Discours du Tabernacle, et du Camp des Israelites. Recueilly de plusieurs anciens Docteurs Hebrieux. [Discourse concerning the Tabernacle and the Camp of the Israelites. Collected from several ancient Hebrew Doctors.]

Aquin, Philip d’

Thomas Blaise

Paris

1623

FIRST EDITION. Title in Hebrew and French. On title, symbols of hermetic tradition. Text in French. Hebrew appendices (pp.93-104). With four woodcut illustrations. Floriated initials, head- and tail-pieces

Fürst, I, p. 48

Born a Jew in Capentras in about the year 1578, Mordecai converted to Catholicism, assuming the name “Philippe d’Aquin” (after Aquino, the place of his conversion). He was soon appointed by King Louis XIII professor of Hebrew language and died in Paris in 1650. During his lifetime he published numerous works: These include a Hebrew-Aramaic Talmudic dictionary, “Ma’arich ha-Ma’arachoth” (1629); a Hebrew grammar (1620); a study on the thirteen hermeneutic principles of Rabbi Ishmael (1622, 1629); translations of Ethics of the Fathers (1620, 1629) and of Bechinath Olam by R. Yedayah Bedersi (1629); as well as an interpretation of the Kabbalistic Tree (1625). See JE, Vol. II, p. 38. Of particular interest in the present work are several Hebrew appendices from Zohar, Recanati, Rabbenu Bachaye, Rashi, Alsheich, R. Isaac Arama (Akeidath Yitzchak), and finally the Mishnah Menachoth