Volume III Part 26 (1/2)

[29] Navagiero says, it was prescribed the lectures should be in Latin.

Viaggio, fol. 7.--Robles, Vida de Ximenez, cap. 16.

Of these professors.h.i.+ps, six were appropriated to theology; six to canon law; four to medicine; one to anatomy; one to surgery; eight to the arts, as they were called, embracing logic, physics, and metaphysics; one to ethics; one to mathematics; four to the ancient languages; four to rhetoric; and six to grammar. One is struck with the disproportion of the mathematical studies to the rest. Though an important part of general education, and consequently of the course embraced in most universities, it had too little reference to a religious one, to find much favor with the cardinal.

[30] Lampillas, in his usual patriotic vein, stoutly maintains that the chairs of the university were all supplied by native Spaniards. ”Trovo in Spagna,” he says of the cardinal, ”tutta quella scelta copia di grandi uomini, quali richiedeva la grande impresa,” etc. (Letteratura Spagnuola, tom. i, part. 2, p. 160.) Alvaro Gomez, who flourished two centuries earlier, and personally knew the professors, is the better authority. De Rebus Gestis, fol. 80-82.

[31] L. Marineo, Cosas Memorables, fol. 13.

Alvaro Gomez knew several of these _savans_ whose scholars.h.i.+p (and he was a competent judge) he notices with liberal panegyric. De Rebus Gestis, fol. 80 et seq.

[32] Quintanilla, Archetypo, lib. 3, cap. 17.

[33] Gomez, De Rebus Gestis, fol. 86.

The reader will readily call to mind the familiar anecdote of King Charles and Dr. Busby.

[34] ”Alcala de Henares,” says Martyr in one of his early letters, ”quae dicitur esse Complutum. Sit, vel ne, nil mihi curae.” (Opus Epist., epist.

254.) These irreverent doubts were uttered before it had gained its literary celebrity. L. Marineo derives the name _Complutum_ from the abundant fruitfulness of the soil,--”c.u.mplumiento que tiene de cada cosa.”

Cosas Memorables, fol. 13.

[35] Ximenes acknowledges his obligations to his Holiness, in particular for the Greek MSS. ”Atque ex ipsis [exemplaribus] quidem Graeca Sanct.i.tati tuae debemus; qui ex ista Apostolica bibliotheca antiquissimos tam Veteris quam Novi codices perquam humane ad nos misisti.” Biblia Polyglotta, (Compluti, 1514-17,) Prologo.

[36] ”Maximam,” says the cardinal in his Preface, ”laboris nostri partem in eo praecipue fuisse versatam; ut et virorum in linguarum cognitione eminentissimorum opera uteremur, et castigatissima omni ex parte vetustissimaque exemplaria pro archetypis haberemus; quorum quidem, tam Hebraeorum quam Graecorum ac Latinorum, multiplicem copiam, variis ex locis, non sine summo labore conquisivimus.” Biblia Polyglotta, Compluti, Prologo.

[37] Gomez, De Rebus Gestis, fol. 39.--Quintanilla, Archetypo, lib. 3, cap. 10.

[38] Martyr speaks of Ximenes, in one of his epistles, as ”doctrina singulari oppletum.” (Opus Epist., epist. 108.) He speaks with more distrust in another; ”Aiunt esse virum, _si non literis_, morum taraen sanct.i.tate egregium.” (Epist. 160.) This was written some years later, when he had better knowledge of him.

[39] Quintanilla, Archetype, lib. 3, cap. lo.--Gomez, De Rebus Gestis, fol. 38.

The scholars employed in the compilation were the venerable Lebrija, the learned Nunez, or Pinciano, of whom the reader has had some account, Lopez de Zuniga, a controversialist of Erasmus, Bartholomeo de Castro, the famous Greek Demetrius Cretensis, and Juan de Vergara;--all thorough linguists, especially in the Greek and Latin. To these were joined Paulo Coronel, Alfonso a physician, and Alfonso Zamora, converted Jews, and familiar with the Oriental languages. Zamora has the merit of the philological compilations relative to the Hebrew and Chaldaic, in the last volume, lidem auct. ut supra; et Suma de la Vida de Cisneros, MS.

[40] Quintanilla, Archetypo, lib. 3, cap. 10.

[41] The work was originally put at the extremely low price of six ducats and a half a copy. (Biblia Polyglotta Compluti, Praefix.) As only 600 copies, however, were struck off, it has become exceedingly rare and valuable. According to Brunei, it has been sold as high as 63.

[42] ”Industria et solertia honorabilis viri Arnaldi Guillelmi de Brocario, artis impressoris Magistri. Anno Domini 1517. Julii die decimo.”

Biblia Polyglotta Compluti. Postscript to 4th and last part of Vetus Test.

[43] Gomez, De Rebus Gestis, fol. 38. The part devoted to the Old Testament contains the Hebrew original with the Latin Vulgate, the Septuagint version, and the Chaldaic paraphrase, with Latin translations by the Spanish scholars. The New Testament was printed in the original Greek, with the Vulgate of Jerome. After the completion of this work, the cardinal projected an edition of Aristotle on the same scale, which was unfortunately defeated by his death. Ibid., fol. 39.

[44] The princ.i.p.al controversy on this subject was carried on in Germany between Wetstein and Goeze; the former impugning, the latter defending the Complutensian Bible. The cautious and candid Michaelis, whose prepossessions appear to have been on the side of Goeze, decides ultimately, after his own examination, in favor of Wetstein, as regards the value of the MSS. employed; not however as relates to the grave charge of wilfully accommodating the Greek text to the Vulgate. See the grounds and merits of the controversy, apud Michaelis, Introduction to the New Testament, translated by Marsh, vol. ii. part 1, chap. 12, sec. 1; part 2, notes.

[45] Professor Moldenhauer, of Germany, visited Alcala in 1784, for the interesting purpose of examining the MSS. used in the Complutensian Polyglot. He there learned that they had all been disposed of, as so much waste paper, (_membranas inutiles_) by the librarian of that time to a rocket-maker of the town, who soon worked them up in the regular way of his vocation! He a.s.signs no reason for doubting the truth of the story.

The name of the librarian, unfortunately, is not recorded. It would have been as imperishable as that of Omar. Marsh's Michaelis, vol. ii. part l, chap. 12, sec. 1, note.

[46] The celebrated text of ”the three witnesses,” formerly cited in the Trinitarian controversy, and which Porson so completely overturned, rests in part on what Gibbon calls ”the honest bigotry of the Complutensian editors.” One of the three Greek ma.n.u.scripts, in which that text is found, is a forgery from the Polyglot of Alcala, according to Mr. Norton, in his recent work, ”The Evidences of the Genuineness of the Gospels,” (Boston, 1837, vol. i. Additional Notes, p. x.x.xix.),--a work which few can be fully competent to criticize, but which no person can peruse without confessing the acuteness and strength of its reasoning, the nice discrimination of its criticism, and the precision and purity of its diction. Whatever difference of opinion may be formed as to some of its conclusions, no one will deny that the originality and importance of its views make it a substantial accession to theological science; and that, within the range permitted by the subject, it presents, on the whole, one of the n.o.blest specimens of scholars.h.i.+p, and elegance of composition, to be found in our youthful literature.

[47] ”Accedit,” says the editors of the Polyglot, adverting to the blunders of early transcribers, ”ubicunque Latinorum codic.u.m varietas est, aut depravatae lectionis suspitio (id quod librariorum imperitia simul et negligentia frequentissime accidere videmus), ad primam Scriptunae originem recurrendum est.” Biblia Polyglotta, Compluti, Prologo.