Ludovici Caspari Valckenaeri Diatribe de Aristobulo Judaeo

About this book

4to. pp, [16], 136 [4]. Signatures: *4, **2, A-Q4, R6. Contemporary speckled boards. Only edition. In the present work, Ludwig Caspar Valckenaer (1715-1785) shed light on the writings of the Hellenistic Jewish philosopher Aristobulos of Alexandria, also known as Aristobulus the Peripatetic. After Valckenaer’s death, Johan Luzac, his son-in-law and successor as Professor in Greek at the University of Leiden, was able to prepare the publication of the present study. Only fragments of Aristobulos’s work have survived, through Christian writers such as Clemens of Alexandria and Eusebius. The philosophical project of Aristobulus was to show the similarities between the ideas of many early Greek philosophers and the Mosaic writings. Valckenaer suggested that these fragments may not have been written by Aristobulos, but by an unknown writer who aimed to arouse gratefulness and sympathy for Judaism among the Greeks. The book also contains a public lecture by the German philologist Petrus Wesseling (1692-1764) supporting Valckenaer’s claims. See W. Speyer, Die literarische Fälschung im heidnischen und christlichen Altertum: ein Versuch ihrer Deutung. Munich, 1971, p. 101 and note. Click here to view the Johns Hopkins University catalog record.