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The editio princeps of the translation of the New Testament made in accordance with Roman Catholic doctrine. Quarto. 227x165mm. pp. [28], 745, [27]. Handsome modern panelled speckled calf, decorated in blind, spine with raised bands, brown morocco label in second compartment, lettered and decorated in gilt. Title page has been remargined and the next two preliminary and the final three leaves repaired. Very small marginal worm track at the gutter between Yiii and Ddii, otherwise internally very good. Woodcut vignettes and historiated initials throughout. Some (illegible) contemporary manuscript annotations on the final two leaves. p378 has a hand-drawn Patriarchal Cross (Cross of Lorraine) in the margin next to the paragraph defining the doctrine of the Catholic Church concerning good works. An excellent copy of a theologically important translation with combative doctrinal notes and commentaries marking a significant English contribution to the Counter-Reformation. and: Editio princeps of the Roman Catholic version of the Old Testament in English. Two volumes. Quarto. 205x155mm. pp. Vol.1: [20], 1115, [1bl]; Vol. 2: 1004, [1], 1002-1124, [1], [1bl]. Handsome modern panelled speckled calf, decorated in blind, spine with raised bands, brown morocco label in second compartment, lettered and decorated in gilt. Volume one: repair to bottom corner of title page, slight mottling to first four gatherings, light staining to 3K 2 and 3. Volume two: repairs to fore-edge of A3 and A4. Marginal dampstaining to 6B and C and from 6G to the end. Lacking final blank leaf. Otherwise both volumes internally very good. In 1568, William Allen, a fellow of Oriel College, Oxford founded the English College at the University of Douai, in what was then Flanders. Douai was a centre for English Catholics fleeing persecution at home but there were recusants in other countries on the continent and Allen aimed to offer them an Oxford education according to Catholic principles so that, on England's restoration to the Church of Rome, there would be a group of young men ready to cross the Channel and preach the true Faith. Douai's most celebrated member and student was the Jesuit martyr Edmund Campion. Between 1578-93, the College was temporarily expelled from Douai and moved to Rheims where the plans for a new translation of the Bible came to fruition. The project was supervised by Allen with the assistance of Richard Bristow, regarded, with Campion, as the finest rhetorician in Oxford. The translation was done by Gregory Martin, described in Athenae Oxoniensis as "a most excellent linguist, exactly read and vers'd in the Sacred Scriptures". The New Testament appeared in 1582 and although the Old Testament was translated at the same time it was not published until 1609 and 1610. The Preface to the Old Testament addressed "To the right welbeloved English Reader" explains that "As for the impediments which hitherto have hindered this worke, they al proceded of one general cause, our poore estate in banishment". Despite the two Testaments being printed in different places and despite the near thirty year gap between them, they are, essentially contemporaneous works forming a single, unified project, the Doway-Rhemes Version (DRV). The extensive theological commentaries accompanying the New Testament, a masterpiece of sustained Catholic apologetics, were by Bristow. The shorter and more restrained notes and commentaries in the Old Testament were written by Thomas Worthington who became the head of the English College in 1599. It is this additional material that gives the Doway-Rhemes Version its specifically Catholic tone. Seller Inventory # 3615
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