I first encountered Christianus Ravius nearly forty years ago, while I was working on my edition of the Arabic translation of the “lost” books of Apollonius’s Conics. Ravius had published a Latin version of those books, and my efforts to find a copy of that edition gave me a foretaste of the difficulties involved in locating many of his publications. In order to examine one of the two exemplars then known to me I had to make a journey to the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris (then still housed in the old building in the Rue de Richelieu). The book proved to be a disappointment, contributing nothing of value to our understanding of the Conics, but in the meantime my investigation of Ravius led me to Johann Moller’s notice of his life in Cimbria Literata (still, after two and a half centuries, in many ways the best account of him). This revealed a career of extraordinary interest and variety, enlivened by travel to the east and in Europe, and by contacts with all the contemporary major scholars of Protestant Europe (and some beyond). In the interstices of my other work, I continued to collect material on Ravius, including much of his surviving correspondence (extensive but almost entirely unpublished), and also began to read as much of his published works as I could access in those days before the existence of on-line library catalogues, Google Books, and the like. These investigations incidentally stood me in good stead in my next publication, a history of Arabic studies in seventeenth-century England, in which I was able to give a detailed account of the establishment of a school of oriental studies in London in the 1640’s, of which Ravius was the head. That event had been almost completely overlooked in previous discussions of intellectual developments during the English Revolution. Ravius also featured in my intellectual biography of John Selden, mainly as a recipient of Selden’s support and generosity during two of his English sojourns.
After the publication of that biography, I intended to devote all my time and energies to writing as complete an account as I could of Ravius’s career and publications, but personal circumstances made that impossible for a number of years, during which I could only publish an occasional article extracted from my notes on aspects of his career. One advantage of that delay is that in the meantime I unearthed several documents which add much to our knowledge of his early life. In particular, I located one of the two surviving exemplars of the printed oration pronounced at his funeral, which is the source of much of Moller’s account, and which I had sought for in vain for more than thirty years. Also, on gaining access to part of the archive of the Berlin Gymnasium zum Grauen Kloster, where Ravius had spent formative years of his education, I found material of great interest for his early life, including his first appearance in print at the age of 17. With the present book I can finally offer the first part of the story of his life, arranged chronologically, with detailed summaries of his published works, supported by extensive extracts from his correspondence (mostly unpublished previously) and other remarkable documents. Since many of his works survive only in a small number of printed copies (some in just two or one, or are completely lost), I have provided details of the location of all known extant exemplars, and of on-line reproductions where available.
Ravius would not be judged a great scholar, but he was often an original one, and his theories, even if strange and ultimately fruitless, shed a useful light on the scholarly concerns of his time. His doctrine of the essential unity of all Semitic languages has drawn the attention of modern historians of linguistics, but is best viewed in the light of his concern to expand the study of oriental languages, especially Arabic, which he shared with many contemporaries. The theory of biblical chronology to which he devoted the last decade of his life, although greeted with almost universal disbelief and even derision, must be examined in the context of the contemporary belief that the Bible is the necessary foundation of all chronology. Likewise, Ravius’s career itself illustrates many aspects of contemporary scholarly life. He held teaching posts (often precarious) in the Netherlands, England, Sweden and Germany, and aspired without success to others in Switzerland, Denmark and even France. He travelled extensively, and his stay in the Ottoman Empire was formative for his later career. That continual movement from place to place occurred against the background of the Thirty Years’ War, which resulted in the premature deaths (from the accompanying plague) of his parents and younger siblings, and also of his principal teacher at Wittenberg University, as well as the shooting of the schoolmaster who taught him Hebrew.
While in Constantinople, Ravius began to assemble the substantial collection of manuscripts in Arabic and other languages which was a feature of many aspects of his career (this book incidentally includes much information on individual manuscripts in that collection). He often tried to use it as an inducement to employ him, but it was also a necessary part of his efforts to promote the study of oriental languages in Europe. In the mid-seventeenth century few Arabic texts (and even fewer Persian and Turkish texts) had been published. Hence serious study of those languages relied on the availability of manuscripts. Some European libraries (notably the Bodleian at Oxford, Leiden University, the Escurial in Spain and the Vatican) had begun to assemble collections of oriental manuscripts, but there was need for much more. Ravius, who rightly represented himself as following in the footsteps of Jacobus Golius and Edward Pococke (who had collected manuscripts for Leiden and the Bodleian respectively), consistently urged the importance of travel to the East, both for the acquisition of manuscripts and also to learn languages and establish intellectual relationships with the learned in those parts. Such aspirations are found throughout his work, but expressed most eloquently in his Obtestatio ad Universam Europam Pro Discendis Rebus et Linguis Orientalibus.
