isaac casaubon hebraist

7/25/2019 Isaac Casaubon Hebraist

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Isaac Casaubon, Hebraist

Mordechai Feingold

Published online: 13 December 2012

# Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2012

Abstract A review essay of Anthony Grafton and Joanna Weinbegrs remarkable IHave Always Loved the Holy Tongue. The essay seeks to pay homage to theirexemplary contribution to our understanding of Early Modern Christian Hebraism and of erudition more generally by expanding on their pioneering study throughreflection on three themes: Casaubons early Hebrew studies; the motivation and scopeof his learning; and his posthumous reputation as a Hebraist.

Keywords Casaubon, Isaac. Christian Hebraism. Erudition. Grafton, Anthony.Weinberg, Joanna

On 12 February 1610 Isaac Casaubon wrote a fulsome letter to Johannes Buxtorf,professor of Hebrew at Basel. Having professed his admiration for Buxtorfs un-matched knowledge of the language and culture of the Jews, Casaubon proceeded todeprecate his own attainments: Although I am sorry about the [limited] progress Ihave made in your form of letters, I have always loved the Holy Tongue.1 The final

part of the sentence furnishes the title of the book under review, as well as serves toencapsulate the objective of its authors. Through a series of intricately woven case

Int class trad (2012) 19:6381DOI 10.1007/s12138-012-0309-0

1Isaac Casaubon,Epistolae, ed. Theodorus Janssonius Van Almeloveen (Rotterdam: Caspar Fritsch &Michael Bhm, 1709), p. 606; Anthony Grafton and Joanna Weinberg, I Have Always Loved the HolyTongue, p. 67.

A review essay of Anthony Grafton and Joanna Weinberg, I Have Always Loved the Holy Tongue:IsaacCasaubon, the Jews, and a Forgotten Chapter in Renaissance Scholarship. Cambridge, MA/London:Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2011. Pp. x, 380. ISBN 9780674048409. $35.00. I wish tothank Kristine Haugen, Anthony Grafton, Carol Magun and Gerald Toomer for their helpful comments onan earlier draft of this paper. Psalm verse numbers in this essay follow the KJV, whence all Englishtranslations derive; they are one or two numerals lower than the corresponding verse numbers in theHebrew Bible.

M. Feingold (*)Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences, California Institute of Technology,Pasadena, CA, USAe-mail: [email protected]


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studies originally delivered as the Carl Newell Jackson Lectures at Harvard Univer-sity Grafton and Weinberg seek to explore not only the precise nature of CasaubonsHebraic knowledge, but the relation of such knowledge to the totality of his scholarlyendeavours. They recognize Casaubons limitations, and they never attempt exaggerated

comparisons to such veritable Hebraists as Buxtorf or Johannes Drusius not even toJoseph Scaliger. Casaubon delved into Hebraic studies primarily in order to gain fullerand deeper understanding of early Christianity and therefore, they argue, to knowCasaubon the Judaist is to know Casaubon the classicist in a new way. It is withinthis carefully defined context that we should interpret their claim for the centrality ofHebrew to Casaubon: once we take all the evidence into account once we retraceCasaubons full webs of annotations and diary entries, letters and publications it willbecome clear that Hebrew studies played a vital role in his life and thought, and that theyshed a necessary light on his methods as a scholar.2

With seeming ease, Grafton and Weinberg triangulate Casaubons diary entries,manuscript notes, and marginalia with his published works to yield a unique insightinto the mentality and working habits of a truly extraordinary scholar. Their insistence onthe need to recapture the totality of Casaubons pursuits in order to appreciate fully theextent of his erudition and goals, elevate scholarly standards to a new level commen-surate with a similar level set by Gerald Toomers superb intellectual biography of JohnSelden.3 To this end, our authors marshal all of the materials Casaubon has left usinorder to explore as wide as possible a range of the paths Casaubon broke. In addition,they propose to bringthe study of material texts, of books and those who read and used

them

closer to the traditional form of classical scholarship (p. 20). The resultant rich andintricate tapestry illuminates in an exciting way the manner in which Casaubon as wellas many other early modern scholars read and annotated books, and how Casaubonsexpansive reading and exceptional memory enabled him to recognize the convergenceof disparate testimonies for a novel elucidation of antiquity.

The thematic and episodic structure of the book, mandated by its beginnings as a seriesof lectures, necessarily precludes exhaustiveness. The purpose of the present essay,therefore, is to pay homage to Grafton and Weinbergs exemplary contribution andbeautifully produced volume4 by expanding on their pioneering study throughreflection on three themes: Casaubons early Hebrew studies; the motivation andscope of his learning; his posthumous reputation as a Hebraist.

Little information survives regarding Casaubons initiation into Hebrew. While astudent at Geneva, Grafton and Weinberg suggest, he heard Theodore Beza lecture onthe Old Testament and took Hebrew lessons with a noted scholar, Pierre Chevalier (p. 67).Casaubons study with Chevalier, however, commenced many years later. During hisstudent days (15781581), the Hebrew professor at the Geneva Academy was CorneliusBonaventura Bertram, who held the position for nineteen years before leaving in 1586. Inall likelihood, therefore, Casaubon attended Bertrams lectures and, aided by hisown efforts, managed by 1587 to acquire basic competency in biblical Hebrew

2 Grafton and Weinberg, I Have Always Loved the Holy Tongue,pp. 4, 1920.3 See Graftons review of ToomersJohn Selden:A Life in ScholarshipinHuntington Library Quarterly, 74(2011), pp. 50513, and Toomers review of I Have Always Loved the Holy Tongue in History of Universities, 26 (2012), pp. 2469.4 It is also nearly free of errors. I note only several transcription errors of Bodl. MS Casaubon 30 fol. 105r-v

(pp. 2723, 276, 27980 n. 132).

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hints of which can be found in his notes on the New Testament. There also existed alimited working relation between the two. As Campagnolo notes, Casaubon participatedin the revisions to the Geneva Bible (published in 1588), supervised by Beza in closecollaboration with Bertram.5 In 1587 Casaubon also acknowledged specific assistance

he had received from Bertram both in his New Testament notes and, moreeffusively, in his commentary on Strabo.6

Nevertheless, the subsequent disappearance of Bertram from Casaubons works andcorrespondence with the exception of a single acerbic quip to which I shall return suggests formality on Casaubons part, if not outright antipathy. And for a good reason.Notwithstanding his considerable linguistic skills, Bertram showed himself to be a ratherbigoted Calvinist, intent on modeling Geneva as narrowly as possible on what he understoodto be the dictates of Scripture.7 Toward that end, Bertram composed his most influentialwork,De politia Iudaica,tam civili quam ecclesiastica(1574), purposely in order to

demonstrate that Mosaic polity prefigured the legal systems of all other humansocieties and, consequently, such a polity should regulate the ecclesiastical as wellas the civil affairs of Geneva. His zeal must have been viewed as excessive even byhis colleagues as happened in 1569, when Bertram insisted on the necessity ofusing Adonai, and notJehovah, when pronouncing Gods name, a suggestion thatBeza and other ministers dismissed as absurd, superstitious, and truly Rabbinical.8

Casaubon would have considered Bertrams literalist mind distasteful under the best ofcircumstances. But Bertrams crusade against ScaligersDe emendatione temporum just as Casaubon began fashioning his scholarly persona in close imitation of the ideal

of the polyhistor, as exemplified by the celebrated Leiden professor

undoubtedlycompounded such a distaste. Already when Scaliger held the professorship of arts inGeneva during the early 1570s, Bertram had developed a strong dislike of him.Though the reason for Bertrams animosity remains unclear, it may well have beenmotivated by religious zeal. Whatever the motive, in June 1573 Bertram denouncedScaliger before the Consistory, only to find himself reprimanded by his colleagues.9

