droz, 2008), pp. 113−138113-138. ↩︎

ments, and intended as paths to the Hebrew and Greek originals, compendia of learning, and tools of confessional argument. 13{ }^{13} As finely produced volumes, the best work of Basel, Zurich, Geneva, and London printers, these handsome Latin Bibles were ambassadors of their churches to the wider European world, evidence of the scholarly acumen, piety, and historical legitimacy of Reformed Christianity in the polemical maelstrom of the Reformation. Konrad Pellikan remarked in his autobiography that the Bible in German was to build the church and in Latin was to defend it. Exactly how, it must be added, was hotly disputed.

The Old Testament, written in a language in which only a small number of Christian scholars were competent, presented the most formidable challenge and formed the frontier of biblical translation. 14{ }^{14} As the Renaissance world became more familiar with Hebrew, a language often dismissed by humanists as barbaric, a problem emerged that would long remain unresolved. In an age when humanists were consumed with the vexed matter of Ciceronianism, it became apparent that a literal translation of the language of Moses produced dreadful Latin. 15{ }^{15} As Jerome had fully recognized, whatever the difficulties of providing good Latin translations of Greek literature, philosophy, and history, they paled in comparison to doing justice to the patriarchs, psalmist, and prophets. 16{ }^{16} Hebrew was a language of many mysteries, one of which was how to make its rich vocabulary, syntax, and meaning read in Latin without sounding like a Reformation version of Google Translate.

The first significant Reformed translation of the whole Old Testament was the Biblia Hebraica (1534/35) of Sebastian Münster in Basel. 17{ }^{17} His efforts were celebrated and criticized in equal measure, though even his critics regarded his work as indispensible - John Calvin likely heard Münster lecture in Basel, and

[1]

1. 13 See Urs Leu, “The Book- and Reading-Culture in Basle and Zurich During the Sixteenth Century” in: Malcolm Walsby and Graeme Kemp, ed., The Book Triumphant. Print in Transition in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Leiden: Brill, 2011), pp. 295-319.
   14 Essential reading is Stephen G. Burnett, Christian Hebraism in the Reformation Era (15001660): Authors, Books, and the Transmission of Jewish Learning (Leiden: Brill, 2012), esp. pp. 11 - 47, “Birth of a Christian Hebrew Reading Public.”
   15 Münster makes this point, Hebraica Biblia, sigs α5v\alpha 5 \mathrm{v} and β6r\beta 6 \mathrm{r}.
   16 On Jerome, see Michael Graves, Jerome’s Hebrew philology: a study based on his commentary on Jeremiah (Leiden: Brill, 2007); Megan Hale Williams, The Monk and the Book: Jerome and the making of Christian scholarship (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006); and Andrew Cain, The letters of Jerome: asceticism, biblical exegesis, and the construction of Christian authority in late antiquity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).
   17 Sebastian Münster, En tibi lector Hebraica Biblia Latina planeque noua Sebast. Munsteri tralatione, post omneis omnium hactenus ubiuis gentium aeditiones eunggata, & quoad fieri potuit, hebraicae ueritati conformata : adiectis insuper è Rabinorum co[m]mentarijs annotationibus haud poenitendis, pulchre & uoces ambiguas & obscuriora quaeq[ue] elucidantibus … Basileae : Ex officina Bebeliana, impendiis Michaelis Isingrinii et Henrici Petri, 1534[−1535]1534[-1535]. ↩︎

the Frenchman’s commentaries suggest the presence of the Biblia Hebraica on his desk. 18{ }^{18} However, we should neither overestimate Münster’s capabilities nor be censorious of a Christian scholar working in the 1520s and early 1530s. Even brief perusal by a modern scholar of biblical Hebrew exposes rudimentary grammatical errors in the preface to the Biblia Hebraica as well as in the first lines of his translation of Genesis - errors no educated Jew would have made. 19{ }^{19} One will also notice that his Hebrew is medieval rather than biblical. Münster’s extensive uses of rabbinic writings in his notes are also not what they might appear at first sight. Although he read Rashi and Kimchi, among others, often quoting them at length on matters of philology and etymology, they were cited from the second edition of Daniel Bomberg’s Hebrew Bible, and not the originals. 20{ }^{20} The Biblia Hebraica was a path-breaking achievement of Christian Hebraism whose strengths and limitations reflected a discipline in adolescence. 21{ }^{21}

Despite the Christian humanist creed of ad fontes, Hebrew scholarship was not in agreement as to what constituted original sources or what was divinely inspired, and the consequences were conflicting philological, ecclesiastical, and theological interests. Many Protestant churchmen remained wedded to the Septuagint and Vulgate as the sacred books of the Church. 22{ }^{22} Anti-Semitism further infected the debate as some reformers, including Huldrych Zwingli, in yet another form of conspiracy thinking, believed the Masoretic text to have been intended by canny Jews to mislead unsuspecting Christians. 23{ }^{23} Martin Luther was a competent reader of Hebrew, able with assistance to complete

18 Max Engammare, “Joannes Calvinus Trium Linguarum Peritus? La Question de l’Hebreu,” Bibliotheque d’Humanisme et Renaissance 58 (1996), pp. 35-60.
19 I am grateful to my colleague Joel Baden at the Yale Divinity School for his expert reading of the Hebrew.
20 Erwin I.J. Rosenthal, “Sebastian Münster’s Knowledge of and Use of Jewish Exegesis” in: Id., ed., Studia Semitica, vol. 1: Jewish Themes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971), pp. 127-145. Stephen G. Burnett, “The Strange Career of the Biblia Rabbinica Among Christian Hebraists” in: Gordon and McLean, ed., Shaping the Bible, pp. 63-84, esp. 74-77. See also: David Stern, “The Rabbinic Bible in its Sixteenth Century Context” in: Adam Shear and Joseph Hacker, ed., The Hebrew Book in Early Modern Italy (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), pp. 76-108.
21 See Matthew McLean, “‘Praeceptor amicissimus’: Konrad Pellikan, and models of teacher, student and the ideal of scholarship” in: Luca Bascera, Bruce Gordon, and Christian Moser, ed., Following Zwingli. Applying History in Reformation Zurich (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2014), pp. 233-256. On the influence of Jerome as a model of scholarship, see Hilmar M. Pabel, Herculean Labours: Erasmus and the Editing of St. Jerome’s Letters in the Renaissance (Leiden: Brill, 2008), pp. 175-248.
22 Abraham Wasserstein, The legend of the Septuagint: from classical antiquity to today (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
23 On Zwingli’s attitude to the Septuagint and his translation methods, see Peter Opitz, “Zwingli’s Exegesis of the Old Testament” in: Magne Sæbø, ed., Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, vol. 2: From the Renaissance to the Enlightenment (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2008), pp. 419−428419-428.

translations of Old Testament books, but he shared Zwingli’s reservations about engagement with Jewish scholarship. 24{ }^{24} Reliance on the rabbis, he feared, bore the risk of “Judaizing”, an acceptance of their teaching and a denial of the Gospel, above all the triune nature of God. Translation of the Hebrew, often assumed by historians of the Reformation as a natural consequence of sola scriptura, was not for all Protestants a self-evident virtue.