However, perhaps the most remarkable aspect of Ravius’s career is how many of the foremost scholars of his time he was in contact with, some only by correspondence (such as Buxtorf and Hottinger in Switzerland), but others in person: Grotius in Paris, Selden, Comenius, Ussher and Pococke in England, the Vossii and Golius in Holland. There was also a host of lesser figures, as attested by the enormous list prefixed to his Specimen Lexici Arabico-Persico-Latini (1645), which includes residents of Paris and Rome. That list, together with his correspondence, illustrates two aspects of Ravius’s character. Firstly, his assiduous courting of those who might help him to advance his career (also manifested in the egregious flattery of his letters to people of status and influence). Secondly, a more attractive trait, his ability to gain the friendship and trust of those whom he met (although some of them came to regret giving him that trust). An overview of his life will reveal a complex man, with great talents, which should have led to a successful scholarly career, but were limited by flaws of character. He was a quick study of languages, as is manifested by his mastery of colloquial English and spoken Turkish (both learned on the streets of London and Constantinople respectively, where he also proved himself a keen observer). But he never took the time or made the effort to penetrate deeply into learned languages (apart from the Latin, Greek and Hebrew which he had learned as a schoolboy and undergraduate). This was particularly disastrous for his knowledge of Arabic, a central feature of the study of oriental languages which he assiduously promoted. Ravius understood well what material was needed in the way of publication of texts, grammars and lexica, and also the importance of presses able to handle exotic types, especially Arabic. But he seems to have been unable to resist claiming that he had already prepared such works, when all that he had done was to have conceived the idea for them. His tendency to boastfulness was already noticed by his teacher August Buchner. The portrait of Ravius which is presented by his Arabic-speaking amanuensis, who calls him a “treasure-house of lies”, is undoubtedly skewed by personal grievances, but it must be admitted that throughout his life we encounter dishonesty which ranges from exaggerations to outright falsehoods. On the other hand, his advocacy of the study of oriental languages was genuine and heartfelt, and was pursued at great personal sacrifice. The problem of indebtedness which plagued him throughout his career (another aspect of the Thirty Years’ War, which ruined his father’s estate) must be viewed in this light. I hope that the picture of the man which emerges from my narrative will illustrate his virtues as well as his faults.
I could not have written this book without the aid of many institutions and people, which I gratefully acknowledge here. I thank the following institutions for affording me access and/or supplying photographs of books and manuscripts: the libraries of Brown University and Harvard University, the Bodleian Library Oxford, Regent’s Park College Oxford, Cambridge University Library, the British Library, Lambeth Palace Library, John Rylands Library Manchester, Bibliothèque nationale Paris, Uppsala Universitetsbibliotek, Linköpings Stiftsbibliotek, Strängnäs Stift, Universiteitsbibliotheek Amsterdam, Universitaire Bibliotheken Leiden, Zentral- und Landesbibliothek Berlin (Streitsche Stiftung) Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Dresden, Niedersächsiche Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Göttingen, Stadtarchiv Heilbronn, Universitätsbibliothek Leipzig, Ratsschulbibliothek Zwickau, Universitätsbibliothek Basel and Universitätsbibliothek Zürich. I thank the following friends and colleagues for sending me photographs or transcriptions of books and manuscripts and other assistance. Monika Asztalos, Marie Cronier, Theodor Dunkelgrün, Joseph Eskhult, Alastair Hamilton, Klas Hansson, Nicholas Hardy, Boris Liebrenz, Jan Loop, Noel Malcolm, William Poole, Jason Rosenblatt and Elliot Vernon. I owe special debts of gratitude to the following: Paul Babinski, for photographs and information about manuscripts owned by Ravius; Asaph Ben-Tov, for supplying me with photographs and transcriptions of items inaccessible to me; Mordechai Feingold, for friendly support and assistance over many years; Hilary Kilpatrick, for her valuable collaboration and assistance; Susanne Knackmuß, for information on and photographs of documents from Ravius’s early life; Dirk van Miert, for assistance in multiple ways; Maurits van den Boogert, for his comments on a preliminary version of this book, and Harvey Shoolman, for his constant interest in my work and advice on improving it.