5 Matteo Campagnolo, Entre Thodore De Bze et rasme de Rotterdam: Isaac Casaubon, in IrenaBackus (ed.),Thodore De Bze(15191605). Actes du Colloque de Gneve(Septembre 2005) (Geneva:Librairie Droz, 2007), pp. 195217, at p. 208.6 Isaac Casaubon, Notae in Novum Testamentum, Novi Testamenti libri omnes, recens nunc editi: cumnotis & animadversionibus doctissimorum, praesertim vero, Roberti Stephani, Josephi Scaligeri, IsaaciCasauboni(Leiden: Elzevir, 1641), p. 456; Strabo,Rerum geographicarum libri XVII(Geneva: EustathiusVignon, 1587), p. 208 (of the commentary): Magna gratia habeatur doctissimo viro Cornelio Bertramo,non sacrarum tantum Literarum quas diu magna cum sua laude est professus, sed totius etiam humanitatis

peritissimo, qui veram lectionem hujus locis divinavit, eamque mihi ante aliquot annos ostendit. quaconjectura nihil ingeniosius nihil probabilius dici queat.7 See Richard Simons assessment of Bertram: Cornelius Bertram, understanding Hebrew better than anywho had gone before him, took greater liberty in his Correction both of the Translation and the Notes. Wecannot deny but he has corrected many places which were not literally enough translated in Olivetan'sorCalvinsTranslations; but on the other side he has very improperly in many places preferrd the Rabbins

Interpretation before the ancient Interpreters. He has moreover corrupted some places which were welltranslated in the former Editions, and he has regulated himself chiefly by Munsters and TremelliussTranslations. There is more judgement in Olivetan'sand CalvinsTranslations, although they understoodHebrew but very indifferently: Richard Simon, A Critical History of the Old Testament(London: WalterDavis, 1682), p. 176 (second pagination).8 Fatio Olivier and Olivier Labarth (eds), Registres de la Compagnie de Pasteurs de Genve, III: (15651574) (Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1969), pp. 256.9 Ibid., pp. 1078.

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Bertram renewed his campaign a decade later, and this time more successfully. Thepublication in August 1583 of De emendatione temporum indubitably alarmed thegodly in Geneva, and within months Scaliger found himself embroiled in an episto-lary exchange with at least three former colleagues: Theodore Beza, Simon Goulart

and Bertram. Scaliger judged the criticisms emanating from Geneva to be informedby ignorance, laced with malice. The second edition of his book, Scaliger assured acorrespondent, would silence those incapable of comprehending his design, whofurther believed that everything they failed to understand amounted to an error.Regarding Bertram as the instigator of the campaign against him, Scaliger wasparticularly irked by the condescending manner in which the Hebrew professoradvised Scaliger to steer clear of ecclesiastical history in which he had beeninsufficiently versed and take heed not to meddle with controversial positions onpoints of importance to the church.10

Small wonder, therefore, that Scaliger lashed out at Bertram in his letters, as well as inprivate conversation:sordidus, acariatre. Il a grandement brouill & resv en matierede Chronologie.11 Even more revealing is Casaubons intimation to Scaliger in 1594 ofhis own low opinion of Bertram, while recalling his own defence of Scaliger against hisformer colleagues accusations a decade earlier: Let even a certain Cornelius, who is (asI am well aware) known to you, be a witness to my zeal for you, so to speak. However,he and whoeveract like Cornelius[1]12 are insane by habit, and theyreveal their minds disease all too often. But you, greatest of men, go on, I beg you:illuminate the world of learning with the rays of your divine genius.13

If the person with whom he had laid the grounds of Hebrew learning faded from view,Casaubon fondly recalled the one who guided the second stage of his Hebrew studies:Pierre Chevalier, amicissimo Praeceptore. We may pinpoint with some certainty thecommencement of such studies to 1592, on the basis of a letter Casaubon wrote PhilippeCanaye de Fresnes, then in Venice, in which he announced his embarking on the study ofAramaic and the language of the rabbies, and entreated his friend to acquire for himseveral Hebrew books, including David Kimhis grammar (Sefer Mikhlol) and book ofHebrew roots (Sefer Shorashim), as well as David Bombergs Rabbinic Bible if itcould be purchased for a reasonable price. I shall return to the motivation for such a studybelow; but here it should be noted that the collaboration proved to be brief owing toChevaliers untimely death in March 1594. His teachers passing, Casaubon lamented, notonly deprived him of a dear friend but put an end to his plan to gain a deeper entrance intoHebrew. A decade later he intimated as much to Scaliger: In recent days, Pierre Chevalierof blessed memory has been transported to the seat of the blessed: his name was verysweet to me: I would tell you what a loss his death has been to my studies, if my mind didnot shrink from the memory of this sorry misfortune. But he was all too mortal: and we too

10 Joseph Juste Scaliger,Epistres franoises des personnages illustres&doctes(Amsterdam: Harderwyck,1624), pp. 668, 11619; Joseph Juste Scaliger, Lettres franaises indites , ed. Philippe Tamizey de

Larroque (Paris: Alphonse Picard, 1881), pp. 17380; Jacob Bernays, Joseph Justus Scaliger (Berlin:Wilhelm Hertz, 1855), p. 312; Anthony Grafton, From De die natalito De emendatione temporum: TheOrigins and Setting of Scaligers Chronology,Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 48 (1985),

pp. 10043, at pp. 129, 1413.11 Pierre Desmaizeaux (ed.), Scaligerana, Thuana, Perroniana, Pithoeana, Et Colomesiana, 2 vols(Amsterdam: Covens & Mortier, 1740), II, p. 230.12 A Greek verb coined by Casaubon.13 Casaubon,Epistolae, p. 9.

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shall follow him when it pleases God. Believe me, never have I more imbibed this: Thebrief span of life forbids us to begin long hopes.14

At this point I should like to consider Grafton and Weinbergs imputing Kabbalistmotivation to Chevaliers interests and teaching, a motivation they extend to

Casaubon. Casaubons commitment to Hebrew studies, they argue at one point,was probably conventional in its origins. By conventional they mean that theimpetus of Renaissance students of Hebrew derived in large part from deeplyspeculative impulses. However, the motivation of most sixteenth-century Hebraistsdiffered markedly from that of Johannes Reuchlin, Pietro Galatino or GuillaumePostel. Certainly, little evidence exists to substantiate the role of speculativeimpulsesin stirring either Casaubon or Chevalier. Our authors rely on a fragmentarylist of abbreviations found in Rabbinic commentaries compiled by Chevalier andamended by Casaubon in 1596which included, for example, discussion on the use

of the Hebrew letter as designating the divine name of God. The list, they write,suffices to reveal something of Chevaliers approach, in addition to establishing that

he clearly took an interest in Kabbalah and Jewish magic. Furthermore, since he

copied the list, Casaubon has also been implicated: he, too, probably came to

Hebrew with exalted hopesof a similar kind, though he soon lost interest.15

The list, I believe, should not be imbued with such significance. In all likelihood itserved merely to facilitate studentsreading of Hebrew books which abound withabbreviations. Insofar as it is possible to surmise anything about Chevaliers instruc-tion and methodology from his publications, it appears that he followed a strictly

traditional linguistic approach. Such a perception is reinforced by noting the kind ofbooks Chevalier gave to Casaubon, undoubtedly at the start of the instruction: hisown revision of Antoine Chevaliers Rudimenta Hebraicae linguae(1590), togetherwith Gilbert Gnbrards Eisagoge ad legenda et intelligenda Hebraeorum & ori-entalium sine punctis scripta(1587). Subsequently, Casaubon turned to Elija Levitas