Virtually every aspect of Hebrew scholarship was contested, yet, curiously, the exclusivity of its guild proved beneficial. The halting advances in Hebrew studies during the sixteenth century among Protestants and Catholics took place within a scholarly culture somewhat immune to the harsh polemic of the wider Reformation. 25{ }^{25} The number of churchmen with even rudimentary comprehension of the language was remarkably small, and those wishing to advance in Hebrew could not afford to ignore the work of other scholars, regardless of confession. Translations, grammars, and lexica passed across national and linguistic boundaries to be read by a latinate sodality. 26{ }^{26} Further, despite their denigration of the rabbis in print, pretty much a requirement for those studying Hebrew, some Christian scholars clearly understood that daily contact with learned Jews was essential for accurate reading of the Old Testament. 27{ }^{27}

Perhaps the best early example of cross-confessional texts was the translation of the Bible into Latin by the Dominican Sanctes Pagninus that appeared in Lyon in 1528 and was extensively used by scholars across the religious divide, including in Calvin’s Geneva, where Stephanus printed Pagninus’ Old Testament in the 1550s. 28{ }^{28} Pagninus’ Latin Old Testament was regarded by Jews as the best done by a Christian, largely on account of his reliance on rabbinic material. 29{ }^{29} In

[1]

1. 24 On Luther as translator, see Siegfried Raeder, “The Exegetical and Hermeneutical Work of Martin Luther” in: Sæbø, ed., Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, esp. pp. 395-406; see also: Eric W. Gritsch, “Luther as Bible Translator” in: Donald K. McKim, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Martin Luther (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 62-72.
   25 See Anthony Grafton and Joanna Weinberg, “I have Always Loved the Holy Tongue” Isaac Casaubon, the Jews, and a Forgotten Chapter in Renaissance Scholarship (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011), esp. ch. 1-2.
   26 Burnett, “The Strange Career of the Biblia Rabbinica” covers this subject well. See also: William McKane, Selected Christian Hebraists (rpt Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
   27 On the complex responses to Jewish-Christian pedagogical relations, see Stephen G. Burnett, “A Dialogue of the Deaf: Hebrew Pedagogy and Anti-Jewish Polemic in Sebastian Münster’s Messiahs of the Christians and the Jews (1529/39),” Archive for Reformation History 91 (2000), pp. 168 - 190.
   28 Biblia: habes in hoc libro prudens lector vtriusq[ue] instrumenti nouam tran[s]latione[m] æditum / à reuerendo sacr[a]e theologiae doctore Sancte Pagnino Luce[n]si concionatore apostolico prædcatorii, ordinis, necnon & librum de interpretamentis Hebraicorum Aram[a] eoru[m] Græcorumq[ue] nominum, sacris in literis contentoru[m], in quo iuxta idioma cuiuscu[m]q[ue] linguæ… [Lugduni: Per Antonium du Ry], 1528.
   29 Arjo Vanderjagt, “Sanctes Pagninus,” in Saebo, ed., Old Testament/Hebrew Bible, p. 186. ↩︎

his preface, Pagninus roundly attacked Luther, whom he did not name, and the Protestant culture of biblical interpretation, in particular sola scriptura. 30{ }^{30} While Pagninus’ Bible was criticized as overly literal, disfigured by clumsy Latin, generations of Hebrew scholars through to the end of the seventeenth century remained indebted to the Dominican’s careful reading of the language. 31{ }^{31} His craftsmanship found many Protestant admirers, including those who worked on the King James Bible. 32{ }^{32}

Another example of unacknowledged or unconscious text sharing takes us in the opposite direction. The so-called Vatable Bible produced in Paris in 1545 was a Latin translation with notes reputedly drawn from the lectures of François Vatable, who was already dead when Stephanus produced the book. It was the work of his students, and although his humanist interpretations riled the Sorbonne, the source of the Latin text of the Old Testament eluded detection. The Parisian doctors would have been enraged to learn that it was the translation prepared by Leo Jud for the Zurich Latin Bible of 1543.331543 .{ }^{33} The same translation appeared thirty years later in Salamanca without any indication of its Protestant origins.

The Reformed Latin Bible and Tradition

Zeal for a new Latin translation of the Bible, primarily of the Old Testament, was almost exclusively a Reformed obsession during the sixteenth century. The major editions appeared in Basel (Sebastian Münster, 1534/35), Zurich (Leo Jud, 1543), Basel (Sebastian Castellio, 1551 and following), and Frankfurt, London, and Geneva (Tremellius/Junius), all centers of printing with sufficient resources for such expensive folio books. The principal New Testament Latin translation, as noted, was the work of Theodore Beza that first appeared in Geneva in 1556. 34{ }^{34}

30 Biblia, sig D4r.
31 Frank Rosenthal, “The Study of the Hebrew Bible in Sixteenth-Century Italy,” Studies in the Renaissance 1 (1954), p. 90 f.
32 David Norton, The King James Bible: A Short History from Tyndale to Today (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), p. 6.
33 In the “Vatable Bible” of 1545 the Zurich Latin text appears in parallel columns with the Vulgate. It is designated as " N " for “nova translatio”. Along with the text are notes from Vatable’s lectures. The “Compendium et scopus totius sacrae scripturae…” from the Zurich Bible is reprinted under the revised title of “Summa totius sacrae scripturae”. Christian Moser, Theodor Bibliander (1505-1564). Annotierte Bibliographie der gedruckten Werke (Zurich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich, 2009), p. 89. Alice Phelena Hubbard, “The Bible of Vatable,” Journal of Biblical Literature 66 (1947), pp. 197-209.
34 The five major sixteenth-century editions of the New Testament are 1556/7, 1565, 1582, 1588/ 89 and 1598. See Jan Krans, Beyond What is Written: Erasmus and Beza as Conjectural Critics of the New Testament (Leiden: Brill, 2006), pp. 202-206. The 1556 contains Stephanus’

The Castellio, Beza, and Tremellius/Junius versions went through further editions with varying degrees of revision. 35{ }^{35} Lutherans on the whole, beginning with a partial Latin Bible printed in Wittenberg in 1529, preferred to remain with the Vulgate, of which they issued numerous revised versions during the sixteenth century. 36{ }^{36}

How do we account for the path travelled by the Reformed? The answer is not straightforward and involved several related factors. From the mid 1520s the translation of individual books (notably Isaiah) of the Old Testament into Latin was a priority in Basel and Zurich. 37{ }^{37} The most significant figures were Johannes Oecolampadius and Huldrych Zwingli, although both men worked with colleagues proficient in the ancient languages. Almost all of these Christian humanists emerged from the circle around Erasmus in Basel, inspired by his Novum Instrumentum of 1516 and its successive editions. 38{ }^{38} Erasmus more than any other figure instilled in these reform-minded scholars a passion for Greek and Hebrew (although he did not have Hebrew) and his influence, together with the enmity arising from his dispute with Luther, played an important role in creating a distinct lineage of Protestant thought. 39{ }^{39} In numerous and diverse ways the shadow of Erasmus lay across Reformed biblical scholarship of the Reformation. 40{ }^{40}

[1]

1. Vulgate and Beza’s Latin translation, while the 1565 contains the Vulgate, the Greek, and Beza’s revised Latin translation with annotations. This was reprinted in 1582 and 1598.
   35 See Irena Backus, “Moses, Plato and Flavius Josephus. Castellio’s Conceptions of Sacred and Profane in his Latin Versions of the Bible” in: Gordon and McLean, Shaping of the Bible, pp. 143 - 166; Marie-Christine Gomez-Giraud and Olivier Millet, “La rhétorique de la Bible che Bèze et Castellion d’après leur controverse en matière de la traduction biblique” in: Irena Backus, ed., Théodore de Bèze (1519-1605). Actes du Colloque de Genève (septembre 2005) (Geneva: Droz, 2007), pp. 429 - 448.
   36 The 1529 Wittenberg Latin Old Testament, the work of a team that included Luther and Melanchthon, was only a partial translation: Pentatevchus: Liber Iosve; Liber Ivdicvm; Liber Regvm; Novum Testamentvm. VVitembergae: [Nicolaus Schirleitz, 1529].
   37 Peter Opitz, “The Exegetical and Hermeneutical Work of John Oecolampadius, Huldrych Zwingli and John Calvin” in: Sæbø, ed., Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, pp. 408 - 413, 422 - 428.
   38 Erasmus’ biblical scholarship has been extensively studied. Krans, Beyond What is Written, esp. pp. 9-90, is an excellent survey that engages with the most important literature. Several helpful essays are to be found in the collection Biblical Humanism and Scholasticism in the Age of Erasmus, ed. Erika Rummel (Leiden: Brill, 2008). Also excellent is Erika Rummel, “The Textual and Hermeneutical Work of Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam” in: Sæbø, ed., Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, pp. 215-230. Henk Jan de Jonge, “The Novum Testamentum a nobis versum: The Essence of Erasmus’ Edition of the New Testament,” JTS 35 (1984), pp. 394−413394-413.
   39 For the case of Zurich, see Christine Christ von-Wedel, “Erasmus und die Zürcher Reformatoren: Huldrich Zwingli, Leo Jud, Konrad Pellikan, Heinrich Bullinger und Theodor Bibliander” in: Christine Christ-von Wedel and Urs Leu, ed., Erasmus in Zürich: Eine verschwiegene Autorität (Zurich: Verlag Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 2007), pp. 167-176.
   40 See Krans, Beyond What is Written. ↩︎

