For all of you Voetians out there, I ran across 4 of the 5 of Gisbertus Voetius’ Selectarum Disputationum in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. And yes, it is entirely in Latin. The set is five volumes of 17th c. theological disputations by Voetius and is cited heavily by Kuyper and Bavinck among others. 

Volume 1   Volume 2   Volume 3   Volume 4

FYI: If you aren’t familiar with French internet lingo and the French requirement for specifically, French-originated terms, then when you want to download, click on “télécharger.” On the next screen, the default setting is to download the whole work under three fields: 1) “1ère page,” 2) “Jusqu’à la fin de l’ouvrage” and 3) PDF. Finally click ok. On the last screen “click here” is a highlighted “en cliquant ici”

If, for any reason, you need to consult a Latin-English Lexicon, consult this one. It is rare that I find a classical or Medieval or Ren/Ref Latin word that is not in here. No, it is not the Oxford Latin Dictionary, but given that this is a ~300MB PDF on Google Books, that might give you an idea of its scope and utility. This is a free, “copious & critical” dictionary you definitely need in your digital library if you don’t have it already. You can download it here and view it here. You will thank me later … no really.

And if for any reason, you need to find a Latin dictionary translated in 18th c. English, you might try Ainsworth’s Thesaurus Lingvae Latinae (download pdf here). One of the added benefits is that it includes Latin place names with their English equivalents (i.e. Pictavallensis = Poitiers). The preface is also a good lead for previous Latin-English editions published in England (see here).

Once upon a time, Poland occupied at least a third if not half of the European continent. At that point in its history it was one of the largest Christian nations in the history of Europe. During the 16th and 17th century this land was a receptive and furtile ground for Reformed theology.  However, over time due to a variety of causes such as wars and persecutions, the Reformed presence in this country began to fade. 

Dariusz Brycko is another colleague in the historical theology doctoral program at Calvin Theological Seminary. His dissertation and research center upon the all too-little known Polish Reformer Daniel Kałaj. Currently he is also the executive director of the Tolle Lege Institute, a translation society seeking to translate classic works in Reformed Theology as well as helpful secondary literature into the Polish language. There is also a vast amount of Reformed literature that has not been translated into English. His most recent project is to translate into Polish the helpful guide to the Puritans from RHB “Meet the Puritans.” Please take a moment and check out his site - and if his work interests you, take a moment to contact him here.  He would be glad to hear from you

Bonjour mes amis, have you ever wanted to read Bullinger’s thoughts to Calvin on Servetus’ execution? Or Calvin’s private thoughts on how the Reform in Geneva was going? If so then you will want to dust off your French and Latin and pick up some of Aimé-Louis Herminjard’s volumes. Now available online for all of you, francophiles Réformées spanning 1512 - 1544 are 7 of the first 10 volumes … (Sorry this will only get Calvin to Geneva, fired, re-hired, and up to the ruin of the Libertines!)

[1]     [2]     [3]     [4]     [5]     [6]     [7]     [8]     [9a]     [9b]

Unfortunately, Google doesn’t have them all yet … c’est la vie!

BUT … the Internet Archive has them all right here! … de rien, avec plaisir

Long before Sanders et al. made a splash in this field of research, there were a host of 16th and 17th c. scholars that had long paddled in this pond. One specific example of 17th c. erudition was the Reformed professor,  Johann Heinrich Hottinger. He studied at Geneva, Groningen, and Leiden. He taught Old Testament, Oriental Languages, and Church History at the universities of Heidelberg and Zürich. He accepted a position at Leiden but died (along with 3 of his children) in a tragic ferry accident. 

Our interest in him takes us to his work Compendium Theologiae Judaicae Methodo Scholastica (Heidelberg, 1661) along with its Appendix dealing specifically with developments from Maimonides forward. What is helpful in this work is (more…)

No this is not a post about Hitchens, Dawkins, and others - although it could be, given that not much has changed by way of argumentation, and much has been lost of the more refined and philosophically sensitive arguments of Freud, Marx, and Nietzsche in favor of mass-marketing “antitheism” or “anticlericalism” to the illiterati. The only thing really new is that it is “old” atheism mobilized with a budget, a PAC, an ad campaign, a persecutorial agenda, and a publisher … but I digress …

I was reading through a section from Voetius’  5 volume work Selectarum Disputationum , (more…)

For graduate students and Firefox 2.0+ users, you really have to check out the free Zotero project from George Mason University. It is a Firefox extension for collecting, organizing, and citing sources on the web. But don’t let that description fool you, it also works to port citations and formatted text into MS Word, OpenOffice, Google Tools, Wordpress, wikis, etc. etc. Not to mention the way you can catalog and organize your notes. When you are on a library catalog page or other page with similar information, you have the opportunity to collect all of the bibliographic information - with one click - which is stored in your collections and folders. I am quite impressed and just thought I would pass it along. You really should check it out, if you are reading this, then you have 5 more minutes to check out the ztour on the left. Thanks Jordan Ballor for the pointer. More demos here.

For all those looking for primary sources, keep an eye on additions here. Princeton Theological Seminary is in the process of scanning their public-domain holdings and adding them to the Internet Archive … including their rare books. 

ADDENDUM SAT 11/8/08 11:20 PM:

here is a list of the 8,334 books that Princeton has contributed - lots of 18th and 19th c. English works as well as other rare books.  For example, while I was browsing I came across:

Have fun!

The Dutch Reformed Translation Society, most recently known for the translation into English and publication  of Bavinck’s Reformed Dogmatics, has decided to move forward on the translation of Petrus van Mastricht’s Theoretico-Practica Theologia. This work was especially influential in the Dutch Netherlands (via the Latin versions as well as the Henricus Pontanus translation 1749-1753). In the British colonies in North America, Jonathan Edwards praised this particular piece above Turretin. Van Mastricht’s method is to consider a loci of theology via an exegetical treatment proceeding to a series of didactic formulations followed by a polemical treatment of objections that culminate ultimately in practical formulations for piety towards God and neighbor. The work is divided into 3 parts - Theology proper, Moral Theology, and Ascetic Theology (or Piety). The lionshare of the 1300 page work is part 1. On this past Wednesday the board of the DRTS met, and …  (more…)

Available now online via Google Books is this treasure of the Protestant church that was typically the standard Latin biblical text of the scholarly Reformed world from 1579 through 1764. An edition of the New Testament was published on its own as early as 1569. Thus this bible stands as a textual bookend for the period of Reformed orthodoxy and was quite influential in its own right. I do not have space to enumerate the multi-national usage of and esteem for this work. But perhaps I can give you a sense of its importance via its publishing history. The first  (more…)