BIBLE, New Testament, in Anglo-Saxon and Gothic -- Quatuor D.N. Jesu Christi Evangeliorum versiones perantiquae due, gothica scil et anglo-saxonica. Dordrecht: Henricus and Joannes Essaei, 1665.
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BIBLE, New Testament, in Anglo-Saxon and Gothic -- Quatuor D.N. Jesu Christi Evangeliorum versiones perantiquae due, gothica scil et anglo-saxonica. Dordrecht: Henricus and Joannes Essaei, 1665.

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BIBLE, New Testament, in Anglo-Saxon and Gothic -- Quatuor D.N. Jesu Christi Evangeliorum versiones perantiquae due, gothica scil et anglo-saxonica. Dordrecht: Henricus and Joannes Essaei, 1665.

2 volumes in one, 4° (232 x 180mm). Parallel texts in Anglo-Saxon and Gothic, with Roman, Greek, Hebrew and Black letter types. Engraved full-page plate after Santvoort, engraved initials and tailpieces. (Some browning, occasional light marginal dampstaining, marginal hole in one leaf.) Later vellum, title in ink on spine (front joints split). Provenance: Olof Rudbeck (contemporary inscription on frontispiece) -- Joh. Norrmann (deleted inscription on pastedown) -- C.J. Schlyter, Lund, 1819 (?the bibliophile Carl Johan Schlyter, 1795-1888 who was in Lund 1814-1820, inscribed on pastedown).

THE EDITIO PRINCEPS OF THE GOSPELS IN GOTHIC. The gothic translation of the Gospels has been ascribed to Ulfilas (310-381 or 383 B.C.), a bishop of the Goths, who is also said to be the originator of the Gothic script. Around 347 Ulfilas was forced to leave his homeland of Dacia and he settled in Moesia. It was here that he undertook the translation, which has survived in six manuscripts. This present edition was printed from a transcript made c.1655 by a scholar named Derrer, of the text in the Codex Argentus. The Codex was brought as loot in 1648 from Prague to Sweden where it became part of Queen Christina's library. On her abdication in 1654, she gave the manuscript to her librarian Isaac Vossius (1618-1689) as payment. He took it then to the Netherlands where this edition was produced. Franciscus Junius (1589-1677), Vossius' uncle, provided the notes to both the Anglo-Saxon version, taken from an edition by Thomas Marshall, and the Gothic version, as well as the Gothic glossary. "Beyond their interest to the student of textual criticism, these fragments possess special value for the philologist as preserving what is 'by several centuries the oldest specimen of Teutonic speech'" (Darlow and Moule p.566). Darlow and Moule 1604; and another edition (Stockholm: 1671, 4°, 212 x 165mm), engraved frontispiece by Dionysius Padt-Brügge (title tipped onto frontispiece at hinge and with minor repairs, some spotting), original vellum, green edges. (2)
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