There were, however, also other influences. Luther’s hostility to rabbinic scholarship and his persuasion that it presented the Reformation with a poisoned chalice left a legacy of suspicion among those who claimed his name. 41{ }^{41} That is not to say there were not important Lutheran scholars of Hebrew, or that the language was not taught in their universities, but the engagement with the Talmud, Targum, and other texts was not of the same order as among Reformed scholars such as the remarkable Paul Fagius, who in the preface to his Sententiae vere elegantes, piae, mireque wrote, "only a few men speak well, but to live well is everyone’s concern; therefore I think Hebrew wise-men should be held in greater esteem, for they prescribed the rules and precepts of a virtuous life to their people. 342{ }^{342} Fagius collaborated with the great Jewish scholar Elias Levita, who travelled from Venice to Isny for their collaboration. 43{ }^{43} No single reason explains the enthusiasm of the age, but the intense interest of Reformed theologians in a thoroughly Christological reading of Hebrew scripture ineluctably fed interest in the language. Theodor Bibliander in Zurich, who wrote extensively on the history of languages, argued that Hebrew was the source of all human written and oral communication. It was the language spoken by God at creation to Adam and Eve. 44{ }^{44}

The place of the Vulgate in Protestant biblical culture of the sixteenth century was decisive. 45{ }^{45} Most reformers - some more explicitly than others - held the Vulgate in high esteem as the Bible of the Church, although belief that the received text was entirely the work of Jerome quickly receded during the six-

[1]

1. 41 On Luther and Hebrew, see Siegfried Raeder, Das Hebräische bei Luther untersucht bis zum Ende ersten Psalmenvorlesung (Tübingen: Mohr, 1961), and his Die Benutzung des masoretischen Textes bei Luther in der Zeit zwischen der ersten und der zweiten Psalmenvorlesung (1515-1518) (Tübingen: Mohr, 1967).
   42 Fagius, Sententiae … 1541, preface: “bene dicere ad paucos pertinet, bene autem vivere ad omnes, ita et in maiori praetio habendos esse arbitror Hebraeorum sapientes, qui genti suae dogmata et praecepta recte vivendi praescripsere.” I am grateful to my former student Jamie Gabbarelli for bringing this quotation to my attention in a paper on Fagius in 2010.
   43 Eric Zimmer, “Jewish and Christian Hebraist Collaboration in Sixteenth Century Germany,” Jewish Quarterly Review 71 (1980), pp. 69-89. On Fagius, see: Richard Raubenheimer, Paul Fagius aus Bergzabern: sein Leben und Wirken als Reformator und Gelehrter (Grünstadt: Verein für pfälzische Kirchengeschichte, 1957).
   44 Bruce Gordon, “‘Christo Testimonium reddunt omnes scripturae’: Theodor Bibliander’s Oration on Isaiah (1532) and Commentary on Nahum (1534)” in: Gordon and McLean, ed., Shaping the Bible, pp. 107-142.
   45 A full study of Protestant attitudes to the Vulgate is still to be written. For the case of Zurich, see Bruce Gordon, “‘Christo Testimonium reddunt omnes scripturae’”. On the Vulgate in the Renaissance more generally: Ronald K. Delph, “Emending and Defending the Vulgate Old Testament” in: Erika Rummel, ed., Biblical Humanism, pp. 297-318; Robert Coogan, Erasmus, Lee and the Correction of the Vulgate: The Shaking of the Foundations (Geneva: Droz, 1992); Christopher Celenza, “Renaissance Humanism and the New Testament: Lorenzo Valla’s Annotations to the Vulgate,” Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 24 (1994), pp. 33-52; Pabel, Herculean Labours. ↩︎

teenth century. Protestant scholars were aware of the various textual strands of medieval Latin Bibles and the problems created by scribal error. The Latin of Jerome’s commentaries was regarded as sufficient proof that the errors of the Vulgate could not be attributed to the church father. Textual problems, however, were not alone in determining Protestant attitudes towards the Vulgate. Whatever the corruptions of the medieval church, there was no dispute that faithful Christians had known and worshiped with the words of the Latin Bible, largely through the Missal and other liturgical and devotional books. 46{ }^{46} The connection with Jerome (however problematic), the use of Latin in worship and theological debate, and the pastoral importance of a well-known version, constituted a tradition Protestants were not prepared to jettison. Visibly and invisibly the Vulgate lived on among the Reformed and Lutherans.

It does not follow, therefore, that use of the Vulgate divided the two largest Protestant confessions. Their differences were a matter of degree. Lutherans explicitly retained the Vulgate, which they revised heavily in light of Hebrew and Greek scholarship precisely because it was the Bible of the Church, as Luther had explicitly stated in his preface to the 1529 Wittenberg Latin edition. 47{ }^{47} His argument for the legitimacy of the Vulgate and its continuing role in the Church was not, however, based on respect for the authority of the medieval ecclesiastical hierarchy, but primarily a pastoral consideration in defending and preserving the faith of the people.

Comparative examination of the Reformed Latin Bibles reveals that while translations differed in places, at times significantly, their linguistic proximity is striking. The similarities of syntax and vocabulary reflected the methods employed. With the exception of Sebastian Castellio, each of the Protestant translators worked closely with previous editions, re-working, correcting, and emending as necessary. Collectively, the translations formed a community of Bibles. It was an approach attributed to Jerome’s Hebraica veritas. 48{ }^{48} However, there was more. The closeness of the translations point to a concern of Reformed scholars to remain as close to the Vulgate as the Hebrew permitted. They were not, in short, inclined to provide willfully fresh translations in wholly unfamiliar words. Certainly, their efforts went far beyond the revisions to the Vulgate that contented Lutherans, and the Reformed did pronounce their Bibles better readings of the Hebrew, but they retained a veneration of the traditional text.

[1]

1. 46 Josef Eskult, “Latin Bible Versions in the Age of Reformation and Post-Reformation: On the development of new Latin versions of the Old Testament in Hebrew and on the Vulgate as revised and evaluated among the Protestants,” Kyrkohistorisk Årsskrift (2006), p. 36.
   47 Luther’s remarks are found in preface to the 1529 Wittenberg Latin Bible, Pentatevchvs; Liber Iosve, sig Av r−v{ }^{r-v}
   48 The preface to the Pentateuch of the Testamenti veteris treats in some detail Jerome’s approach to the Bible. (1590) sig A2v. ↩︎

Translation was not a purely philological endeavor: it was enveloped by theological, historical, and ecclesiastical beliefs.

What, we might ask, were the purposes of these Latin translations, and, crucially, what was their authority within the churches? 49{ }^{49} In one significant manner the Reformed Latin Bibles differed from the Vulgate. They had no liturgical role. Although Bibles had little place in medieval worship as books, the people heard the words of scripture through liturgical volumes such as the missal. The Protestant Latin Bibles were not read in churches either directly or mediated through some other form of literature; they were never intended for contact with the faithful. Their place was in the lecture hall, the scholar’s and pastor’s study, and as part of early modern gift culture, where they served as rather heavy calling cards. As products of both Christian humanism and the Reformation, Protestant Latin Bibles were a new genre of book somewhere between traditional translations and commentaries. They were study Bibles in which learning, whether linguistic, theological, or historical, was compiled around the sacred text as the heart and soul of the church. Like Calvin’s Institutes from 1539, these new Latin Bibles were tools in the creation of an educated clergy, but not just that. Increasingly, as we shall explore, they became compendia of knowledge, encyclopedic in nature: books that contained all that an educated, latinate cleric or lay person needed know.