Massoret haMassoret, aiding himself in reading it with Chevaliers partial Latintranslation of the work.16 And as Grafton and Weinberg themselves note Casaubonsdismissive attitude towards Jewish mysticism on the basis of a comment he jottedon the flyleaf of one of the first books he studied under Chevaliers tutelage, DavidKimhis Sefer Mikhlol, purchased for him by Canaye de Fresnes for all we know,Casaubons detailed and irritable critique of traditional forms of Jewish non-semantic exegesis, often associated with the Kabbalah by Christian scholars, maywell have reflected Chevaliers own opinion.17

In the absence of evidence to the contrary, then, we must conclude that sheer desireto learn the original language of Scripture had initially informed Casaubons Hebraicinterest.18 In 1592, however, a passion of a different sort prompted him to embark ona more rigorous study of Hebrew. Casaubon articulated his objective clearly in thevery letter in which he requested de Fresnes to purchase Hebrew books for him: Iwould not work so hard on these languages [Hebrew and Aramaic] just to understand

14 Ibid, pp. 8, 206 (of the letters).15 Grafton and Weinberg, I HaveAlwaysLoved the Holy Tongue, pp. 867, 313 n. 23.16 Ibid., pp. 338, 71 n. 38.17 Ibid, pp. pp. 878.18 The evidence adduced by Grafton and Weinberg (pp. 8990) for suggesting a certain Kabbalist

predilection on Bertrams part is equally insufficient.



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the Hebrew rabbis: that is not, I admit, my final goal [meum1].It is so that with their help I can understand the Arabic used by the great philosophers,whose excellent writings, in every area of philosophy, are either entirely neglectednowadays because of ignorance of the language, or are read to little or no profit.Like

other early modern aspiring Arabists, Casaubon even entertained the vision oftraveling to the Middle East in order to acquire the requisite training in Arabic: IfGod grants, I have decided to train myself in the writings of the rabbis until I gain thechance of going there. For if I hope to study the Arabic language seriously, I musttravel there.19 Such a utilitarian approach to a more intensive immersion in Hebrewwould also inform Casaubons third phase of Hebraic studies after he settled in Parisin 1600.

Before proceeding, however, an estimation of the quality and depth ofCasaubons Hebrew knowledge while in Geneva is in order. Grafton and

Weinberg are somewhat ambiguous on the matter. On the one hand, they notehis considerable indebtedness to the labours of more formidable ChristianHebraists such as Jean Mercier, Andreas Masius, Gilbert Gnbrard, SebastianMnster, Paulus Fagius, Johannes Buxtorf and Johannes Drusius, to name buta few. At the same time, however, they may have credited him with greaterprowess than he really possessed when arguing that as a Hebraist, Casaubonpreferred to work with the Hebrew text, rather than using the Latin cribs thatoften accompanied Christian Hebraist editions of Jewish texts. On the basis ofthe evidence that they themselves present it might be more accurate to conclude

that, for the most part, Casaubon often perused Hebrew texts alongside trans-lations, or Latin works that incorporated or elucidated Hebrew texts. Not thatsuch dependence makes him any less an exemplary student of Hebraica; but ittallies more comfortably with other observations they make. For example, thatCasaubons

vaunted command of Hebrew and Jewish sources sometimes had as much to dowith rhetoric as with substance. Like many of the Christian scholars who sharedhis interests, Casaubon drew much of his information from a narrow range oftexts, most of them late, and used their quotations from extant earlier sources

rather than examining the originalsas he would certainly have done hadGreek or Latin texts been involved.

Or that Casaubons Hebrew script was (mostly) correct but painstaking, whichcontrasts markedly with the familiar and fluent handwriting, characteristic of hisLatin and Greek handwriting.20

So what could be concluded about Casaubons competence prior to his engagingChevalier as a teacher? For a start, that Chevaliers bestowal on Casaubon of severalintroductory grammars suggests, at the very least, the latters shaky grasp of thelanguage at that stage. Case in point, a spelling error Casaubon committed when

19 Casaubon,Epistolae., p. 569 (of the letters); Grafton and Weinberg, I Have Always Loved the HolyTongue, pp. 9091.20 Grafton and Weinberg, I Have Always Loved the Holy Tongue, pp. 75, 78, 230, 71. Elsewhere theynote: the fact that Casaubon relied so heavily on secondary sources, the works of Christian Hebraists, ismost suggestive. It seems likely that he never carried outor even tried hard to carry outhis proposeddirect investigation of the Masorah, p. 316.

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affixing a Hebrew phrase onto his working copy of Theophrastus (1592): (Praise to God, Creator of the Universe). Misspelling the wordfor Creator (it should have been ) indicates the difficulty with which Casaubonrecalled Hebrew orthography from memory.21 Even more telling of Casaubons

insecure handling of idiomatic Hebrew and punctuation is a marginal note he jottedon the title page of his copy of David KimhisSefer Mikhlol.22 Casaubon must havebeen aware of the encomium conferred on the celebrated medieval grammarian bysubsequent Jewish commentators, through wordplay on a proverb in the tractateAvot: (There is no Torah without flour). Adding the Hebrewletter to the word (flour) conjured up the grammarians name ( ), withoutwhose commentary, the implication is, one could hardly comprehend the Torah. Upon

receiving Kimhis Sefer Mikhlol, Casaubon inscribed on the title-page his under-

standing of the saying in the following muddled manner: . The

clumsiness characterizing Casaubons spontaneous Hebraic compositions c.1592 attest to lack of practice on his part at that stage, and struggle with the

language without texts to guide him. Over the next two years, Casaubons

comprehension of both Hebrew grammar and the use of the vowel points

undoubtedly improved, as did his familiarity with the Talmud and related

Hebrew texts evidence for which can be found in his lecturing in July

1595 on rabbinic writings, when filling in for the still vacant Hebrew profes-

sorship.23 Still, as he confessed to Scaliger, Chevaliers death prevented additional

progress, while his removal to Montpellier and absorption in preparing his monu-

mental commentary on Athenaeuss Deipnosophistaefurther hindered Hebraic stud-ies. The fits and starts approach to the study of Hebrew accounts for the strain Grafton

and Weinberg detect in Casaubons efforts to master the holy tongue. But as he

struggles to master the intricacies of Hebrew grammaran effort that, as his various

heavily annotated Hebrew textbooks demonstrate, he made over and over againhe

absorbs and fine-tunes every word and every bit of information.24

Upon relocating to Paris in 1600, however, Casaubon embarked on his third, andmost extensive, phase of Hebrew studies. Once more, the interests of broad erudition,not those of a specialized Hebraist, informed his efforts. These entailed three inter-

locking projects. The first involved an ambitious endeavour to write a comprehensivestudy of ancient conceptions ofCritica. Conceived c. 1595, Casaubon projected achapter on Jewish criticism as well carrying out most of the work for it during thefirst decade of the seventeenth century. As Casaubon apprised Scaliger on 8 Septem-ber 1601, he wished to account for the whole of the Jews. More specif-ically, he sought to explicate the extent to which the transmitted [Masoretic] text ofScriptures [could] be considered reliable according to the standards of critice especially as he never doubted the verity of Scripture: Those who think that theMasora is evidence that the inspired books are corrupt, he inveighed in 1603, doindeed involve themselves in a great crime, for this art provides the divine word with

21 See illustration at ibid., p. 28. The authors note the error (p. 27) without comment.22 See the illustration at ibid, p. 3.23 Karin Maag, Seminary of University? The Genevan Academy and Reformed Higher Education, 15601620(Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1995), p. 69.24 Grafton and Weinberg, I Have Always Loved the Holy Tongue, p. 73.



