Bochart, Samuel

Bochart, Samuel one of the most eminent scholars of the Protestant Church, was born at Rouen in 1599, and was nephew on his mother's side to the celebrated Pierre Dumoulin. He studied at Sedan and Leyden, and his talent and proficiency showed itself very early. In September, 1628, he held disputations with Veron, the Jesuit, before a large audience of learned and noble men. Soon after appeared his Geographia Sacra (1646), which obtained for him such a high reputation that Queen Christina of Sweden wrote to him to invite him to come to Stockholm, and, when there, loaded him with distinctions. It is of little value, in the present state of science. On his return to Caen (1653) he married, and had one daughter, who was attacked with a slow disorder; this affected Bochart so fearfully that he died suddenly on the 16th of May, 1667. He was a man of almost unrivalled erudition, acquainted with Hebrew, Syriac, Chaldee, and Arabic. When old, he endeavored to acquire a knowledge of the Ethiopian tongue under Ludolf. His other most important work is Hierozoicon, sive Historia animalium S. Scripture, of which a modern edition was printed at Leipsic 1793-1796, in 3 vols. 4to, with notes by Rosenmuller, 3 vols. 4to. His complete works have been edited at Leyden by Johannes Leusden and Petrus de Villemandy, under the title Opera omnia, hoc est, Phal g, Chanaan, et Hierozoicon, quibus accesserunt Dissertationes Varice, etc.

Prcemittitur Vita Auctoris a Stephano Morino scripta, editio quarta (1712, 3 vols. fol.). See " Life and Writings of Bochart" in Essays on Biblical Literature (N. Y., 1829); Haag, La France Proestante, ii, 318.