Protestant attitudes towards the biblical text were heavily influenced by the movement in late-medieval scriptural interpretation towards the literal sense. As Christopher Ocker has persuasively argued, allegorical and anagogical readings of the Bible were increasingly borne by the literal, a development reflected in the hermeneutical approaches of the reformers. 50{ }^{50} With respect to the Latin Bibles, the embracing of the historical and figurative by the literal was integral to the emerging Protestant position on the comparative value of translations. Such an expansive understanding of the literal enabled reformers to reject the idea of one authoritative translation. The issue was far from abstract. The Council of Trent’s decree on the Vulgate had pushed the status of the Vulgate to the fore. In response to the unequivocal position taken by the Tridentine fathers, Reformed theologians required a different model for grounding the authority of the Bible as text. It was at this point that Jerome and Augustine entered the fray as interlocutors in a dialogue over the status of sacred texts, translation, and ecclesiastical authority.

[1]

1. 49 See Matthew McLean’s introduction to Gordon and McLean, ed., Shaping the Bible in the Reformation.
   50 Christopher Ocker, Biblical Poetics before Humanism and Reformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). ↩︎

The clearest framing of the discussion between Jerome and Augustine is found in Heinrich Bullinger’s preface to the 1543 Zurich Bible, although it was neither the first nor final appearance of the matter. 51{ }^{51} At issue was Augustine’s resistance to Jerome’s translation of the Old Testament from Hebrew as unnecessary given the inspired status of the Septuagint. The bishop of Hippo, who had neither Hebrew nor Greek, was content with the vetus latina, a diverse body of vernacular translations made from the Septuagint. In these Bibles the Word of God was known to the people, and philological precision, Augustine argued, should not overshadow pastoral concerns. Further, the church had been, and should remain, content with these multiple translations without demanding one “correct” authoritative translation. Jerome, as Bullinger and others framed the story, argued for the necessity of learning the original languages, above all Hebrew, to produce the best possible version of the Bible. For him, sacred languages should prevail in order to prevent the church from lapsing into error. In the Protestant narrative, Augustine and Jerome embodied the tension of bishop and scholar, of pastoral and humanist concern, and the reformers sought to establish their historical, theological, and scholarly legitimacy by demonstrating the harmony of their positions.

In a brilliant work of synthesis, Bullinger drew together the rhetorical figures of Augustine and Jerome to argue that both were correct and incorrect. Jerome was right to return to the Masoretic text and not trust the flawed Septuagint. It was essential to the life of the church that the original languages be studied to understand scripture. This teaching was not, Bullinger was clear, at odds with the virtue of multiple translations. If the recent acquisition of Greek and Hebrew had demonstrated anything, it was the contingent nature of the pursuit of the accurate Word of God. The 1543 preface opened with a passage from Jerome’s letter to Pope Damasus in which he quoted scripture to describe translation as a shared endeavor to which different persons brought their particular skills. 52{ }^{52} For Bullinger, this was support for a collective approach to scholarship in which a community of texts could be in dialogue. Each translation would make its contribution, and together the truth would be best expressed. For Protestants this argument meant that truth could be linked not to any one text but to the on-

[1]

1. 51 Biblia sacrosancta Testame[n]ti Veteris & Noui: è sacra Hebraeorum lingua Graecorumque fontibus, consultis simul orthodoxis interpretib. religiosissime translata in sermonem Latinum : authores omnemq[ue] totius operis rationem ex subiecta intelliges praefatione. Tigvri: Excvdebat C. Froschovervs, Anno M. D. XLIII. [1543], sig 3v. The argument is found in the preface to the 1531 Zurich Bible by Zwingli: Die gantze Bibel der ursprünglichen Ebraischen und Griechischen waarheyt nach auffs aller treüwlichest verteütschet (Zürich: Christoffel Froschouer, 1531).
   52 Biblia sacrosancta Testame[n]ti Veteris & Noui: è sacra Hebraeorum lingua Graecorumque fontibus, consultis simul orthodoxis interpretib. religiosissime translata in sermonem Latinum… Tigvri: Excvdebat C. Froschovervs, Anno M. D. XLIII. [1543], sig A2r. ↩︎

going process of translation and interpretation. Jerome and Augustine were, therefore, harmonized in a belief in the necessity of work with the Hebrew and Greek to produce ever better translations under the guidance of the Spirit.

The Tremellius/Junius Latin Bible

The Testamenti Veteris Biblia Sacra of Immanuel Tremellius and Franciscus Junius appeared as a complete volume in 1579 from the press of Andreas Wechel in Frankfurt, although it had already been printed in five parts from 1575. 53{ }^{53} Tremellius was a figure of considerable renown, having held the regius chair of Hebrew at Oxford during the short reign of Edward VI. 54{ }^{54} Calvin had sought to bring him to Geneva, but Elector Frederick of the Palatinate succeeded in luring the eminent scholar to a chair at the newly Reformed University of Heidelberg. Tremellius was widely regarded as a leading Hebraist. Born in Ferrara, he was a Jewish convert associated with the household of Cardinal Reginald Pole before fleeing north on account of his growing Protestant sympathies, fostered through contact with Peter Martyr Vermigli. Tremellius’ knowledge of biblical Hebrew and training in the rabbinic tradition placed him above contemporary Christian Hebraists, making him invaluable to the Reformed churches. Junius, a Huguenot jurist and theologian, was himself an excellent linguist whose scholarly reputation precipitated an invitation to Heidelberg in 1573 from the Elector Palatine Frederick III to work with Tremellius on a Latin translation of the Old Testament. Indeed, a distinguishing quality of Junius’ revisions to the Testamenti veteris was the elegance of his Latin.

Tremellius’ knowledge of Semetic languages had been impressively displayed in his 1569 edition and translation of the Syriac New Testament, which he dedicated to Elizabeth of England. 55{ }^{55} Syriac was virtually unknown in sixteenth-

[1]

1. 53 Testamenti Veteris Biblia Sacra, sive, Libri canonici, priscae Ivdaeorvm ecclesiae a Deo traditi: Latini recens ex Hebraeo facti, breuibusq[ue] scholiis illustrati ab Immanuele Tremellio & Francisco Iunio : accesservnt libri qvi vvlgo dicuntur Apocryphi, Latine redditi & notis quibusdam aucti a Francisco Junio. Francofvrti ad Moenvm: Ex officina typographica And. Wecheli, M. D. LXXIX. [1579]. The translation was printed in five folio volumes by Andreas Wechel in Frankfurt between 1575 and 1579. The complete Bible of 1579 was a quarto edition. Subsequent editions appeared in London in 1581 and 1585. Junius reworked the translation and greatly expanded the notes for 1590 (Geneva) and 1593 (London). The Bible was printed in Hanau in 1596 and 1602 before Junius’ death.
   54 The standard intellectual biography of Tremellius is Austin, From Judaism to Calvinism. See also his, “Epitome of the Old Testament, Mirror of God’s Grace, and Complete Anatomy of Man’: Immanuel Tremellius and the Psalms” in: Gordon and McLean, ed., Shaping the Bible in the Reformation, pp. 217 - 235.
   55 Robert Wilkinson, “Immanuel Tremellius’ 1569 Edition of the Syriac New Testament,” The ↩︎

century Europe, and although Tremellius possessed no formal training in the language, his knowledge of Aramaic dialects enabled him to identify correctly its lineage. The Palatine library in Heidelberg had acquired five Syriac manuscripts from Guillaume Postel, and the Elector was eager for Tremellius to edit his recent acquisition. Frederick’s zeal for a fresh translation of the Old Testament likewise arose from a recent arrival of manuscripts, this time Masoretic texts from suppressed monastic libraries in the Palatinate. In Frederick, Tremellius and Junius were supported by a patron whose authentic devotion to the Reformed faith fired a desire to make Heidelberg a center of learning, and Frederick’s ambitious plan for a new translation of the Old Testament formed part of a consolidation of Reformed theology begun with the Heidelberg Catechism of 1563.561563 .{ }^{56} Sadly for both men, the elector did not live to see the complete edition of his commission.