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testimony that it has been transmitted in a wholly reliable way. I hope I shall provethis sometime,, in a dissertation of painstaking exactitude.25

Concurrently, Casaubon expanded his inquiry into the nature and frequencyof Hebraisms linguistic forms that revealed the pressure, on the Greek

language, of an underlying Semitic habit of mind and speech in the NewTestament. As early as 1587, in his notes on the New Testament, Casaubonspotted not a few such occurrences in the Gospels and Epistles, relying on hisown considerable store of Greek reading; however, in identifying Hebrewparallelisms, he relied, as Grafton and Weinberg recognize, on ImmanuelTremellius.26 By 1601 his interest morphed into a more ambitious project. As herecorded in his diary for 7 February: I decided five days ago to investigate in a fairlyserious way the Hebrew origins of Greek words. Casaubon was pleased with theprogress he made, and his notes survive in part. As Grafton and Weinberg note, he

introduced one set of notes with an unequivocal statement concerning the contours ofhis project: In my view there is no doubt that Hebrew long preceded all otherlanguages. Hence it is not surprising that other languages retain many traces of theoriginal. These include the few points that follow, which I have noted as a byproductof my studies.27 Casaubon envisioned a major treatise on the subject. According toThomas Erpenius who formed a close friendship with Casaubon while in Paris in1609 and was made privy to the latters papers thatmost distinguished ornament ofhis ageintended to publish his brilliant demonstration on the Hebrew origination ofthe Greek language.28

Casaubon

s opinion evidently carried weight. Erpenius embraced his mentor

sviews and proceeded to argue that although the evangelists and the apostles wrotein Greek, their prose remained Hebraic: since almost all the stylistic devices, modesof expression and the use of most of the words are not Greek but Hebrew, so that forthis reason alone it is clear that the same Spirit is the author of the scriptures of theOld and the New Covenant.29 By the early eighteenth century, the notion that theNew Testament exhibited Hebraic mentality in the selection of idioms, without, as aconsequence, reaching the purity of classical Greek, came under criticism. Anthony

25 Casaubon, Epistolae, pp. 127, 174 (of the letters); Benedetto Bravo, Critice in the Sixteenth andSeventeenth Centuries and the Rise of the Notion of Historical Criticism, in C. R. Ligota and J.-L. Quantin(eds),History of Scholarship(Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 13595, at p. 166. Casaubon reiteratedhis belief in one of his notes, ibid: The sacred letters, that is the tenor () of the Old and the NewTestament, are indeed incorruptible, proof against any deformation; but that the language, which is theirvehicle, has, over so long a stretch of time, suffered blemishes or minor deformations, though withoutdamage to the meaning, cannot, I think, be doubted. In the case of the Greek the situation is clear: manythings have been slightly changed, some more seriously impaired, but in such a way that the truth hasremained unshaken. As for the Hebrew, why should we doubt it? Does not the whole Masora give a mostsure testimony to this?See also Grafton and Weinberg, I Have Always Loved the Holy Tongue, p. 313.26 Grafton and Weinberg, I Have Always Loved the Holy Tongue, pp. 16970.27 Isaac Casaubon, Ephemerides, ed. John Russell, 2 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1850), I, p.

328; Grafton and Weinberg, I Have Always Loved the Holy Tongue, pp. 924.28 Thomas Erpenius,Orationes tres,De linguarum Ebraeae,atque Arabicae dignitate(Leiden: printed forthe author, 1621), pp. 1289. For a surviving fragment of the projected treatise, see Meric Casaubon, Dequatuor linguis commentationis pars prior(London: J. Flesher, 1650), pp. 1719.29 Erpenius,Orationes Tres,De Linguarum Ebraeae,Atque Arabicae Dignitate., pp. 11213, cited in PeterT. Van Rooden, Theology, Biblical Scholarship, and Rabbinical Studies in the Seventeenth Century :Constantijn Lempereur(15911648), Professor of Hebrew and Theology at Leiden (Leiden: E.J. Brill,1989), p. 58.

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Blackwall, for one, chided in 1725 the great Casaubon, who had a good notion ofthe purity and propriety of the new Testament Greek, and has illustrated manypassages by parallel classical expressions, [but] sometimes too unadvisedly pronoun-ces those to be mereHebraismswhich are soundGrecisms, and provd so by the best

authors.30

Ultimately, however, Casaubon abandoned both projects, in no small part owing tothe shift in his interests Hebraic and otherwise once he became increasinglydetermined to refute Cesare BaroniussAnnales ecclesiastici. Casaubon first encoun-tered the Annales in 1598, while staying at the Lyon residence of his ferventlyCatholic patron Meric de Vic, in order to oversee the printing of his Animadversionesin Athenaei Deipnosophistas. His initial disapproval of Baronius probably stemmedfrom his receiving, at precisely the same time, a presentation copy of ScaligersOpusde emendatione temporum. The contrast between the two works could not have

seemed more striking to him: Reverence gripped me as I looked on, he wroteScaliger, and so much the more because . I was able to contrast your work withBaronius's Annals, which I had not seen before. And so at last I learned, and by truearguments I was fully assured, that between the love of truth and going fowling afterthe readers favor there is as much difference as between the heaven and the earth.31

Nevertheless, submitting to de Vics importunities, Casaubon dispatched a politeletter to Baronius, in which he expressed sentiments of respect and admiration whichhad been excited in him by the first readingof the Annales. The cardinal opted tointerpret the letter as an overture by a prospective convert to Catholicism and

responded by expressing his rejoicing to find Casaubon

knocking at the gate ofthe church, for no less could he understand by his commending the work of anorthodox man. Such a response undoubtedly contributed to alienate Casaubon evenfurther.32

Three or four years later, as he immersed himself in the history of Rome during thefirst century after Christ in preparation of the Historiae Augustae Scriptores sex Casaubon found occasion to scrutinize Baroniuss work far more carefully, andcritically. Grafton and Weinberg do not mention the Historia Augustain this context,but perhaps the preparatory stage of the work and the concomitant germination ofhis critique of the Annales occasioned Casaubons perusal of Pietro Galatinos Dearcanis Catholicae veritatis(and related literature) between 16011603. Certainly, nosooner had the Historia Augustaappeared in 1603 than Casaubon requested permis-sion from Henry IV to publish a modest refutation of Baronius. To his chagrin,permission was denied on the grounds that the time was not yet come.33 In anattempt to sidestep such a prohibition, Casaubon may well have conspired to baitBaronius himself into initiating a critical dialogue. After all, the cardinal had oftenavowed his desire to ensure that the Annals should be true and exact, entreatingfriends to point out the least inexactitudein the work by invoking St Augustines

30 Anthony Blackwall, The Sacred Classics Defended and Illustrated: Or an Essay Humbly OfferdTowards Proving the Purity,Propriety and True Eloquence of the Writers of the New Testament(London:J. Bettenham, 1725), pp. 201.31 Casaubon,Epistolae, p. 93 (of the letters).32 Mark Pattison, Isaac Casaubon 15591614, ed. Henry Nettleship, 2nd edn. (Oxford: Clarendon Press,1892), p. 318.33 Ibid., p. 196.



