Guilielmi Cave (William Cave) - Scriptorum ecclesiasticorum historia literaria : a Christo nato usque ad secularum XIV. facili - 1741

Very beautiful and clean specimen!

Guiielmi Cave - Scriptorum ecclesiasticorum historia literaria : a Christo nato usque ad secularum XIV. facili methodo digesta. Qua, de vita illorum ac rebus gestis, de secta, dogmatibus, elogio, stylo; de scriptis (...) - Basileae, Joh. Rudolph. Im-Hoff., 1741 - (6), XLVII, (4), 666; (8), 358, 252 pp. - 24 X 37 cm.


Condition: Beautiful contemporary vellum bindings in exceptionally good condition. Few very little and beautiful library stamps. No further remarks worth mentioning. (cfr. photos)

Track and trace.

Professional packaging.

- Literaire geschiedenis van kerkelijke schrijvers: vanaf de geboorte van Christus tot de veertiende eeuw. op een gemakkelijke manier geregeld. Waardoor, van hun leven en daden, van hun sekte, doctrines, lof en stijl; van geschriften enz.

- Histoire littéraire des écrivains ecclésiastiques : de la naissance du Christ au XIVe siècle. réglé de manière simple. Par lequel, de leur vie et de leurs actes, de leur secte, de leurs doctrines, de leurs louanges et de leur style ; d'écrits, etc.

- Literary history of ecclesiastical writers: from the birth of Christ to the fourteenth century. sorted out in an easy way. Whereby, of their life and deeds, of their sect, doctrines, praise, and style; of writings etc.

- Literaturgeschichte kirchlicher Schriftsteller: von der Geburt Christi bis zum 14. Jahrhundert. auf einfache Weise geklärt. Wobei, von ihrem Leben und ihren Taten, von ihrer Sekte, ihren Lehren, ihrem Lob und ihrem Stil; von Schriften usw.

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William Cave (30 December 1637 – 4 August 1713) was an English divine and patristic scholar.

Cave was born at Pickwell, Leicestershire, of which parish his father, John Cave was vicar. He was educated at Oakham School and St John's College, Cambridge. He took his B.A. degree in 1656, his M.A. in 1660, his DD in 1672, and in 1681 he was incorporated DD at Oxford. He was vicar of St Mary's, Islington (1662–91), rector of All-Hallows the Great, Upper Thames Street, London (1679–89), and in 1690 became vicar of Isleworth in Middlesex, at that time a quiet place which suited his studious temper. Cave was also chaplain to Charles II, and in 1684 became a canon of Windsor, where he died. He was buried at St Mary's, Islington, near his wife and children.

The merits of Cave as a writer consist in the thoroughness of his research, the clearness of his style, and, above all, the admirably lucid method of his arrangement. The two works on which his reputation principally rests are the Apostolici; or, The History of the Lives, Acts, Death and Martyrdoms of those who were contemporary with, or immediately succeeded the Apostles (1677), and Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Historia Literaria (1688). Dowling says that the works of Cave "rank undoubtedly among those which have affected the progress of Church-history. His smaller works greatly tended to extend an acquaintance with Christian Antiquity; his Lives of the Apostles and Primitive Fathers, which may be regarded as an Ecclesiastical history of the first four centuries, is to this very day [i.e. 1838] the most learned work of the kind which has been written in our own language; and his Historia Literaria is still the best and most convenient complete work on the literary history of the Church." Though he is sometimes criticised for not being critical with his sources, that failing means that many of his works, particularly Antiquitates Apostolicae and Apostolici contain a wealth of legendary material, culled from a wide variety of sources, much of which is not readily available elsewhere.

During the course of his work he was drawn into controversy with Jean Le Clerc (1657–1736), who was then writing his Bibliothèque universelle et historique. Cave published a dissertation De Eusebii Caesariensis Arianismo adversus Johannem Clericum, criticising Le Clerc's treatment of Eusebius as an Arian, as the last of three dissertations appended to the second part of his Historia Literaria (London 1698). Le Clerc replied in a work entitled Epistolae Criticae et Ecclesiasticae, which formed the third volume of the second edition of his Ars Critica (Amsterdam, 1700); reprinted (Leiden, 1778). Le Clerc said, that Cave, in his Historia Literaria, had concealed many things about the fathers, for the sake of enhancing their credit, which an impartial historian should have related; and that, instead of lives of the fathers, he often wrote panegyrics upon them. Cave responded the same year with his Epistola Apologetica (London, 1700). This was reprinted at the end of the second volume of the Historia Literaria, in the edition published at Oxford in 1743.

Cave is said to have been "of a learned and communicative conversation;" he is also reported to have been "a florid and eloquent preacher," and the printed sermons he has left behind bear out this character.

Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Historia Literaria a Christo nato usque ad saeculum XIV, a literary history of ecclesiastical writers, in two parts, the first part published (London, 1688), the second (London, 1698). Reprinted several times. The edition that appeared in (Geneva, 1705), was printed without the author's knowledge, reprinted (Geneva, 1720). This 1705 printing is said to have caused the author great loss, and to have so disgusted him that he would not issue a second edition; but he spent much time during the later years of his life in revising repeatedly this great work. He made alterations and additions equal to one-third of the whole work, and wrote new prolegomena. It was finally printed in two folio volumes, with some additional matter from Henry Wharton, edited by Daniel Waterland, the first (Oxford, 1740), the second (Oxford, 1743). It is regarded by all as being the best edition.

(cfr. Wikipédia)