The precise nature of the working relationship between Tremellius and Junius is difficult to determine, though we possess a few suggestive tidbits. Tremellius had begun the project some years before Junius’ arrival in Heidelberg, and from a later account, written after the Italian’s death in 1580, the Frenchman appears in some respects to have been the junior partner. Junius wrote in his preface to the Apocrypha that when Tremellius was forced to leave Heidelberg in 1577 after the death of Frederick, it was extremely difficult to continue with the translation. 57{ }^{57} Such lamentation may have been in part rhetorical, intended to affirm authorial authority, but Junius’ devotion to his elder partner was real and his loyalty to Tremellius’ memory deep.

Junius’ suggestion that Tremellius was the senior figure seems plausible. Tremellius was thirty-five years older and held a chair at Heidelberg, while Junius was not given an academic position. Tremellius had received the original commission and had been working on the Old Testament for some time before Junius’ arrival. In addition, there are textual clues, largely from the style of Junius’ refinement of the translation, that strongly support the argument that the first printed text was primarily the work of Tremellius. Tremellius’ Latin was by no means poor, but the 1579 Bible is workmanlike, while later changes reveal a heightened literary sensibility. If Tremellius led the translation, no doubt with

[1]

1. Journal of Ecclesiastical History 58 (2007), pp. 9-25. On Tremellius’ earlier time in England, see Austin, From Judaism to Calvinism, pp. 63-75.
   56 Owen Chadwick, “The Making of a Reforming Prince: Frederick III, Elector Palatine” in: Robert Buick Knox, ed., Reformation, Conformity and Dissent (London: Epworth, 1977). On the introduction of Reformed doctrine in Heidelberg, see Charles D. Gunnoe, Thomas Erastus in the Palatinate: A Renaissance Physician in the Second Reformation (Leiden: Brill, 2011), pp. 51−8351-83.
   57 (1590) sig A2r. Junius provides a moving tribute to Tremellius in the preface to the ecclesiastical books. (1590) sig A2r-v. ↩︎

Junius’ collaboration, there is reason to believe that the extensive prefaces were primarily by the younger Frenchman.

The prefaces were in the name of both men, but their heavily theological character closely resembles Junius’ arguments found in his subsequent writing, a similarity that extends to the use of the same metaphors and biblical passages. Further, unlike the translation and notes for Genesis, the prefaces were never revised, suggesting that Junius felt there was no need. Finally, in the revisions made by Junius for the 1590 Geneva edition, a good deal of the doctrinal points made in the prefaces was moved into the annotations, placing doctrine and text in direct contact - a position consistent with Junius’ argument about the connection between knowledge of languages and doctrine. The evidence for the manner of their partnership provided by the printed texts is circumstantial, but still possibly illuminating.

As originally conceived and printed in 1579, the Tremellius/Junius Bible divided the prefaces and annotations to serve distinct though related purposes. The prefaces provided the theological, historical, and methodological material, while the annotations were primarily to enable the reader to understand the Hebrew. Philology and interpretation were physically separated in the book, with only a few exceptions when some doctrinal points were briefly mentioned in the notes. Where did this structure place the Heidelberg Bible on the map of Protestant scholarship? The sparing references to theology in the annotations and the focus on rendering the Hebrew accessible takes us back to Sebastian Münster’s Biblia Hebraica of 1534/35, but only superficially. Münster’s reluctance to engage in theological debate arose from an Erasmian concern not to conflate philological explanation with confessional argument. Münster had sought to present in his notes a broad range of linguistic interpretations in order to allow the reader to make informed choices. 58{ }^{58} The Zurich Bible of 1543 made a clear move away from this sense of open text towards a more framed reading of scripture, with the marginal notes providing unambiguous theological guidance. Theological explanation in the Zurich Bible was carefully worked out, with a detailed system of common places that linked the text with the prefatory material.

Theodore Beza’s 1556 New Testament, with its Latin translation, was laden with theological commentary more extensive than that done in Zurich. The Tremellius/Junius Bible of 1579/80, however, worked with a different model. The reader came to the translation already well instructed in the literary genre of the text, its historical development, and the crucial doctrinal arguments. The prefaces, with their treatment of scripture and doctrine, served as texts akin to

[1]

1. 58 Münster’s approach will be thoroughly treated in my forthcoming book with Matthew McLean. ↩︎

Calvin’s Institutes or the Heidelberg Catechism. They instructed the reader on the nature of scripture, how it was to be read, and provided summaries of doctrine in order that one might understand the Bible. The marginalia and annotations focused on facilitating reading of the text, although some theological commentary is to be found, often relating to the triune nature of God.

To understand what takes place in the prefaces, we need to attend to Junius’ other writings. For example, in his Oratio de linguae Hebraeae antiquitate praestantiaque the Frenchman wrote on the theological importance of biblical languages. 59{ }^{59} There could be no serious theological discussion, he argued, without recourse to Hebrew and Greek. And in a statement revealing of his attitude towards Latin as a sacred language, Junius declared translation helpful and necessary but ancillary, not to be confused with original languages. A Latin Bible is like a hesitant captain on a stormy sea, for it is unable to provide the certainty of Hebrew and Greek. In the Oratio Junius is clear that doctrinal debate cannot be separated from biblical exegesis, and the 1590 revisions bear out this position. The annotations, illuminating as they do the original languages, he regarded as the proper place for doctrinal instruction.

The 1580 and 1590 Editions: Genesis 1−251-25

To illustrate the extent and character of the revised annotations for the 1590 Testamenti veteris, we turn to Junius’ work on Genesis 1−251-25, with particular attention to the first two chapters, which were almost entirely rewritten. With reference to the 1580 edition, it is possible to see how Junius reworked the annotations through expansion of theological argument, the addition of classical and patristic references, and attention to historical and geographical matters. 60{ }^{60}

59 Sarx, Franciscus Junius D.ä.(1545-1602), p 192 f.
60 The editions used for this comparison are: 1) Testamenti Veteris Biblia sacra, sive, Libri canonici, priscae Ivdaeorvm ecclesiae a Deo traditi, latini recens ex hebraeo facti, brevibúsque scholiis illustrati ab Immanuele Tremellio & Francisco Iunio: accesservnt libri qvi vvlgo dicuntur Apocryphi, Latinè redditi & notis quibusdam aucti a Francisco Junio, mvlto omnes qvam ante emendativs editi, numeris locisâ, citatis omnibus capitum destincioni quam haec editio sequitur exactiùs respondentibus: quibus etiam adjunximus Novi Testamenti libros ex sermone syriaco abeodem Tremellio in Latinum conversos. Londini, Excudebat Henricus Middletonus, impensis W.N., 1580. 2) Testamenti Veteris Biblia sacra, sive, Libri canonici, priscae Ivdaeorvm ecclesiae a Deo traditi, latini recens ex hebraeo facti, brevibúsque scholiis illustrati ab Immanuele Tremellio & Francisco Iunio. Accesserunt libri qui vulgo dicuntur Apocryphi, Latinè redditi & notis quibusdam aucti a Francisco Junio, multo omnes qvam ante emendativs editi, numeris locisâ, citatis omnibus capitum destincioni quam haec editio sequitur exactiùs respondentibus: quibus etiam adjunximus Novi Testamenti libros ex sermone Syro ab eodem Tremellio, & ex sermone graeco a Theodoro Beza in latinum versos … Secunda

For comparison I have used the 1580 Bible published by a consortium of five English stationers, which included the Queen’s Printer, Christopher Barker, and the Genevan 1590 from Ioannis Tornaesium. 61{ }^{61}