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maxim: I delight in a true and severe corrector.34 Availing himself of such anavowal, Casaubon dispatched Baronius a copy of the Historia Augusta, along witha cover letter that concluded with a polite challenge: And so if our reasoning orexplanations should ever differ slightly from yours, we do not suppose that you, most

generous Baronius, will feel that modesty is lacking in our pages. As humans andworthless creatures we easily err, commit mistakes, and are deceived; with Godshelp, we will never be convicted of contradicting the known truth, either in this or inany variety of learning.35

As Baronius refused to take the bait, Casaubon temporarily shelved his plan for arefutation, only to revive it in 1607, when he attempted to slip a partial critique intohis De libertate ecclesiastica liber singularis a defence of the republic of Veniceduring the time of the Interdict. Henri IVordered the suppression of the book while inpress, and the advertised chapter against Baronius remained unwritten.36 By then

Casaubon had long come to share Scaligers conviction concerning the centrality ofJewish sources to the history of early Christianity, as well as to recognize thevulnerability of theAnnaleson this point. As Grafton and Weinberg put it: Baroniosfailings as a Hebraist mattered as much as his defects as a Hellenist, and both madeit impossible for him to write a scholarly study of the early church. Thus Hebrewreceived new and special significance and by then a new mission: Casaubon set out todemolish not only a particular history of the early church but also the entire Catholicculture of erudition.37 Our authors devote considerable attention to Casaubons dexter-ous deployment of the arsenal of Rabbinic learning that he had acquired during the

decade he prepared his refutation, especially during his sojourn to England. Their accountis illuminating in many respects: from their sampling of Casaubons reading, to fleshingout the extraordinary tale of Casaubons encounter with Jacob Barnetthe Jew whom he

34 See Baroniuss request of Nicholas Faber not to hold back criticism of the Annales: illudque Augustinisolere mihi in ore versari; Verum atque severum diligo correctorem meum: Raymundus Albericius,Venerabilis Caesaris Baronii Epistolae et opusculae(Rome: Komarek, 17591770), I, p. 228.

Anabel Kerr,The Life of Cesare Cardinal Baronius(London and Leamington: Art & Book Company,1898), p. 82. He was always displeased if his critics showed any reluctance to find fault, and at once wroteto beg for a more explicit correction. Nicholas Faber, Regius Chancellor of Paris, a most learned man andamong the first critics of the age, was one of Baronius s most frequent correspondents. There was astatement in the Annals which he wished to challenge, but with the diffidence inseparable from reallearning he merely hinted at it in his letter to Baronius. The latter promptly replied: As to your praises ofmy bookwhich I blush to have publishedthey manifest your generosity, for you praise that which youadmit to be displeasing to you; and you touch the matter with a hand as light as that with which you mighttouch a man laid up with the gout, in other words you write as if you feared to hurt me. But touch boldly;speak freely; and know that you will thereby give me real pleasure. I have ever on my lips those words ofSt. Augustine: I delight in a true and severe corrector.35 Alfonso Capecelatro, The Life of Saint Philip Neri, Apostle of Rome, trans. Thomas A. Pope, 2 vols(London: Burn & Oats, 1894), II, p. 15; Casaubon, Epistolae, p. 181 (of the letters). Casaubons fury at thecardinals scholarship is clear from a letter to Henry Savile in 1602. Expressing dismay at reading in therecently published edition of Lipsius correspondence that the latter thought that Greek letters is merely

ornamental and not necessary, Casaubon also decries Lipsiuss recommendation that the reading ofBaronius alone should be sufficient for learning ecclesiastical history, thereby spurning all ancient authors:ibid., pp. 599600 (of the letters).36 The published Table of Contentsincluded under chapter 10: That Cardinal Baronius has, in mainte-nance of this ecclesiastical liberty, writ many things that are contrary to truth. A confutation of hisParaenesia. Remarks upon his Annals.Several critical comments are included in the three chapters thatwere published.37 Grafton and Weinberg, I Have Always Loved the Holy Tongue, pp. 183, 169.

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had employed as a teacher and later helped whisk from prison, following Barnetsreneging on his promise to convert to Christianity to their sampling of Casaubonsconfutations of Baronius through an effective deployment of Hebraic erudition.

I Have Always Loved the Holy Tonguefocuses primarily on erudition, especially

as it manifested itself in Casaubons progress toward the refutation of Baronius.Grafton and Weinberg are certainly aware of the centrality of Scriptures to hisHebraic interests, but that aspect of Casaubons interest and especially the deepemotional role exerted by Biblical Hebrew on Casaubons psyche could be moredeveloped. Nowhere is such a feature given more prominence than in the privatediary that Casaubon started on 18 February 1597 his thirty-eighth birthday and threemonths after leaving Geneva a daily practice he continued until his death. Scrutinyof Casaubons recourse to Hebrew in the diary will prove, I believe, indispensable forcomprehending one key element of his attraction to Hebrew.

Grafton and Weinberg are correct to view Casaubon as an ascetic Christianhumanist who tried to combine his scholarly and devotional lives whenever possible,one who made the close reading of the Hebrew Bible a pious exercise. They cite asevidence a diary entry for 17 April 1597: Since I felt a little better, I rose very earlyfrom the bedclothes and buried myself in my study and in my little literary pursuits. Ibegan by falling on my knees, and gave myself over to reading and meditating on theholy Word of God.38 However, to gauge the range and significance of Casaubonsemotions that day, the events of the previous week should be recalled. Casaubonsillness, it turns out, had been quite serious, bringing him or so he believed to the

brink of death. Initially, he sought solace in Seneca, as he had already been engagedin a close reading of the Stoics. Thus, on 12 April, he meditated hard and long overSenecas reflection in the thirteenth epistle to Lucilius on the fool who is alwaysgetting ready to live. Seneca urged the then governor of Sicily to consider howrevolting is the fickleness of men who lay down every day new foundations of life,and begin to build up fresh hopes even at the brink of the grave. Look within yourown mind for individual instances; you will think of old men who are preparingthemselves at that very hour for a political career, or for travel, or for business. Andwhat is baser than getting ready to live when you are already old?39 Senecassagacity prompted Casaubon to agonize over the nature of his own studies, and overhis own immoderate passion for the classics. In subsequent days, as his healthdeteriorated, Casaubons anxiety over his salvation, as well as over the fate of hisliterary work, increased prompting him on 16 April to an extended passionatesupplication to God not to permit his many yearslabour on Athenaeus to perish:

For inasmuch as you, my God, have desired that I should cultivate the field ofletters even though what I have so far achieved is poor, trivial, and less thannothing in order that so many wakeful nights of my studious youth should notperish without some fruit, I now determine that, God willing, I must next apply

myself to this plan, that what I do have nearly finished, I should push forth assoon as possible. Therefore my intention remains first of all to devote myself

38 Ibid., p. 102; Casaubon, Ephemerides, I, p. 15.39 Casaubon, Ephemerides, I, p. 12; Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Ad Lucilium Epistolae morales, trans.Richard M. Gummere, 3 vols (London and New York: William Heinemann & G. P. Putnams Sons,1917), I, p. 83. Casaubon also noted parallel passages in Seneca on the topic.



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completely to Athenaeus, providing that this also pleases you who rule theheaven and earth by your will and being. I pray to you, my God, make meobligated to this vow, if this business promotes the glory of your name, my ownsalvation, and the well being of my dearest wife and most beloved children.40

It is against this fretful background that the lengthy entry of 17 April should beinterpreted. The worst being over, Casaubon obviously felt as if his prayers had beenanswered. Hence, the striking and distinctive turn noted by Grafton and Weinberg that the diary entry took. But it intended to express considerably more than a plea toChristian scholars to read the Bible in the same way as the classics, and even moreintensively. Casaubonscri de coeuris profoundly personal:

But is it not perverse that we are reputed learned? We read the writings of thepagans with great enthusiasm, and we eagerly gather and extract whatever we

find there that is cleverly said and has to do with forming the character. Andthere is nothing wrong with that. But consider how much more richly we couldfurnish ourselves with texts like this drawn from the sacred books!41

