John Henten
Johanne Hentenio / Iohannes Hentenius
(1499-1566)
Enarrationes vetustissimorum theologorum, in Acta quidem apostolorum & in omnes D. Pauli ac Catholicas Epistolas ab Oecumenio: in Apocalypsim vero, ab Aretha Caesarae Cappadociae episcopo magna cura collectae. Iohanne Hentenio interpreta Pubblicazione: Parisii : apud Mathurinum Dupuys, 1547 ; via Iacobea sub insigni hominis Syluestris & Frobenii
Commentaria luculentissima vetustissimorum graecorum theologorum in omnes D. Pauli epistolas ab Oecumenio & magna cura ad compendium collecta interprete vero Iohanne Hentenio Nechliniensi Hieronymiano. – Parisiis : apud Iohannem Foucherium sub scuto Florentiae …, 1547 (Parisiis : excudebat Iohannes David). [Descrizione fisica: [24], 284 c.; Nota: Segn.: fiore-3fiore8 a-z8 A-M8 N4; Lingua: Latino; Paese: FR; Impronta: lam, ina- umui ruer (3) 1547 (A)]
WHAT OTHERS HAVE SAID
Bibliotecha Britannica
HENTENIUS, John, a learned Dominican, a native of France, was born about 1499, and went into Portugal in his infancy; died 1566 He published some of the Works of Euthemius, Zigabenus, (Ecumenius, and rethras, but is best known for the aid he contributed in publishing a beauul edition of the Vulgate Bible,—Biblia Sacra Vers. Vulgata?, cum Interp. ebraicorum Nominum. Printed by Plantin. Ant. 1565, 5 vols. l£mo.— nd the Louvain Bible of 1547. Reprinted, Biblia Sacra, cum variis ectionibus Hentenii et Theologorum Lovanicnsium, Adnotationibus F. ucoe, Brugcnsis. cum fig. sen. Antv. ap. Plant. 1583, fol.” (Bibliotheca Britannica, or a general index to British and foreign literature. Constable, 1824)
Catholic Encyclopedia
“John Henten – Biblical exegete, born 1499 at Nalinnes Belgium; died 10 Oct., 1566, at Louvain. When quite young he took the vows of religion in the Hieronymite Order in Spain, but left it about 1548 to enter the Dominican Order at Louvain, where he had gained a name at the university for sound scholarship. In 1550 he began to teach in the Dominican convent of that city, in which he became regent of studies three years later. He was made defender of the Faith and inquisitor in 1556. While prior of the Louvain convent he was chosen by the theological faculty of the university to take the place of John Hessel, Regius Professor of Sentences, who had been sent by the king to the Council of Trent, and was teaching at the university in 1565. Quétif and Echard (Script. Ord. Præd., II, 195-6) say that he was praised by the writers of his century, especially by William Seguier in “Laur. Beig.”, pt. I, 5 Dec., no. I, p. 57. His principal writings are:
(1) “Biblia Latina ad vetustissima exemplaria castigata” (Louvain, 1547, and many times elsewhere);
(2) “Commentaria in quatuor Evangelia”, consisting of commentaries by St. John Chrysostom and other early writers collected by Euthymius Zigabenus and interpreted by Henten (Louvain, 1544);
(3) “Enarrationes in Acta Apost. et in Apocalypsin” (Louvain, 1845, and repeatedly elsewhere);
(4) the same work, together with commentaries on the Epistles, as “Œcumenii commentaria in Acta Apost. etc.” (Paris, 1631).
Gary DeMar
“Once last point about Alcasar being the founder of the preterist school of interpretation needs to be made. Frank X. Gumerlock, writing in his book Revelation and the First Century, states that “Luis Alcasar’s commentary on Revelation, published in 1614, was not the first to take a preterist approach to the main body of the Apocalypse (Chs. 6–19). [John] Henten wrote his comments almost a century before the publication of Alcasar’s commentary.”[7] In 1545, Henten made these comments on the date of Revelation: And first it seems to us that John, this apostle and evangelist who is called the Theologian, was exiled onto Patmos by Nero at the very same time in which he killed the blessed apostles of Christ Peter and Paul. . . . [and] that the Apocalypse was written on Patmos before the destruction of Jerusalem.” (Was the Preterist Interpretation of Revelation Invented by the Jesuits?)
Moses Stuart
(On Origins of Praeterist View) “Near the commencement of the seventeenth century (1614), the Spanish Jesuit Ludovicus ab Alcasar published his Vestigatio arcani Sensus in Apocalypsi, a performance distinguished by one remarkable feature, which was then new. He declared the Apocalypse to be a continous and connected work, making regular advancement from beginning to end, as parts of one general plan in the mind of the writer. In conformity with this he brought out a result which has been of great importance to succeeding commentators. Rev. v-vi, he thinks, applies to the Jewish enemies of the Christian Church; xi-xix to heathen Rome and carnal and worldly powers, xx-xxii to the final conquests to be made by the church, and also to its rest, and its ultimate glorification. This view of the contents of the book had been merely hinted at before, by Hentenius, in the Preface to his Latin version of Arethas, Par. 1547. 8vo; and by Salmeron in his Preludia in Apoc. But no one had ever developed this idea fully, and endeavoured to illustrate and enforce it, in such a way as Alcasar … Although he puts the time of composing the Apocalypse down to the exile of John under Domitian, yet he still applies ch. v-xi to the Jews, and of course regards the book as partly embracing the past. “‘(Stuart, Moses, “Commentary on the Apocalypse”, Allen, Morrill and Wardell, Andover, 1845, Volume 1, p. 464.)