Junius only revised the first twenty-five chapters of Genesis. I have yet to determine why he broke off, but the sudden halt suggests a project interrupted. It remains unclear whether Junius intended to pursue work on the annotations. What is certain, however, was the importance attached by Junius to Genesis, on which he lavished enormous energy. Following Calvin, he regarded Genesis as one of the pillars of scripture, and his treatment of creation and patriarchs casts light on his understanding of scripture and theological method. 62{ }^{62}

The breadth of the changes to the annotations is immediately apparent when one places the two editions side by side. Both are in quarto, but the density of the 1590 textual apparatus strikes the eye, especially for those chapter annotations that doubled in length. The 1590 Testamenti veteris reflects years in which Junius was intensively engaged with scripture through lecturing on the Old Testament from 1584 in Heidelberg and the preparation of a set of doctoral theses on the doctrine of justification. 63{ }^{63} Junius’ theological and exegetical work converged in the annotations, where doctrinal instruction and translation were closely linked in the expansion of the notes. As we shall see, the reworked notes were not only more theological, for Junius also introduced a whole new level of humanist scholarship with a vast body of historical, geographical, literary, and natural scientific knowledge. This carefully constructed infrastructure of learning was created not only by transferring material from the prefaces to the annotations (which was done), but also through the addition of a great deal of new information.

In general, the 1590 revisions were expansions of the 1580 texts rather than retractions or corrections. Comparison of the 1580 and 1590 Testamenti veteris reveals Junius’ respect for the first edition as well as his principal intention either to provide further explanation of subjects briefly noted in the first edition or to introduce new interpretive material where previously there had been no annotation. This approach was most radically undertaken for the first two chap-

[1]

1. cura Francisci Junii. Genevae, Apud I. Tornaesium, impensis And. Wecheli haeredum, Claudii Marnii, & Ioannis Aubrii, 1590.
   61 In terms of the order of the printing, it should be noted that parts 2−52-5 of the OT (so, everything after the general title and before the NT) have individual imprints dated 1579, indicating pretty clearly that the project took some time to complete, but was underway not too long after the Frankfurt edition came off the press that year. I am grateful to Aaron Pratt for this information.
   62 As does Calvin, Junius uses the first two chapters of Genesis to offer a full explication of God, creation, humanity, etc. Muller, Unaccommodated Calvin, p. 154 f.
   63 Michael Plathow, “Junius, Franz (du Jon) der Ältere,” Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon 3(1992), pp. 885-888. ↩︎

ters. For the following chapters Junius was selective, often content with the earlier material. Where he did not rewrite the annotation, the most notable changes were the introduction of classical and patristic sources, which were not limited to references but often quoted at some length. Junius went to considerable pains to ensure that the reader was given precise references in order that the texts could be readily consulted. By contrast, in the 1580 edition few ancient authors or their works were named. As with the compendia and epitome of Calvin’s Institutes, the enhanced number of citations and marginal notes in the 1590 Bible not only brought clarity, but were also to serve pastors and others engaged in doctrinal disputes.

When the Tremellius/Junius translation was first printed, in 1579, the notes served specific purposes in clarifying the sense of Hebrew words and phrases to avoid ambiguity or confusion. Rhetorical devices were identified, but generally only to explain the sense of the passage. In addition, with their occasional and brief doctrinal references, the tone of 1580 was more pastoral, an aid to assist pastors in preparing sermons. By 1590 the audience had changed. Doctrine and perspicuity were joined to instruct students and to serve as apologia for the Palatinate church. Junius worked through the translation, perhaps in response to criticism, although as far as I can detect the changes were generally minor matters of style rather than substantive alterations of the text. I have not found any place where a change of translation has led to a different interpretation. Nevertheless, the Latin is more elegant and marked by an economy of language that makes the translation pleasing to read and very clear - ideal for students of theology.

We begin with the beginning. Gen 1:1 famously opens with “In principio creavit Deus, caelum & terram.” The note for 1580 argues that the sense of the passage is that God, about to make heaven and earth, created rough chaos that afterwards furnished the matter for forming heavenly and terrestrial bodies. (“Sensus est, Deus principio facturus caelum et terram, creavit impolitum chao, quod postea suppeditavit caelestibus terrestribusque coporibus formandis materiam.”) Ten years later, Junius added a great deal. I quote the original to give a sense of the extent of his changes:

Puta universitatis rerum: id est, ut Basilius optime interpretatur. Infra 2.4. Ps 33.6&33.6 \& 136.5. Jerme 10.12 & 51.15. Act 14.15 & 17.24. Hebr 11.3. nihilo fecit & quid e potenissime ac magnificentissime: nam haec propria est Hebrei verbi signification. Unus essential, personae tres, Pater, Filius, & Spiritus sanctus: ut Hebraea voce ostenditur. Sic deinceps in creationis historia oportet accipi, nis quum adhibetur aliqua determination ad personarum relationem inter se pertinent. i. tum extimum illum hujus universitatis ambitum, cum supercaelestibus incolis illius & spiritalibus formis atque intelligentiis, infra 2.1 Iob. 38.7. Johannis 1.3. Colos. 1.16. tum materiam illam primam,

ex qua terra, & resomnes caelestes ac terrestres factae sunt. Quamobrem caeli & terrae nominibus articulus Hebraeus praefixus legitur. 64{ }^{64}

The reader immediately encounters a good example of the changed approach when he/she is referred to Basil’s homilies on Genesis, known as the Hexaemeron, for a full explication of Gen 1:1. 65{ }^{65} The nine sermons delivered in 378 have been read as Basil’s attack on allegorical biblical interpretation. 66{ }^{66} Not only is the Cappadocian father named along with his text in order for the reader to find the precise passage, but Junius establishes a method of reading found throughout his revised passages. Church fathers, philosophers, and geographers, are enlisted as authorities to be read alongside the Bible. Theological and humanist learning are not confined to the annotations. Rather, they are the beginning point to propel the reader into a world of learning in which the biblical text is fons (a word favored by Tremellius and Junius to describe scripture). What is provided in the annotations suffices for that which a reader needs to know, but the references also direct the reader to further study. For Junius the Bible was both a book of learning in which the truth is revealed, and also the entry point to a world of sacred and profane knowledge, a community of disciplines such as natural science, geography, and history, all unified by God’s wisdom.

The 1590 annotation to Genesis 1:1 is not only a complete re-write of 1580 in the manner found throughout the first two chapters, but the changes exemplify Junius’ intentions. Whereas in 1580 the marginal notes are almost exclusively references to Hebrew words, in 1590 not only has the number of references increased, but they are also supplemented by numerous references to relevant Old and New Testament passages crucial to the theological argument. The biblical cross-references that crowd the margins of the 1590 Bible enable the reader to move easily between the Latin text and the annotations, providing the reader with illustrative passages from the Old Testament as well as explicitly Christological references from the New. Further, they served as visual markers of a developing doctrinal argument unfolding through the unity of text, margin, and notes. Thus, in several respects the relation of the reader to the printed page was reimagined in 1590.

