Immanuel Tremellius ( it, Giovanni Emmanuele Tremellio; 1510 – 9 October 1580) was an Italian

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

convert to Christianity. He was known as a leading

Hebraist A Hebraist is a specialist in Jewish, Hebrew and Hebraic studies. Specifically, British and German scholars of the 18th and 19th centuries who were involved in the study of Hebrew language and literature were commonly known by this designation, a ...

and

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...

translator Translation is the communication of the Meaning (linguistic), meaning of a #Source and target languages, source-language text by means of an Dynamic and formal equivalence, equivalent #Source and target languages, target-language text. The ...

Life

He was born at

Ferrara Ferrara (, ; egl, Fràra ) is a city and ''comune'' in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy, capital of the Province of Ferrara. it had 132,009 inhabitants. It is situated northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main stream ...

and educated at the

University of Padua The University of Padua ( it, Università degli Studi di Padova, UNIPD) is an Italian university located in the city of Padua, region of Veneto, northern Italy. The University of Padua was founded in 1222 by a group of students and teachers from B ...

. He was converted about 1540 to the Catholic faith through

Cardinal Pole Reginald Pole (12 March 1500 – 17 November 1558) was an English cardinal of the Catholic Church and the last Catholic archbishop of Canterbury, holding the office from 1556 to 1558, during the Counter-Reformation. Early life Pole was born a ...

but embraced

Protestantism Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...

in the following year, before going to

Strasbourg Strasbourg (, , ; german: Straßburg ; gsw, label=Bas Rhin Alsatian, Strossburi , gsw, label=Haut Rhin Alsatian, Strossburig ) is the prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est region of eastern France and the official seat of the Eu ...

to teach Hebrew. Owing to the

Schmalkaldic War The Schmalkaldic War (german: link=no, Schmalkaldischer Krieg) was the short period of violence from 1546 until 1547 between the forces of Emperor Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire (simultaneously King Charles I of Spain), commanded by the Duk ...

in Germany, he was compelled to seek asylum in England, where he resided at

Lambeth Palace Lambeth Palace is the official London residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury. It is situated in north Lambeth, London, on the south bank of the River Thames, south-east of the Palace of Westminster, which houses Parliament, on the opposite ...

with

Archbishop Cranmer Thomas Cranmer (2 July 1489 – 21 March 1556) was a leader of the English Reformation and Archbishop of Canterbury during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI and, for a short time, Mary I. He helped build the case for the annulment of Henry's ...

in 1547. Two years later, he succeeded

Paul Fagius Paul Fagius (1504 – 13 November 1549) was a Renaissance scholar of Biblical Hebrew and Protestant reformer. Life Fagius was born at Rheinzabern in 1504. His father was a teacher and council clerk. In 1515 he went to study at the University of H ...

Regius professor of Hebrew at Cambridge The Regius Professorship of Hebrew in the University of Cambridge is an ancient academic chair at the University of Cambridge founded by King Henry VIII in 1540. When created, the professorship carried a permanent stipend of £40 per year. In 1848 ...

. On the death of

Edward VI of England Edward VI (12 October 1537 – 6 July 1553) was King of England and Ireland from 28 January 1547 until his death in 1553. He was crowned on 20 February 1547 at the age of nine. Edward was the son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour and the first En ...

he returned to Germany in 1553. At

Zweibrücken Zweibrücken (; french: Deux-Ponts, ; Palatinate German: ''Zweebrigge'', ; literally translated as "Two Bridges") is a town in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, on the Schwarzbach river. Name The name ''Zweibrücken'' means 'two bridges'; olde ...

he was imprisoned as a

Calvinist Calvinism (also called the Reformed Tradition, Reformed Protestantism, Reformed Christianity, or simply Reformed) is a major branch of Protestantism that follows the theological tradition and forms of Christian practice set down by John Ca ...

. He became professor of

Old Testament The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...

at the

University of Heidelberg } Heidelberg University, officially the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg, (german: Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg; la, Universitas Ruperto Carola Heidelbergensis) is a public research university in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, ...

in 1561 and remained there until he was released from his post in 1577. He ultimately found refuge at the

College of Sedan The Academy of Sedan ( Fr.: ''Académie de Sedan'') was a Huguenot academy in Sedan in the Principality of Sedan, founded in 1579 and suppressed in 1681. It was one of the main centres for the production of Reformed pastors in France for a hundre ...

