Thomas Spark Commentaries (2 results)
More imagesLanguage: English
Published by E Theatro Sheldoniano, Oxonii [Oxford], 1684
- Hardcover
- First Edition
Seller: Trinity Books, Boyle, ROSCO, IrelandTrinity Books
Contact seller5-star sellerCondition: Used - Very good
US$ 470.81
US$ 26.04 shippingShips from Ireland to U.S.A.Quantity: 1 available
Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. No Jacket. 1st Edition. Full leather suede binding. Externally clean. Binding firm. Lacking spine label. Internally firmly bound. Pages generally bright and clean with marginal age toning and the odd spot.Thomas Spark, born 1655, was a classical scholar and chaplain, notably delivering the first…oration on Sir Thomas Bodley. Sparks was also a prolific author, with this work being a detailed work regarding the works of early Christian author Lactantius. Lactantius is credited as being an important advisor to Roman emperor Constantine I, and was integral in shaping his religious policy. The work explores a number of his works including 'De Falsa Sapientia', a notable work regarding 'false wisdom'. Like many of Lactantius's contemporaries, the work is influenced by pagan and philosophical thought. 912 pages with 33 pages index.Text in latin.
More imagesPublished by E Theatro Sheldoniano, Oxonii [Oxford] 1684
- First Edition
Seller: Capitol Hill Books, ABAA, Washington, DC, U.S.A.Capitol Hill Books, ABAA
Contact seller5-star sellerCondition: Used - Very good
US$ 850.00
US$ 4.50 shippingShips within U.S.A.Quantity: 1 available
Condition: Very Good. Oxonii [Oxford]: E Theatro Sheldoniano, 1684. First Edition. Thick octavo (21cm.); contemporary speckled paneled calf, spine in five compartments with brown gilt-lettered spine label, all edges stained red; [18],912,[2],38pp. (collated, presumed complete); engraved vignette on title page of the Sheldonian T…heatre. Ex-library (institute unknown) with faint manuscript markings directly to spine and small rubber-stamp to front pastedown, leather a bit scuffed and dried along spine edges with brief cracking to upper joint, 18th-century ownership signatures of Ida Grey and Thomas de Grey to front free endpaper and title page, else a Very Good, mostly fresh and sound copy. One of just two scholarly works published in the lifetime of English theologian and scholar Thomas Spark (1655-1692). As a clergyman of the Church of England Spark was admitted to a prebend in the church of Rochester a few years before his untimely death: "He died on 7 Sept. 1692 at Bath, whither he had gone to drink the waters" (DNB). His contemporaries attributed his death to "his excesses and too much Agitation obtaining Spiritualities" (Wood, "Ath. Oxon."). The present work is a scholarly edition of the works of early Christian theologian Lactantius (ca. 240-320 CE). Thomas Hearne, contemporary of Spark's, deemed it "a poor Performance, the Text being very incorrect, and the Notes from MSS. very mean, he having taken no pains to collate them accurately." Overall a reassuring reminder that shoddy scholarship has been around for a long time and can endure for centuries after the scholar's demise. ESTC R014307; WING L-139; see also the DNB XVIII, p. 719, and the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