Following Calvin and others, Junius understands Genesis’ account of creation as the fountain of all knowledge and wisdom, and this explains his complete rewrite of the annotations. The words of Moses in the opening chapters are the

[1]

1. 641590 Fol 3. I quote this first reference in Latin to provide a sense of Junius’ style.
   65 An English translation of Basil’s Hexaemeron is available online at http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3201.htm.
   66 George D. Dragas, “La doctrine de la création d’après l’Hexaéméron de saint Basile le Grand,” Istina 28 (1983), pp. 282-308; Richard Lim, “The Politics of Interpretation in Basil of Caesarea’s Hexaemeron,” Vigiliae christianae 44 (1990), pp. 351 - 370. ↩︎

key to all that follows, and Junius examines at length the nature of creation, God, and the universe. He returns to Basil to reference his teaching that creation took place in time, and that “beginning” refers to time. In interpreting “ex nihil creavit” Junius presents an argument found at the opening of his preface to the Pentateuch, that the Hebrew name for God being plural is a direct reference to the Trinity (“unus essential, tres personae, Pater, Filius, et Spiritus sanctus: ut Hebrae voce ostenditur”). 67{ }^{67} The argument itself was by no means new, but its appearance in Junius’ interpretation of the moment of creation is significant. At the beginning of his preface to the Pentateuch, Junius argued that God as Trinity was the author of scripture. 68{ }^{68}

Beginning with “caelum” and “terram” Junius discusses the universe and natural order to demonstrate the harmony of biblical and classical thought. Both the heavens and the earth are the outermost bounds of the universe, with the heavenly inhabitants above, along with the spiritual forms and intelligences. Below is matter, from which the earth and sky are made. 69{ }^{69} The readers are referred to Colossians 1:16, “for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers - all things have been created through him and for him,” and Job 38:7, “when the morning stars sang together and the sons of God shouted for joy”.

The argument is intended to support Junius’ position, repeatedly stressed in the creation story, of the harmony between the biblical account and ancient science. With Genesis 1:2 Junius explains “terra res informis & inanis” in terms of Aristotle’s Physics, as well as the correlation between Greek and Hebrew terms. Junius is particularly interested in describing the physical nature of the “abyssi”, the dark deep, by referring his readers to Psalm 104:6, where they will find the image: “You cover it [the earth] with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains.” The “wind from God”, translated in 1580 as “Spiritus Dei” (the wording was retained in 1590), Junius explains to be the third person of the Trinity, reiterating the brief comment from 1580 Bible that the Holy Spirit is neither wind nor air in any natural sense. 70{ }^{70} The 1590 annotation on the passage stresses the Trinitarian nature of creation and refutes the Pythagorean idea of a spirit of the world ("non ille mundi spiritus quem non finxerunt

[1]

1. 67 The preface to the Pentateuch clearly argues for the Trinitarian authorship of scripture (1590) sig A3r.
   68 In the preface to the Pentateuch, the Trinity as author of the Bible is clearly stated: “At huis legis auctor est Deus Pater in Filio per Spiritum sanctum: ad cujus praesentiam caelum exarsit, intremuit terra, Mosche exhorruit, Iisraelitae perterrefacti sunt, dejecta denique; omnia quae suas vires cum huius viribus ausa unquam sunt committere.” sig Aiiii’
   69 (1590), sig A1v.
   70 Ibid. ↩︎

Pythagorei"). The Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, unlike any natural force.

Of particular interest to Junius is the identification of specific rhetorical forms found in the Hebrew scriptures, such as in Gen 1:8 where the birds, clouds, and rain are interpreted as a synecdoche for the heavens, such as is to be found in Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations, Pliny’s Natural History (Bk 2, chap 38), and Aristotle’s Physics. 71{ }^{71} Once again, the references are not decorous; the reader is positively encouraged to read Cicero, Pliny, and Aristotle. The discussion of nature and language is continued with “And God said, ‘Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.’” In an extensive comment, Junius argues that “confluant aqua istae” must be understood in terms of “confluere” meaning to flow together in a right and equitable course, as a verb used only for water. Further, Junius argues that grammarians such as Marcus Terentius Varro (116-127 BCE) believed that there was an etymological link between “aqua” and “aequa” (level, equal), and he makes use of this argument to press his case. He identifies other rhetorical devices such as sylleptic forms, as in Genesis 1:9, where God names water and land. Unlike 1580, where parallels between the Bible and classical forms are occasionally observed, Junius demonstrates how the Bible embraces and perfects grammar and rhetoric. This close attention to literary forms reinforces his overarching argument that the Bible is the source of all knowledge.

The analysis of rhetorical constructions is a significant part of Junius’ work on the annotations. We encounter this concern again with the vegetation of verse 11, where Junius uses rhetorical and grammatical terminology to make distinctions of natural science. “Herbascat”, he argues, means by synecdoche “to produce”, adding that thus far the reader has heard only of the creation of simple bodies (viz., the elements). Now comes the creation of composite bodies (“de compositis”); first the inanimate and then the animate. The terrestrial inanimate forms were created prior to the heavenly, an order that displays the marvelous power of God - who makes things without any medium (i.e., the sun) - just as the light without its instruments was made on the first day. 72{ }^{72}

Junius renders “Then God said, ‘Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it,’ and it was done” as “Iterum dixit Deus, herbascat terra herbulas, herbas sementanteis semen, arbores fructiferas edentes fructum in species suas, in quibus suum sit semen super terram: & fuit ita.” In his annotations he elaborates on the scientific distinctions carried by the words. “Herbulas” are unplanted plants placed by God that they might be ready for the animals. "Herbas

71 Ibid.
72 Ibid.

sementanteis semen", however, are plants that come forth by cultivation. “Fructiferas”, he explains, is the natural potency for producing fruit, and in “edentes fructum in species suas, in quibus suum sit semen super terram” Junius sees the bringing forth, begetting of fruit conveyed by the Latin “edo” as akin to the spread of the Word of God in the world.

At the crucial moment when God creates humanity in his image, both the 1580 and 1590 annotations argue for Genesis 1:261: 26 as textual support for the doctrine of the Trinity. In discussing “faciamus”, the 1580 annotations are explicitly theological, stating that the plural does not refer to the angels or the elements but to God, who preserves the glory of creation for himself alone. 73{ }^{73} The plurals “faciamus” and “nostra” are not some form of reverential language applied to the deity, but indicate God’s triune nature. He is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the one God, three distinct persons. In speaking (“dixit”) he deliberates with himself. In sum, this passage in which God creates humanity in his image is, in Tremellius’ words, clear witness to the Holy Trinity.

Junius’ extensive treatment of creation takes us to further elaboration. Genesis 2:3 tells of God’s blessing of the Sabbath, and the 1580 discussion of “sanctificavit” refers to the fourth commandment, providing the reader with a cross-reference to Exodus 20:8. Junius provides a strikingly different approach. “Benedixit”, he writes, means that this day was already equally blessed by the law of nature. God conferred on it a singular blessing above all others, which is explained by that agreement by which he established the whole creation. Thus, “sanctificavit” indicates how God endowed the peculiar sanctity of the Sabbath over other days by his institution and power. He wants it to be holy and to be taken up with holy things alone. There are two further reasons for its particular status. The first is civil and pertains to humanity: one’s servant and maidservant should have the same rest as their master (Deut 5:20). The second reason is ceremonial, for the day was a solemn commemoration of the marvelous liberation from Egypt. The addition of these arguments relating to natural, civil, and ceremonial laws in 1590 is a direct connection of the annotation with the arguments on this subject in the Pentateuch preface.

The extensive rewriting of the annotations to Genesis 1 and 2 permit some preliminary observations. Most of the 1580 material was retained in some form: sometimes reprinted verbatim without revision (rarely the case), other times verbatim with elaboration (most common). Where 1580 provided complex explanations of Hebrew grammar and words (such as the etymology of the word “rock” in Gen 2:12), these explanations survived untouched, though in 1590 they were often accompanied by many more such explanatory notes. The marginalia

of 1590 supplies numerous cross-references to New Testament passages, an interpretive structure almost entirely absent from the first translation.