James Townley
“The Latin Vulgate having been pronounced authentic by the council of Trent, it was desirable that as correct an edition of It as possible should be printed, with all expedition. John Hentenius, a Catholic divine of Louvain, published, therefore, an edition of the Vulgate, chiefly taken from that of Robert Stephens, of 1540, but collated with several manuscripts. It was printed at Louvain, in 1547, fol. and was afterwards frequently reprinted. This edition of Hentenius may be attributed to the divines of Louvain in general, since the author assures us, in his preface, that it was done by the order of the most learned and judicious of the divines of that university, and that he acted under their counsel and direction; Sweertius (Freheri Theatrum,) adds, that it was undertaken at the request of the Emperor Charles V.
The edition of Hentenius, however, not being entirely satisfactory to them, they corrected the printed text, partly from Latin MSS., partly from the originals themselves; and published, at Louvain, in 1573, an edition of the Bible, much superior to the preceding, accompanied with various readings from Hebrew, Chaldee, Greek, Syriac, and Latin MSS. &c. The principal editor was Francis Lucas, of Bruges, assisted by John Molanusy Augustin Hunnceus, Cornelius Reyner, and John Harlem, doctors of the university of Louvain.9
John Henten, or Hentenius, the editor of the first edition of the Louvain Latin Bible, was born at Naline, near Thuin, on the Sambre. At an early period he went to Portugal, where he joined the order of Hieronymites.
(8) Dietionnaire Portatif des Conciles, p. 530.
Butler’s Lives, XI. p. 92.
(9) Le Long, edit. Masch, pt. ii. Toi, III. cap, ii. sec. 1. pp. 223 —225. 230—232.
He afterwards removed to Louvain, and entered the order of the Dominicans, and in 1551 was made doctor of divinity. He died at Louvain in 1566, aged 67.—Beside the Revision of the Vulgate Bible, he published The Commentaries of Euthymius on the Gospels; those of OEcumenius on the Epistles of St. Paul; and of Aretas on the Revelation.10 “(Illustrations of Biblical literature: exhibiting the history and …, Volume 2, 487)
A.J. Valpy – The Classical Journal (1828)
“Of Beza’s edition it is needless to say more. As a critical work it has very little merit. Ignorant of the true use of various readings, he seldom mentions them but to support his own hypotheses; to which godly purpose he warps both text and interpretation. He makes his commentary (as indeed he partly boasts himself) a vehicle for abuse on Origen, Erasmus, and Castalio; especially the latter; against whom he indulges, “without restraint, the exquisite rancor of theological hatred.”
I have said that the words in ceelo are omitted in no Latin manuscript, though Martin, I know, tells us (Verite, p. 170.) that those words are marked in Hentenius’s edition 1547, as wanting in five manuscripts. It seems to be the fate of this ” marvellous text,” to lead both friends and foes astray. For Simon himself, speaking of the edition of 1547, says, that it commits the same error as Stephens’s Greek, and marks only the words in coelo as wanting in five manuscripts, instead of marking the whole verse. Whether Martin was misled by Simon, or coined the error out of his own brain, I know not; but I know, that unless there are different copies of Hentenius’s edition, which I hardly believe, Simon’s assertion is totally false. For in the copy that I have seen, the whole seventh verse is comprehended between the obelus and the semicircle. Nor could it be otherwise. Hentenius’s list of manuscripts includes the very Latin copies that Stephens had collated. Since, then, four of Stephens’s manuscripts did certainly omit the whole seventh verse, it is no less certain that, whatever Hentenius’s margin may seem to say, Hentenius himself meant to extend his marginal reference to the same quantity of text. Perhaps Simon confounded a republication of the book with the original edition. For the Antwerp edition of 1570 omits both obelus and semicircle; the Lyons edition, 1573, places this mark ], which answers to the semicircle in other editions, after the words in coelo: the Antwerp edition, 1572, thus represents the text, yin ccelo,and in the margin has this note ‘5. But these mistakes are set right in Lucas Brugensis’s editions, Antw. 1574, 1583. Martin somewhere says, if I recollect, that Hentenius’s edition, 1565, omits the words in coelo, but I believe him mistaken. From these facts it seems to me a certain conclusion, that Robert Stephens might easily misplace his semicircle on this verse, when we see in two other editions the self-same error committed in the very same words; Still, if Mr. Travis wishes to catch at a twig that may save him from sinking, I will be charitable enough to direct him to R. Stephens’s Latin edition of 1545, but I expect his thanks for the information. In that edition Robert has printed two versions, which he calls the Old and the New; the Old is the received Vulgate, the New is a translation from the Greek, made by Robert, or by some learned man under his inspection. The Old, as might be expected, retains 1 John v. 7; the New dismisses it from the text with ignominy, but puts a star after testimonium dant*, and adds in the margin, “”Pater verbuni et spiritus sanctus et hi tres unum sunt. Et tres sunt qui testimonium dant in terra spiritus, &c. sic legunt quasdam exemplaria Graeca.” (The Classical Journal, Volume 37)
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