A translation and edition of the Sacrorum Parallelorum Liber Primus of Franciscus Junius : a study in sixteenth century hermeneutics

Abstract

In his preface to the Sacrorum Parallelorum Libri Tres, Junius expresses the confidence that, if he has not attained the goal in writing the book which he yearned to achieve, he has at least pointed out to others the way of proving more successful. As the first monograph on the use of the Old Testament in the New, the Sacri Paralleli opened up new exegetical territory into which hosts of explorers and, indeed, settlers have since moved. The earlier scouts in this region often remind us that they are travelling in the pioneering footsteps of Franciscus Junius. Thus, Andreas Kesler in the seventeenth century makes use of the Sacri Paralleli, as does the great Surenhusius of Amsterdam in the eighteenth century. Even as recently as a hundred years ago Eduard Bdhl, in the historical introduction to his own dissertation on the Old Testament citations in the New Testament, wrote: "Dass ein Mann wie Franciscus Junius, welcher mit Tremellius das berühmte lateinische Bibelwerk herausgab, viel Gutes bietet, lasst sich erwarten". Yet, more recent surveys of past literature on the bi-testamental passages omit any mention of the original spade-work in the field. Ellis, for example, begins his summary of "the more direct study of NT quotations" with the notes which Drusius wrote around 1594. No account of such research, however, can justly pass over the thorough work of Franciscus Junius. Some have considered it, with good reason, the most important book of one of the most influential exegetes in the Age of Orthodoxy. As Cuno observes, the Sacri Paralleli were truly epoch-making in the history of exegesis. The present study of the Sacrorum Parallelorum Liber Primus begins with a rather full account of the life of Junius for two reasons. First, there is no delineation of his life available in English longer than the brief article in the New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge. Secondly, the life of Junius not only is very interesting, but also sheds much light on the rationale of the Sacri Paralleli. There follow discussions of this rationale, the history of the Sacri Paralleli and the various editions, and the hermeneutical principles employed by Junius in the Liber Primus. In the course of his investigation of the several editions of the Sacri Paralleli, the author has examined all copies of the book which he could locate in the public repositories of Scotland and so hopes that his treatment may prove useful to the rare book librarians of the collections concerned. The translation of the Liber Primus was executed on the basis of the first folio edition (1607) of the works of Junius, this printing being a reliable, specimen of the text and the earliest copy available in the Library of the University of St Andrews. Some minor textual corruptions, however, in the 1607 edition have been corrected on the basis of the original edition of 1588. Likewise, the Biblical and patristic citations which appeared in the margins of the original edition have been noted as marginal references here, rather than being into the text in the manner of the folio editions (which sometimes match these citations to the wrong, sentences in the text). The translation here, nevertheless, follows the paragraph divisions of the folio printings, since such divisions are so few in the original edition. The third volume of this dissertation contains several pertinent appendices: The first is a photographic copy of the specimen of the original edition of the Sacrorum Parallelorum Liber Primus in the possession of the Library of New College, Edinburgh. Mention has been made in the course of this appendix if a note relating to a given page occurs in the "Errata", listed at the end of the copy of the Sacri Paralleli used here. Copies of the 1607 printing of the Sacri Paralleli are available in so many British libraries that to provide a copy of the Liber Primus of that edition here would be superfluous. The second appendix is a photographic copy of the "Praefatio" to the Sacri Paralleli (New Col- lege specimen again). The Roman numeral at the bottom of each page has been supplied here to facilitate reference to this "Praefatio" in the course of this study. There follows an annotated translation of the "Praefatio".