Tam in Vetus quam in Novum Testamentum commentarii (Commentary on the Old and New Testaments)
Basel: Johannes Herwagen (the elder), 1542. First edition. Hardcover. Two parts, folio. [alpha]4 [beta]-[gamma]6, a-z6, A-Z6, Aa4, Bb6; Aa-Zz6, AA-ZZ6 (LL4 signed KK4), AAa-SSs6 TTt4, (= 690 leaves; collation complete per registers). [32], 571, [1, printer’s device]; [1, divisional title], [1, blank], 3-774, [1, errata], [1, printer’s device]pp. Woodcut printer’s device at title; historiated initials. Some old marginalia. Contemporary blind-tooled pigskin over wooden boards (lightly worn at extremities), spine with raised bands and manuscript titling. Brass catches, one (of two) brass mounts, straps perished. Mild stain at title, light dampstain at top margin, else text clean and crisp throughout. A very good, amply-margined copy, in a handsome sixteenth-century binding.
First edition of this uncommon compilation of Augustine’s biblical commentaries, with manuscript notes likely by an eighteenth-century reader. A Swiss theologian and reformed minister, Johannes Gast (d. 1552) was a prolific writer and a disciple of the celebrated early protestant reformer Johannes Oecolampadius. Gast is perhaps best known for his violent opposition to the Anabaptists; his De Anabaptismi (Basel, 1544) is among the most important sources for the history of that controversial sect in Basel.
Provenance: Manuscript entry of Isaac Gmelin Ministeri Durlacensis, 1757; later printed bookplate of K. W. Emil Körner, Lic. Theol. Very good. Item #49134
Full title: D. Aurelii Augustini Hipponensis Episcopi, Tam in Vetus quam in Novum Testamentum Commentarii, ex omnibus eiusdem lucubrationibus passim, in ordiné utriusque capitum, collecti, iam primum in pietatis studiosorum gratiam per Ioannem Gastium Brisacensem in lucem editi. Ad haec, adictus est in eosdem rerum diligentissimus Index
References: Adams A-2186 (incomplete). VD16 A 4159. Not in Machiels catalogue of pre-1600 imprints; and notably absent from Le Long’s copious listing of biblical commentaries in the second volume of his 1723 Bibliotheca Sacra.
Price: $2,250.00