Tremellius, Immanuel

, a protestant divine of great learning, and the editor of a Latin translation of the Bible, was born at Ferrara in 1510. He was the son of a Jew, and was educated with such care as to become a great master in the Hebrew tongue; but was converted to Christianity, first as a Roman catholic, by cardinal Pole, and secondly as a protetant by the celebrated Peter Martyr, and went with him to Lucca. Afterwards, leaving Italy altogether, he went into Germany, and settled at Strasburgh; whence he proceeded to England in the reign of Edward VI. where he lived in intimacy with the archbishops Cranmer and Parker, particularly the latter, and also taught Hebrew at Cambridge; but after the death of the king, he returned to Germany, and taught Hebrew in the school of Hornbach. Thence he was invited to Heidelberg, under the elector palatine Frederic III. where he was professor of the Hebrew tongue, and translated the Syriac Testament into Latin. There also he undertook a Latin translation of the Bible out of Hebrew, and associated Francis Junius to him in that work. His next remove was to Sedan, at the request of the duke of Builloin, to be the Hebrew professor in his new university, where he died, 1580, in his seventieth year.

His translation of the Bible was first published in 1575, and afterwards corrected by Junius in 1587. The Protestant churches received it with great approbation; and our learned Matthew Poole, in the preface to his “Synopsis Criticorum,” reckons it among the best versions; but | popish writers have not spoken so favourably of it, but represent it as very faulty “As Tremellius,” says father Simon, “was a Jew, before he was a Protestant, he has retained something peculiar to himself in his translation, and deviates often from the true sense. His Latin is affected, and full of faults.” ¹