The biblical verse that Casaubon chose to illustrate the point (1 Chronicles29:15) attests to the scope of his crisis of conscience: For we arestrangersbefore thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers: our days on the earth areas ashadow, and there is none abiding [no hope]. A truly swanlike song of David,Casaubon gushed. O pure honey! o true delight! o sweet food for the soul! Whatmade the verse such sweet food for the soul, however, is the personal meaning he

found therein. Casaubon transcribed the second half of the verse in Hebrew, as was his wont on those rare occasions when he

found a biblical passage to be particularly expressive of his condition. Grafton andWeinberg draw attention to Casaubons learned engagement with the precise meaningof (mikveh) relying on the commentaries of Rashi and Kimhi but theymiss the full import of Casaubons intensely subjective reflection on the transitorynature of his own earthly existence, when characterizing the exercise to be an instanceof how he saw not only reading of the Bible but also consultation of Jewishcommentators as an integral part of his very Christian reading of the text.42

A painful reminder of his anxiety resurfaced on 3 June 1599, upon receiving news ofJanus Gruteruss affliction with consumption. Fearing the worst, Casaubon shuddered atthe thought of that erudite man passing away in the flower of his youth. Recalling alsoRittershusiuss recent death brought to his mind Jobs reflection on the vanity of mortalman. So much so that Casaubon saw fit to transcribe Job 14:5 as a reminder of his ownmortality: (Seeing his daysaredetermined, the number of his months arewith thee, thou hast appointed hisbounds that he cannot pass).43

40 Casaubon,Ephemerides, I, pp. 1415.41 Ibid., I, p. 15, partly translated in Grafton and Weinberg, I Have Always Loved the Holy Tongue, pp.1023: Sed nonne praeposteri sumus nos qui literati cluimus? in queis cum omnia sint!,etiam venustas et elegantia saepe mirabilis.42 Casaubon,Ephemerides, I, pp. 1516; Grafton and Weinberg, I Have Always Loved the Holy Tongue,

p. 103.43 Casaubon,Ephemerides, I, pp. 16162.

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Such an emotional, even reverential, attitude toward the Hebrew Bible informedCasaubons attitude throughout his life. He often found himself transported as much bythe poetic beauty of biblical passages, especially those drawn from Psalms and Proverbs,as by his perceiving them to be exceptionally germane to his present circumstance or

even of a divine sign. Thus, for example, on 27 November 1598 Casaubon resumedstudying the Hebrew Bible after a hiatus of several months by reading Solomonswise sayings. Proverbs 11:2 delighted him on account of its conveying a true and justmessage to such an extent that, he wrote, he thought fit to transcribe it, in Hebrew, intohis diary: (When pride cometh, then comethshame: but with the lowly [modest]iswisdom). As he deemed the message pertinentto the (proper) manner in which to conduct himself and his studies, Casauboncontinued to meditate on this and related lessons from the Book of Proverbs forseveral more days, again transcribing (in Hebrew) those verses that, he believed, best

captured his station as a righteous man and a wise scholar.44

The clearest expression Casaubon gave of his personalization of Scriptures oc-curred on 20 July 1608. Early that day Casaubon took his wife and his sister, as wellas two of his sons, to attend services at the Calvinist Church in Charenton, near Paris.A disaster, following a river collision, was barely averted; but during the ordealCasaubon lost his Greek Psalm-bookprecious to him as his wife gave it on him as awedding gift twenty-two years earlierwhile desperately attempting to save his wifefrom falling into the river. He noticed the loss only after arriving at the church, as thecongregation began singing. Casaubon was struck by the fact that the verse chanted

was Psalms 86:13: [ ].45

As he med-itated over this providential sign he also recalled that, while on the boat, he and hiswife chanted together Psalm 92, and that the collision occurred just as they reachedthe seventh verse: When the wicked spring as the grass, and when all the workers ofiniquity do flourish; it is that they shall be destroyed for ever. In awe, Casauboncould not but remember that place of S. Ambrose, where he says .... that this is thepeculiarity of the book of Psalms, that every one can use its words as if they werepeculiarly and individually his own.46

The search for meaning, guidance, and solace that always informed

Casaubons reading of the more literary parts of Scripture, is in plain viewon those rare instances when he opted to transcribe Hebrew passages into hisdiary. Ever concerned about his reputation, for example, scholarly as well asreligious, Casaubon found that most elegant saying of Ecclesiastics 7:1 (A good name is better than precious ointment) a fitting proverbwith which to conclude the first notebook of his diary.47 In a similar vein, his lengthydiary entry for New Years Day 1603 consisted of a solicitation on behalf ofProtestantism, his family and himself, and concluded by invoking Psalm 90:17:

44

Ibid., I, pp. 1036. These included Proverbs 18:12 (Before destruction the heart of man is haughty, andbefore honour is humility); 15:33 (The fear of the Lord is the instruction of wisdom; and before honour ishumility); 12:16 (A fools wrath is presently known: but a prudent man covereth shame); 15:19 (The way ofthe slothful man is as an hedge of thorns: but the way of the righteous is made plain).45

[For great is thy mercy toward me:] and thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell. Casaubonadded the Greek and French versions.46 Casaubon,Ephemerides, II, pp. 62122; Pattison,Isaac Casaubon 15591614., pp. 20910.47 Casaubon,Ephemerides, I, p. 153.



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(And letthe beauty of the LORD our God be upon us: and establish thou the work ofour hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it), where thefamous repetition of the supplication in the second half of the verse denotes an

emphatic appeal for God to facilitate the success of his endeavours.48 Anothersupplication involved his invoking Nehemiahs plea (5:19) to be remembered for hismeritorious deeds for the same purpose, as Casaubon concluded his reckoning of hisdeeds for 1601: (Think upon me, my God, for good, [accord-ing to all that I have done for this people]).49

Even more striking is Casaubons drawing on a Hebrew verse of Scripture at a time ofan acute religious crisis. On 14 May 1609, as the concerted campaign to convert him hadreached such intensity that Casaubon feared he would not manage to withstand thepressurewhile his co-religionists feared him to be on the verge of crossing overhe

found the leisure to study Scripture. Having scanned the headings of the first Book ofKings, an extraordinary elegant and apt verse (1 Kings 18:21) struck him. It containedElijahs poignant admonition to the Israelites assembled at Mt Carmel not to waver onmatters of religion. Visibly moved, Casaubon transcribed the Hebrew verse (Howlong halt ye between two opinions? if the Lord be God, follow him: but ifBaal, thenfollow him) before rendering the text into Greek and supplementing itwith a brief linguistic analysis.50 A year and a half later, though newly secured in hisProtestant belief and safely ensconced in London, Casaubon still agonized over his

long-standing doubts concerning the Eucharist and the nature of the ancient church.Psalm 119:176 enables him to acknowledge his deliverance from being led astray owing to Gods grace, of course: (I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek thy servant; for I do not forget thycommandments).51

Casaubon was also given to rapture when reacting in Greek or Latin to hisreadings, or when supplicating God to approve his work, protect his family anddeliver him from his oppressors. However, whereas Casaubon is given to spontaneityand paraphrasing (from memory) when praying or expressing ardour in Greek and

Latin, he never deviates from the letter of the biblical text which he copies carefully.Such exertion further substantiates my conviction that he resorted to the holy tonguein his diary only at moments of great anguish. When imploring God to wipe out his (evil inclination), for example, Casaubon is articulating more emphat-ically than usual his (proper Calvinist) perception of himself as a sinner. Indeed,the cumulative effect of his articulation permits us to comprehend his convictionthat the safety of his family, as well as the progress of his labours, is predicatedon a pure heart. For instance, we find him on 7 August 1611 bewailing hisinability to enjoy the pleasures of marriage and the company of his children

not to mention the company of his books, without which all his time and studies

48 Ibid., I, p. 458.49 Ibid., I, p. 389.50 Ibid., II, p. 674.51 Ibid., II, p. 808.

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are lost. Abruptly, Casaubon cuts short this self-pity, cognizant that tears shouldbe shed rather over his own sins and those of his family, whence all his earthlyevils stem. Grant him to imitate the holy prophet who said of himself (Psalm119:136): , (Rivers of waters run down

mine eyes, because they keep not thy law). Three weeks later he added an equallyimpassioned plea (Psalm 51: 3): (Havemercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness: according unto themultitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions).52