Most striking, without doubt, is the manner in which Junius structures the annotations in terms of philosophical and theological argument. Not only does Aristotle’s natural philosophy provide the lens through which creation is explained, but the rhetorical structure of the text is carefully revealed, together with the scriptural basis for Reformed scholastic theology. In short, Junius transforms the discursive character of the 1580 annotations, which largely follow the grain of the biblical text to provide linguistic aid, into a theological textbook, a rigorous study of Hebrew and Latin, literary forms, and explanation of the harmony between scripture and natural science. 74{ }^{74}

Theological, philosophical, and literary concerns, although extensively explained, do not exhaust the range of Junius’ interests. A seemingly harmless passage, Genesis 2:14, receives the most extensive treatment of any part of the chapter: “The name of the third river is Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.” In 1580 Tremellius/Junius made the following comment: "Chiddekel] the superior part of the Tigris from its source up to its confluence: this name was distortedly received by the inhabitants as Diglito see Pliny, Natural History 6.27."75 The annotation is one of the few places where an ancient author is named in the 1580 edition. In 1590 the annotation has been wholly re-written to run to two full quarto pages! Junius writes:

Chiddekel] The superior river Euphrates flows into the Tigris at the Seleucia and Ctesiphontes (which the ancients considered to be made by hand) and reaching as far as Apamea, where we have said the river Tigris once had lost its name. These things demonstrate both that it has the name Diglito corruptly in place of Hidelito (as Pliny attests - Nat Hist 6.27) together with the following words of Moses, because he says that it flows from the Orient across Assyria. The Tigris having been born along flows into the Euphrates and Apamea. Euphrates] the middle river of it, which crosses Babylon and Otris. Since in the explanation of this place interpreters exert themselves greatly and differ on this point, it will not be un-useful, I hope, if we also without any prejudice whatsoever, briefly offer our opinion, which we believe corresponds to the truth. 76{ }^{76}

What follows is an extraordinarily lengthy and dense treatment in which Junius attempts to sort out the geography of Eden. He frequently cites his sources, largely Pliny and the Claudii Ptolemaei Geographia.

In brief, Junius addresses a series of issues identified as most significant for the reader. The biblical geography was true, and not, following the Origenists, to

[1]

1. 74 Peter Harrison, The Bible, Protestantism, and the rise of natural science (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), esp. pp. 64 - 120.
   751580 “Chiddekel] superior Tygrides pars, a loco ubi oratur usque ad confluensem: hinc nomen depravatum Diglito incolis reeptum, Plinio 6.17,” sig A2v.
   761590 sig A3r-v. ↩︎

be read as allegory. The Bible is a historical document and source of factual knowledge, but the question remains of how it is to be understood when the information is so confusing. Junius rejects the views of those who sought to make the garden huge, almost the whole of Asia and Africa (or at least of Syria, Arabia, and Mesopotamia). Further, he rejects the opinion of those who think Eden was the region of Damascus in Syria, for their argument does not agree with Moses. Another misreading, according to Junius, was by those who thought Eden was in Babylonia or Chaldea but that this region had been drastically changed by the flood. The argument he found most persuasive is that the garden was located between the Tigris and Euphrates, but he was prepared to modify his view to preserve the four rivers mentioned by Moses in 2:10.

We might wonder why an annotation on biblical geography wholly out of proportion to the others should appear. In comparison to questions of the Trinity or the nature of creation, do such complexities concerning rivers matter so greatly? The answer is no and yes. In his last sentence about the location of the garden, Junius writes, “[…] but because the place of the garden, its location, was not further defined by Moses; for this reason we certainly do not want, nor are we able, to divine it: but voluntarily, and religiously, we remain within the ‘limits’ (as they are called) of Scripture.”

The annotation on Genesis 2:14 goes to the heart of Junius’ project. He wanted to demonstrate the symbiotic relationship between classical and biblical learning. The ancient geographers were able to throw light on Moses’ account of Eden and the rivers because they ultimately came from the same source of truth. Junius’ annotations were to demonstrate the unity of learning while properly acknowledging its discrete parts, in this case geography. The Bible contains the whole of knowledge, but in particular forms, as his preface to the translation sets out in detail. Truth is indivisible, but in the biblical text it is expressed through law, history, prophecy, and poetry. They are different, but not contradictory. One needs to understand their character, rules, and style. Similarly, ancient geographers and Mosaic accounts of the land are closely related yet ultimately distinguished by the divine inspiration of the Pentateuch. When differences appear, one must defer to scripture, but only on account of our flawed understanding of the truth. Knowledge advances through deeper understanding of holy writ, the book of knowledge at the center of a web of knowledge (that is, for example, classical, legal, scientific, etc.). Under the guidance of the Spirit, scripture is a guide to all learning; it is the unity of all wisdom.

Ilimit myself to a few illustrative examples from the following chapters, which were not reworked to the same degree as chapters one and two, although the changes are both significant and consistent with Junius’ purpose. We continue to find 1580 treated with great respect, with alterations or emendations made with discretion. With Genesis 3:22, however, we come across a rare example of open

disagreement. The annotation in 1580 refers to the language of the serpent as “ironic”, while ten years later Junius writes that it was certainly not irony, but a scolding. Such differences are almost never flagged. A more usual form of disagreement is found in 4:12, where Junius reworks punishment to mean more than exile (1580). It refers, he adds, to instability of body and mind (“you will be wandering and disturbed by agitations”).

For Genesis 3-25 Junius continues to add classical and patristic, as well some rabbinic and contemporary authors. Usually the references to authorities establish doctrinal argument or contribute historical and geographical information. The tone of the annotations stresses that classical and patristic authors support the argument being offered; they are witnesses to its verity. The argument is not, however, based on their teaching. Typical is Junius’ contribution to the Noah story in Genesis 6:4, where the reading of 1580 is largely retained with the addition of references to the interpretations of Josephus, Jerome, Cyril, and Epiphanius. At certain points, however, the reasons for the choice of references are somewhat opaque. For Genesis 4:23, in the midst of a long annotation the reader encounters four lines of Euripides in Greek followed by a passage from Seneca’s Hercules Oetaeus. The quotations are not explained other than as classical analogues to the Lamech story. It must be said that some classical references seem so pointless that one suspects Junius was simply showing off his prodigious knowledge of ancient literature.

Without doubt, one of Junius’ passions was geography, and some of the most extensively supplemented annotations concern the physical locations of biblical stories, as we have seen in the example of Eden and the four rivers. In yet another expansive geographical explanation, about one quarter of a page in length, Junius treats Genesis 8:4 and assembles evidence from classical and patristic sources to determine the precise location of Mount Ararat. Cited authorities include Quintus Curtius Rufus, Ptolemy, Epiphanius, Josephus, Tertullian, Arnobius & Prudentius, Eusebius, and Sozemon. The direction of this interest is signaled in the 1580 Testamenti veteris, which has an uncharacteristically long note on chapter ten, well over a page. The 1580 annotation for chapter ten is one of the few places where a classical author is named, in this case Pliny.

The 1590, however, greatly exceeds the enthusiasm of 1580 by providing a great deal more commentary. The revised annotation begins with an explanatory section of Tolstoyesque proportions before proceeding to an elucidation of each of the names of the people and places mentioned and sifting through the body of classical authorities/patristic evidence. Although somewhat exhausting (even mind-numbing) to read, a clear purpose emerges. Junius’ attention to detail demonstrates the veracity and consistency of the biblical account. As noted above, the witness of classical writers only confirms what is found, albeit ob-

liquely, in the Bible. The Bible is a wholly consistent body of knowledge that yields its wisdom to those of learning who are guided by the Spirit.

It is no coincidence that the Testamenti veteris was printed in Geneva in 1590, the same year as the critical edition of Calvin’s Institutes. Junius came to Heidelberg in 1573 to work with Tremellius on the Latin translation of the Old Testament. It was clear that the Italian was the senior partner. By 1590 Junius had become a senior figure in the Reformed churches, having taught in the Palatinate and published extensively on various theological questions. The revisions to Genesis demonstrate how he intended to take the Bible forward into a new age of Reformed orthodoxy in which he was a leading theological voice. Although limited in scope, the changes concerned one of the key passages of scripture concerning the nature of God and creation. The 1590 Old Testament is a Reformed book in transition, a book of two generations of the Reformation. From Tremellius’ birth to Junius’ death was a span of almost one hundred years. Junius created a book of knowledge, encyclopedic in character and astonishing in scope. To turn the pages of the Testamenti veteris is to be invited into a world that envisaged the divine source of all learning, and the unity of wisdom. Although he died in 1603, Franciscus Junius gave the seventeenth century a Bible that would be widely read and cited, as Dryden poetically observed.