RELG 330 - History of Christianity
Course Notes
Chapter 24
Page 347 - the Complutensian Polyglot derives its name from 'Complutum' - the original Roman name for the town of Alcalá. A 'polyglot' is a book written in several languages. The Complutensian Polyglot was organized and paid for by the Roman Catholic cardinal archbishop Francisco Ximénez de Cisneros (1436-1517)
Francisco Ximénez had been an ascetic friar until he was appointed as Confessor to Queen Isabella of Castile in 1492, Provincial of the Franciscans in Castile (1494), Archbishop of Toledo and High Chancellor of Castile (1495).
In 1500 Ximénez founded the University of Alcalá, paying for most of it out of his own private income, and bringing in leading scholars from Paris, Bologna, and Salamanca. In 1502 he paid to gather a group of scholars to start preparing the first polyglot edition of the whole Bible. The work was printed in six volumes, between 1514 and 1517, and included a Hebrew vocabulary and grammar. Volume V was the first Greek New Testament to be printed (1514), but bureaucracy delayed its circulation, and the Greek New Testament of Erasmus (1516) came into general use before that of the Complutensian Polyglot.
Queen Isabella of Castile died in 1504, and Ximénez had to act as virtual ruler of Castile until Ferdinand became King in 1507. Ximénez was made a Cardinal in 1507. Ferdinand died in 1516 and Cardinal Ximénez was made Regent during the minority of Charles V (grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella). He died in 1517 - it is suspected that he was poisoned.
Page 348 - the Johannine comma of I John 5:7-8 is a passage whose origins are disputed. It is shown in italics in the following section :
"For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these Three are One. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the Water, and the Blood, and these three agree in one."
Without it, the text reads :
"For there are three that bear record, the Spirit, and the Water, and the Blood, and these three agree in one."
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