With this background in mind, we may turn to Casaubons subsequent outburst (19September), discussed by Grafton and Weinberg. Casaubon reiterates his deep re-sentment of his long separation from his children and wife who had returned toFrance four and a half months earlier in order to take care of family matters. The onlyjoy left to him, the despondent scholar writes, is the reading of Scriptures. That

thought reminds him of the frequency in which the word (joy) and its cognatesappear in Psalm 119, his favourite.53 Contemplating this, he deduces that the wordindicates a very special type of joy, as exemplified in Psalm 51:14 where David, afterhe had sinned, implores God to restore his (joy and gladness) the

precise meaning of which he clarifies in a subsequent verse: , (Restore to me the joy of Your salvation). Noting a parallel in Rom. 14:17 Forthe kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy inthe Holy Ghost Casaubon implores God to instruct him, as well as his family, in thebliss of that particular joy.54

Grafton and Weinberg demonstrate the connection between this and subsequententries in Casaubons diary, and a pious meditation on Psalm 119 found among hispapers. Yet, while aware of Casaubons anguish, our authors seem to ignore the progres-sion to scholarly engagement, thereby eliding the underlying deep anxiety. Subsequentdiary entries not mentioned by Grafton and Weinberghelp illustrate the point. On 20September Casaubon turned to peruse St Ambroses commentary on the Psalms, whichoccasioned a lengthy reflection on the interpretative biblical strategies of the early ChurchFathers. The reflection laid the ground for Casaubons observatiunculaeon Psalm 119.But these were composed only several days later, after another emotional privatemeditation on 21 September. Whatever time he could steal from necessary affairs, weread, was devoted to reading the Psalms to assuage his woes. O admirabile!,he enthused, here are the remedies against all diseases of the soul. He meditatedagain on Psalm 119, this time focusing on verse 42 as uncannily epitomizing hispresent state of mind: (So shall I have where-with to answer him that reproacheth me: for I trust in thy word). O Lord, he cries,I, too, am a wretched sinner, I am my own (reproacher). Having reiterated hisfaith and submission, and atoned for writing somewhat harshly to his wife, not todelay her return any longer, Casaubon appears to have been comforted.55

52 Ibid., II, pp. 541, 85960, 874.53

All Davidic Psalms are divine, but this one excels them all; it is, as it were, the embodiment of all HolyScripture: Bodleian Library, MS Casaubon 25 fol. 74, cited in Grafton and Weinberg, I Have Always

Loved the Holy Tongue, p. 54.54 Casaubon,Ephemerides, II, pp. 88182.55 Ibid., II, pp. 88285.



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For the remaining three years of his life Casaubon never again quoted Hebrew inhis diary. As he soon reunited with his family, Casaubon devoted himself entirely tohis anti-Catholic productions first the epistle to Cardinal du Perron (c. November1611), and then his refutation of Baronius. Henceforth, his Hebrew efforts were

entirely channelled into the needs of that great work. Grafton and Weinberg devotea considerable portion of their book to elucidating the Hebraic scholarship that wentinto that work. They also pause to reflect on what can be inferred on Casaubonsviews about the Jews from his genuine interest in Hebrew. The received opinionconcerning the necessary coexistence of anti-Jewish prejudices with serious study ofrabbinic literature among Christian Hebraists, they suggest, is in need of modifica-tion. They fleetingly make the case for Scaliger, and more tentatively for Casaubon:

Knowledge was to be pursued, but the perversion of truth, Christian or Jewish,was not to be countenanced. Absorbed as he was in Hebrew and Judaic studies,and ever intent on acquiring knowledge to facilitate his reading of biblical,rabbinic, and medieval Hebrew literature, Casaubon does not appear to evinceany real sympathy for Jews. Least of all does he show any for the rabbis. In hisgrand critique of BaroniosEcclesiastical Annalshe articulates his judgment onJews and their texts: Christians should pay attention to the rabbis when theyspeak about the Hebrew language or talmudic institutions. But when it comes toactual content, to history or to explication of the antiquities of the ancientpeople, no confidence should be given to their testimony, unless we want tobe fooled. Nevertheless, this stereotypical judgment, as we will ultimately

demonstrate, is never taken to the letter.56

Perhaps they are overly cautious. The evidence presented throughout the booksufficiently counters this stereotypical judgment. They point out in one place howthe impassioned reading of Jewish prayer books testify to Casaubons spiritual quest,which knew no denominational boundaries.57 Even more telling is Casaubons rela-tionship with the hapless Jacob Barnet a relationship that they meticulouslyreconstruct in the book. Correspondingly, Casaubons scholarly integrity also evinceshis moderation. He recognized that Scripture, just like ancient Greek texts, underwentcorruption in the process of time. Yet, as his sympathetic summary of RobertWakefields defence of the overall integrity of the Masorah indicates, Casaubon rejectedthe traditional Christian claim that Jewish rabbis had deliberately falsified the Hebrewtext of the Old Testament in order to confound Christians. Casaubon further contendedthat while the Jews may have been responsible for the death of Jesus, they did notcrucify him. Jews did not use crucifixion as a death penalty. It was not they, but theRomans, who nailed Jesus to the Cross.58

56 Grafton and Weinberg, I Have Always Loved the Holy Tongue, pp. 6667.57

Ibid., p. 43. Casaubon emphatically expressed his own spiritual cast of mind when denouncingBaroniuss failure to make the requisite distinction between public and private prayer in Scripture:Although the Psalms, with their prophetic doctrine and doxology, are not infrequently intermingled with

prayers, their recitation really entails the enunciation of praises of God. But nobody can spend enough time,be it day or night, in the pious duty of lauding God with the texts taken from the holy page: IsaacCasaubon,De rebus sacris et ecclesiasticis exercitationes XVI(London: John Bill, 1614), p. 325; Graftonand Weinberg, I Have Always Loved the Holy Tongue,pp. 512.58 Grafton and Weinberg, I Have Always Loved the Holy Tongue, pp. 25367, 3278, 191, 194.

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True, Casaubon was given to disparaging the ancient rabbis. In 1605, for example, hecautioned the young jurist Charles Labb against wasting his time in pursuing the triflesof Rabbis, whose vile writingsexcept for those by the great Moses Maimonideswereoutside the scope of his profession.59 The language recurs often in the Exercitationes.

He dismissed the ravings of the Rabbis (deliria Rabbinorum) and their wildinventions (insana figmenta), as well as restricting the use Christians should makeof their writings to matters of Hebrew language and Talmudic institutions. Likewise,on the same page he denounced the perfidious rabbis, while magnifying the worthof Maimonides precisely because he had been the first of his people who ceased tobe a trifler.60 Yet, these stock phrases though indicative of the prejudices perme-ating the milieu in which he lived, and the writings that informed his Hebrew training cannot be said to represent his actual practice. His scholarly irritation with certainrabbinic accounts, and his Christian indignation with other passages, never

prevented him from fully integrating Jewish learning into his work. LikeScaliger, Casaubon often resorted to derogatory remarks when peeved byshoddy (or partisan) scholarship.61 But, especially insofar as Casaubon wasconcerned, such outbursts did not reflect total rejection as further scrutiny of hiswriting, both published and in manuscript, should reveal.