, where he died. According to Morison, he "when dying reversed his nation's decision, and exclaimed, Not Barabbas, but Jesus! (Vivat Christus, et pereat Barabbas!)."

Works

His chief literary work was a Latin translation of the Bible from the Hebrew and Syriac. The New Testament translation, by

Theodore Beza Theodore Beza ( la, Theodorus Beza; french: Théodore de Bèze or ''de Besze''; June 24, 1519 – October 13, 1605) was a French Calvinist Protestant theologian, reformer and scholar who played an important role in the Protestant Reformatio ...

, appeared in 1569, at

Geneva Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaki ...

. The five parts relating to the Old Testament were published at

Frankfurt Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...

between 1575 and 1579, in London in 1580, and in numerous later editions. The work was joint with

Franciscus Junius (the elder) Franciscus Junius the Elder (born François du Jon, 1 May 1545 – 23 October 1602) was a Reformed scholar, Protestant reformer and theologian. Born in Bourges in central France, he initially studied law, but later decided to study theology in ...

, his son-in-law. Harris Fletcher remarks that there were two quite different versions of Tremellius available in the late 1500s:

The Junius-Tremellius Bible first appeared from 1575-79, and subsequently in two different major forms. One of these in 1585 was printed as a tall folio with copious marginal notes, which were for the greater part written by Tremellius. The folio editions contained, in addition to Tremellius' Latin Old Testament with this large amount of marginal notation, a complete Latin translation of the Apochrypha done by Junius, and two Latin translations of the New Testament, one being of the fragmentary Syriac version by Tremellius, and the other from the Greek by Beza. The other form in which this Bible appeared was printed, usually in quarto, without notes, with the Apochrypha, and after 1585 with only Beza's translation of the New Testament.

The Tremellius translation was favored by

John Milton John Milton (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet and intellectual. His 1667 epic poem '' Paradise Lost'', written in blank verse and including over ten chapters, was written in a time of immense religious flux and political ...

, "undoubtedly" the folio version, with Tremellius's marginal notes, according to Harris. It was used also by

John Donne John Donne ( ; 22 January 1572 – 31 March 1631) was an English poet, scholar, soldier and secretary born into a recusant family, who later became a clergy, cleric in the Church of England. Under royal patronage, he was made Dean of St Paul's ...

for his version of ''

Lamentations The Book of Lamentations ( he, אֵיכָה, , from its incipit meaning "how") is a collection of poetic laments for the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE. In the Hebrew Bible it appears in the Ketuvim ("Writings") as one of the Five Megillot ...

''. Archbishop

James Ussher James Ussher (or Usher; 4 January 1581 – 21 March 1656) was the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland between 1625 and 1656. He was a prolific scholar and church leader, who today is most famous for his ident ...

also used the Junius-Tremellius translation when compiling his ''Annals of the World''.James Ussher, Larry and Marion Pierce (editors)
''The Annals of the World''
Revised and Updated from the 1658 English Translation, Master Books, Green Forest, AR (2003), p. 6 Tremellius also translated John Calvin's

Geneva Catechism A catechism (; from grc, κατηχέω, "to teach orally") is a summary or exposition of doctrine and serves as a learning introduction to the Sacraments traditionally used in catechesis, or Christian religious teaching of children and adult ...

into Hebrew (Paris, 1551), and wrote a "Chaldaic" and Syriac grammar (Paris, 1569).

References

External links

*
Source
*
Literaturliste im Online-Katalog
der

Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin This is a list of the state libraries (german: Landesbibliothek) for each of the Länder of the Federal Republic of Germany. These libraries hold the right for legal deposit for the publications in their respective state. Landesbibliothek S ...

''Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge''
vol. 11, pp. 504. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Tremellius, Immanuel 1510 births 1580 deaths 16th-century Italian Jews Christian Hebraists Converts to Roman Catholicism from Judaism University of Padua alumni Heidelberg University faculty Jewish biblical scholars Translators of the Bible into Latin Jewish translators of the Bible German Calvinist and Reformed Christians 16th-century Calvinist and Reformed Christians Academics of the University of Cambridge Converts to Calvinism from Roman Catholicism Calvinist and Reformed biblical scholars 16th-century Jewish biblical scholars Regius Professors of Hebrew (Cambridge) Messianic Jews

Life

Works

See also

References

Further reading

External links