From Tauranga City Library’s archives
The
earliest dated book in the Library’s collections is a Latin edition of the
Bible in four parts, published in 1585 by Henry Middleton of London .The title
is so long I can’t fit it into this blog without using up most of our ideal
word count - this is a link to it in our online
catalogue – and I
suggest you use Google Translate to turn the Latin title into
English.
The four
parts are:
- Translation of the Old Testament from Hebrew into Latin by John Immanuel Tremellio (Tremellius) and Francisco Junio (Franciscus Junius) (his son-in-law).
- "The books generally called apocrypha, rendered in Latin… by Francisco Junio".
- "The books of the New Testament [translated into Latin] from the Syriac language by the same Tremellio".
- The same books “translated from the Greek into Latin by Theodoro Beza [Théodore de Bèze]”.
We are
checking our old accession records to find out where and when we got the
volume, so far without success. When did Robert Squires own the volume? Where?
During the
early 1990s it was one of the volumes described by an incomplete project to
list all the pre-1801 books in Australia and New Zealand. This notes that the
copy is “imperfect” – the collective title page, the title for Part 1, and
pages 401-424 are missing; the binding appears to be nineteenth century and very
worn. It was well-used, and perhaps not so well looked after in later life.
Today it is kept in a clamshell box made of acid-free, archival card, stored in
a space with constant temperature and humidity to give it the best chance for a
stable future.
All three of the translators were notable Reformed Protestant scholars, theologians and teachers – Beza co-founded the Genevan academy in 1559 with John Calvin and was its first rector. When Calvin died in 1564 Beza (de Bèze) succeeded Calvin as chief pastor of the Geneva church until his own death in 16051.
This combination
of translations of the Old and New Testaments was published many times, and in
many cities in Europe, up until the eighteenth century. It was used as a
reference for the King James Version in English, published in 1611, for use by
the church in Britain2. Since most missionaries to New Zealand were
from Protestant churches, this may be how the volume travelled to New Zealand.
For more information about this and other items in our collection, visit Pae Korokī or email the Heritage & Research Team: Research@tauranga.govt.nz