Finally, what may be concluded about Casaubons contemporary reputation as aHebraist? Grafton and Weinberg cite one of Thomas Erpeniuss orations, in which helavished praise on that distinguished ornament of the time, Isaac Casaubon who,throughout his works, had strewn learned and truly precious observations that had

been obtained from Judaism

. However, our authors continue,

Erpenius

perceptiveobservations on Casaubons predilection for Hebrew fell on deaf earsfor centuries.Yet though contemporaries were unaware of Casaubons notebooks and marginalia,the display of Hebrew in his confutation of Baronius certainly alerted readers toCasaubons pretensions. Future research into the many Catholic responses to the

Exercitationeswill broaden our understanding of the hostile appraisal from Baroni-uss defenders. The Jesuit Thomas Carwell made an explicit quip at Casaubonsexpense when chiding Archbishop William Laud for relying on Casaubons responseto Perron: Rabbi Casaubon, [from a bad crow a badegg], must help him out.62 Here, however, I would like to draw attention to the morecurious hostility that prominent Protestant Hebraists had aired. Consider JohannBuxtorf the Younger who, for some inexplicable reason, gratuitously insinuatedincompetence when charging Casaubon with bungling a Hebrew idiom. TractateShavuot includes the following proverb: There is no family that has a tax collectorwhich is not a family of tax collectors, and if a family has a robber they are all

59 Casaubon,Epistolae, p. 234.60 Casaubon,De rebus sacris et ecclesiasticis exercitationes XVI, p. 100, 455, 611.61

Scaliger found it quite easy to explain these obvious mendacia [forgery of Aristeas]: they stemmedfrom the natural Jewish urge to deceive. Who,he asked rhetorically,is unfamiliar with the fabrications ofthe Jews?: Joseph Juste Scaliger,Thesaurus Temporum(Amsterdam: Joannes Janssonius, 1658), p. 134(of the Animadversiones in Chronologica Eusebii), cited in Anthony Grafton, Jacob Bernays, JosephScaliger, and Others, in Anthony Grafton, Bring out Your Dead: The Past as Revelation (Cambridge,Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001), pp. 27998, at p. 295.62 Thomas Carwell,Labyrinthus Cantuariensis: or Doctor Lawd's Labyrinth(Paris: John Billaine, 1658),

p. 100.



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robbers. Casaubon cited the first part of the proverb in Hebrew adding a Latintranslation that oddly began Ne contingat tibi uxor, before providing the properLatin sense (e familia in qua sit aliquis publicanus; quia omnes sunt publicani ) towhich he added a gloss that equated tax-collectors (publicani) to robbers and worse

(latrones, scelerati, peccatores), proffering Matthew 9:10 as additional proof. Eitherbecause Casaubon failed to cite the complete proverb, or because of the addition tothe Latin translation, Buxtorf deemed that the latter thereby male adducit hocproverbium.63

Wilhelm Schickards censure proved sharper, and more spiteful, again for reasonsthat are difficult to fathom. They exceeded the bounds of scholarly disagreement and on a topic that had been contentious among the Rabbis themselves descendinginto a reflection on a person who had been dead for more than a decade. At stake wasthe nature and scope of the Sanhedrins jurisdiction over kings. Baronius inferred

(incorrectly) from Josephuss account of Herods appearance before the Court, thatthe Sanhedrin could judge a king. Casaubon retorted by invoking Mishnah as proofthat, according to Jewish law, none but God could judge a king.64 While approvingthe general thrust of Casaubons refutation of Baronius, Schickard claimed that thepassage cited by Casaubon referred only to the kings of Israel, not of Judea.Following a brief substantive retort Schickard turned negative:

Now I say unwillingly, and most gently, what the truth forbids me to conceal:that good man was dreaming, whether he wrote this in order to gain favor(which I do not believe), or whether it happened, out of human weakness,

through a hatred and a zeal to contradict his adversary, as sometimes falls to thelot of great men as soon as they have undertaken to attack someone, which ismore probable; or whether, at last, he mistakenly seized upon this throughsuperficial reading, which is the most likely of all. For even if he is a man ofinfinite reading, whose judgment and ability with Greek and Latin quotations Ivenerate, when it comes to Hebrew I perceive that this Homer often nods. Inconsideration of his other virtues, this should very deservedly be pardoned inhim. As far as the sole passage in the Talmud that he has to support him, itshould be known that it is completely opposite [to what he says]. True, he has

not committed the crime of telling a falsehood, for he has rendered the passageas it is, as these problems were usually disputed on both sides, but he did notaccurately study the passage that he claims to have read, otherwise he would nothave seized upon only a fragment of it.65

A generation later, Johann Christoph Wagenseil, too, deemed it necessary albeitmore politely to reprove Casaubon for weighing in improperly on matters Hebraic.

63 Johann Buxtorf, Jr., Florilegium Hebraicum (Basel: Ludwig Knig, 1648), pp. 956; Casaubon, Derebus sacris et ecclesiasticis exercitationes XVI, p. 304. Buxtorfs singling Casaubon out is noteworthy, for

it is the only instance in which he criticized the Hebrew knowledge of Hebraists.64 For a brief discussion of Casaubons position, see Grafton and Weinberg,I Have Always Loved the HolyTongue,pp. 27274 n. 119.65 Wilhelm Schickard,Jus Regium Hebraeorum(Strasbourg: Lazarus Zetzner, 1625), p. 63; Casaubon, Derebus sacris et ecclesiasticis exercitationes XVI, pp. 24445. In his refutation of Baronius, Casaubonappealed to the Babylonian Talmud (Sanhedrin 19a) in order to argue that according to Jewish law none butGod may judge a King. Schickard, however, pointed out that the passage in question referred to the kings ofIsrael, not Judea.

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He targeted Casaubons disparaging remarks in the Exercitationes on the worth ofrabbinic writings:

For I do not disapprove what Casaubon says in Exerc. 1 on the Apparatus toBaroniosAnnales: Every scholar knows how little credit should be ascribed tothe rabbis even in sacred history (for in all other history, they are usually moreblind than moles). And yet one should remain within these limits, whence Iwould not assent equally in all particulars to another pronouncement of thesame eminent man, in Exerc. 16 n. 15, when he authoritatively asserts: Chris-tians ought to give no little credence to the Rabbis in questions of the Hebrewlanguage and the usage of a particular word, or of a particular law of theTalmud: but when we proceed from words to things, or to history, or to theexplication of the customs of the ancient Hebrews, then unless we wish to bedeceived and mistaken, we must place no faith in them whatsoever.

However, Wagenseil continued, Casaubon is mistaken in forbidding us to seekfrom the Talmudists any explication of the customs of the ancient Hebrews: he wouldhave rendered a far different judgment if he had advanced as far in Hebrew learningas in Greek and Latin. Many reasons compel us to believe that this otherwise highlylearned man, from whose glory I do not wish to detract, can scarcely have turned thepages even of the writings of any common and recent Rabbi; much less can we thinkthat he has spent much time in reading the Talmud, or grant him the ability to makejudgments about that work.66

It is difficult to explain what prompted these three eminent Christian Hebraists topick on Casaubon. Were they moved by professional jealousy against a perceivedinterloper? Did they fear that Casaubons soaring scholarly reputation would conferunwarranted credit on matters Hebraic? Or do the snide remarks conceal someunderlying religious or intellectual undercurrents? These and many related questionsawait further investigation. With Grafton and Weinbergs superb road map to guideus, however, charting a new course for comprehending early modern ChristianHebraism and erudition more generally becomes a more feasible, as well as amore pressing, task.

66 Casaubon,De rebus sacris et ecclesiasticis exercitationes XVI, p. 9; Johann Christopher Wagenseil,TelaIgnea Satanae(Altdorf: Johannes Henricus Schnnerstaedt, 1681), pp. 667.


isaac casaubon hebraist

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