Immanuel Tremellius (; 1510 – 9 October 1580) was an Italian

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

convert to Christianity. He was known as a leading Hebraist and

Bible The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally writt ...

translator Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''trans ...

Life

He was born at

Ferrara Ferrara (; ; ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) 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 ...

and educated at the

University of Padua The University of Padua (, UNIPD) is an Italian public research university in Padua, Italy. It was founded in 1222 by a group of students and teachers from the University of Bologna, who previously settled in Vicenza; thus, it is the second-oldest ...

. He was converted about 1540 to the Catholic faith through Cardinal Pole but embraced

Protestantism Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that emphasizes Justification (theology), justification of sinners Sola fide, through faith alone, the teaching that Salvation in Christianity, salvation comes by unmerited Grace in Christianity, divin ...

in the following year, before going to

Strasbourg Strasbourg ( , ; ; ) is the Prefectures in France, prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est Regions of France, region of Geography of France, eastern France, in the historic region of Alsace. It is the prefecture of the Bas-Rhin Departmen ...

to teach Hebrew. Owing to the

Schmalkaldic War The Schmalkaldic War (; July 1546May 1547) was fought within the territories of the Holy Roman Empire between the allied forces of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and Maurice, Duke of Saxony against the Lutheran Schmalkaldic League, with the forc ...

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 of the United King ...

with Archbishop Cranmer 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 o ...

as Regius professor of Hebrew at Cambridge. On the death of

Edward VI of England Edward VI (12 October 1537 – 6 July 1553) was King of England and King of Ireland, Ireland from 28 January 1547 until his death in 1553. He was crowned on 20 February 1547 at the age of nine. The only surviving son of Henry VIII by his thi ...

he returned to Germany in 1553. At

Zweibrücken Zweibrücken (; ; , ; literally translated as "Two Bridges") is a town in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, on the Schwarzbach (Blies), Schwarzbach River. Name The name ''Zweibrücken'' means 'two bridges'; older forms of the name include Middl ...

he was imprisoned as a

Calvinist Reformed Christianity, also called Calvinism, is a major branch of Protestantism that began during the 16th-century Protestant Reformation. In the modern day, it is largely represented by the Continental Reformed Protestantism, Continenta ...

. He became professor of

Old Testament The Old Testament (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 and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Isr ...

at the

University of Heidelberg Heidelberg University, officially the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg (; ), is a public university, public research university in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Founded in 1386 on instruction of Pope Urban VI, Heidelberg is List ...

in 1561 and remained there until he was released from his post in 1577. He ultimately found refuge at the College of Sedan, 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, appeared in 1569, at

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

Frankfurt Frankfurt am Main () is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 773,068 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the List of cities in Germany by population, fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located in the forela ...

between 1575 and 1579, in London in 1580, and in numerous later editions. The work was joint with Franciscus Junius (the elder), 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, polemicist, and civil servant. His 1667 epic poem ''Paradise Lost'' was written in blank verse and included 12 books, written in a time of immense religious flux and politic ...

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

John Donne John Donne ( ; 1571 or 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, D ...

for his version of '' Lamentations''. Archbishop James Ussher 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 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
''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 Academic staff of Heidelberg University 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