Opus Aramaeum (A Work on Aramaic)
Leiden: J. Luchtmans, 1686. First edition. Three parts, octavo: [asterisk]-2[asterisk]4 3[asterisk]2 A-Z8 2A4, 2A-5E4 (= 494 leaves; 2C2 signed Cc3; 4C2 signed 4C3; 4V3 signed 5V3). [20], 376; 392; 176, 173-195 [1, blank]. Contemporary vellum, gilt morocco label at spine. Neat tear to vellum along half length of lower spine edge, light (mostly marginal) dampstain at outer leaves, occasional minute pencil annotations, else a very good, clean copy.
First edition of this concise Aramaic grammar, chrestomathy and dictionary by Carolus Schaaf (1646-1729), a German emigré who taught at Leiden from 1680 until his death in 1729, initially as a Reader and from 1720 onward as Extraordinarius Professor of Oriental Languages. “In 1711 [Schaaf] prepared a catalogue of all the Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, and Samaritan books and MSS. of the Leyden University Library” (McClintock & Strong 10:401). A monumental work in fine printing, the Opus Aramaeum offers a generous display of the various Oriental types deriving from the Raphelengius/Erpenius presses. The work is dedicated to the trustees of Leiden University and includes laudatory poems in Hebrew, Syriac and Aramaic by Johannes Jorden, Johannes Antonius Voorstius, Gerardus Vonck, and Albertus van Assendelft. A comprehensive introductory teaching text, the chrestomathy provides extensive selections with Latin translations from the Jonathan, Onkelos, and Jerusalem Targumim, along with talmudic selections (Babylonian and Jerusalem), and passages from the mystical commentary of the Zohar. Notably, selections from M. F. Beck’s editio princeps of the Targum on Chronicles (Augsburg, 1680-83), are here included. An interesting typographical anomaly appears where the Aramaic text up to page 72 is printed in the square 5 “Petit Texte”, then discontinued in favor of the larger and more elegant square 4.
Provenance: owner entry F. Cha[ucer?] dated May 28. 1863 with a London Wimpole Street address; old library stamp at foot of title “Ex Bibliotheca Ecclesiae Metropolitanae Westmonasteriensis”. Item #53135
References: Fuks/Fuks-Mansfeld 67; M. J. Heller, The Seventeenth Century Hebrew Book, vol. 2, p. 1094. Orme, Biblica, p. 385; J.J. Woltjer, “Foreign Professors”, [in:] Leiden University in the 17th Century (Leiden, 1975).
Full title and imprint: Opus Aramaeum Complectens grammaticam Chaldaico-Syriacam: selecta Targumim, cum versione Latina, et annotationibus: lexicon Chaldaicum, libris V. T. Chaldaeis; item selectis Targuminicis accommodatum. Lugduni Batavorum [Leiden]: Jordanum Luchtmans, MDCLXXXVI.
Price: $500.00