GENESIS COMMENTARY WITH CHRONOLOGICAL TABLES
[Jesuit education] [Molsheim, Grande Congrégation Académique]: Explicatio libri primi Pentateuchi, sive Genesis. Almae congregationi majori academicae Molshemensi. Sub titulo B. Mariae V. ab angelo salutatae. In strenam data. Anno MDCCXXXIX. Argentorati [Strasbourg], imprimeb. Simon Kürsner, Canc. Typ. [1739].
Rare commentary on Genesis produced for the Grande Congrégation Académique, a school in Molsheim (Alsace) that was founded by the Jesuit order in 1617. It includes six pages of chronological tables at end. The publication takes from the Pentateuch commentary of Cornelius à Lapide SJ (d.1637). Like that work, it contains a plot synopsis for each chapter of the biblical book, followed by verse-by-verse commentary. However, the chronological tables introduce new material that we do not find in the edition of Lapide that we have looked at (Antwerp, 1714). While Lapide has a chronological table of the world from Adam to Christ, our work has chronological tables including information on when and how long the principal characters in Genesis lived, who was contemporary with whom (and when), and when events of the book occurred. The headlines give a running commentary too.
Description
First edition. One volume, 13.6 cms. x 8.7 cms. in binding, duodecimo, pp. [6] 443 [6] [1]. Signed: [ ]3 A-T12 U9. Roman and italic letter. Foxing, light browning, bound in contemporary brown calf, spine decorated in blind with labelling stamped to spine also in blind, edges speckled red. Slight rubbing, wear and worming to binding, slight loss at head and tail of spine. A later piece of paper pasted (late 19th/early 20th-cent?) to final pastedown.
Bibliography
OCLC shows copies in Strasbourg, Mannheim and Munich (BSB).
Louis Schlaefli, 'Les publications de la Grande Congrégation Académique de Molsheim'. Marian Studies 7 (1975), 303-324.