Lecture: “Robert Bellarmine and the ‘Multiplicity of Scripture’”
Piet van Boxel (University of Oxford)
Presented by the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies, and the University of St Michael’s College
This lecture explores a hitherto neglected autograph manuscript of the Jesuit theologian Robert Bellarmine (1542–1621). Containing notes from 1574 to 1576 for his classes on the book of Genesis, the work sheds light on his unequivocal commitment to the recently completed Antwerp Polyglot Bible, a cardinal work of Humanist scholar ship offering a synoptic presentation of the ancient Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, Greek, and Latin biblical texts. Across a long exegetical career, Bellarmine remained steadfast in his belief in the understanding of Scripture embodied in this remark able philological project, running counter to the official declaration of the Tridentine Council and a Church that formally preached the infallibility of the Vulgate.
PIET VAN BOXEL, sometime Fellow Librarian at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies and Hebrew Curator at the Bodleian Library, has taught at Utrecht University, Leo Baeck College, University College London, and King’s College London. He is the author of Jewish Books in Christian Hands (2016) and editor, with Kirsten Macfarlane and Joanna Weinberg, of The Mishnaic Moment (2022).
A reception will follow the lecture. For further details, please contact Institute Secretary Semira Abdella at pims.secretary@utoronto.ca