Discours en forme de comparaison sur les vies de Moyse & d'Homere, où sont incidemment faits quelques essais sur diverses matieres. Paris, Jean Gesselin, 1604.
First Edition. 12mo (135 x 75 mm), pp. [ii], 329, [1], wanting the preface, some dampstaining in text, some corners folded, occasional staining, in contemporary vellum with a rather clumsy, but early (18th century?) and charming, sheep spine, lettered and tooled in gilt, the front gutter cracked and front free endpaper missing, the front pastedown loose, revealing use of printer’s waste in the binding: altogether an indestructible but very charming look.
A charming copy of this scarce and somewhat eccentric work in which the lives of Moses and Homer are compared in an attempt to demonstrate the divine inspiration of Homer. Quattrehomme’s argument is essentially that Homer, with his exquisitely tuned mental capacity and a moral sense not found in other men, must have had a divinity about him. As he could not have had access to the Pentateuch, it follows that he must have been descended from one of the Jews who had received the manna, and therefore had a direct line to that physical manifestation of divinity. He argues furthermore that there was an astrological connection between the two men, even though the absence of an available horoscope prevents his proving that they were born under the same astrological configuration.
‘Pour [Quattrehomme], il n’y a pas de relation historique entre ses deux héros, la second n’a rien connu du premier, mais par un mystérieux décret de la Providence, il s’est trouvé présenter des similitudes frappantes avec lui. ‘Suivant en ce la commune opinion’, écrit il, ‘nous croirons qu’Homère n’a eu aucune notion des livres de Moïse, le Pentateuque de ce temps-là étant inviolablement gardé par les Hébreux’. Cependant, pour expliquer l’esprit et les moeurs affinés d’Homère, ses ‘sentimens mieux assaisonnés’ et son ‘cerveau mieux timbré’, que chez les autres hommes, notre auteur se ‘persuade que quelques Hébreux par succession de temps étant retournés en Egypte, eurent affaire à quelques Egyptienne, duquel accoupiement enfin vint Homère’. Notons que c’est au pouvoir de la manne qu’est attribuée la supériorité des Hébreux et, par voie de conséquence, celle d’Homère. Et à l’appuie de sa thèse sur la similitude de Moïse et d’Homère, cet imaginatif assez plaisant invoque l’astrologie: si l’on pouvait dresser l’horoscope de Moïse, conjecture-t-il, on le verrait soumis qux mêmes configurations astrales que celui d’Homère’ (Noémi Hepp, ‘Les Interprétations religieuses d’Homère’, in Revue des sciences religieuses, 1957, p. 37).
This copy, although it collates as the British Library copy (online at https://dds.crl.edu/page/download/12115/2), does appear to lack the preface. Of the copies listed on OCLC, those at the BN and Trinity College, Cambridge are catalogued as having the preface (BN: ‘In-12, préface, 330p; Trinity College: pp. [6], 329); the copies at the Bibliothèque Mazarine and Princeton make no mention of the preface but may have it (both are catalogued simply as pp. 329) and the Lyon copy notes that it lacks the preface.
The catalogue of Trinity College Library, Cambridge notes that their copy has an extra copy of pp. 241-242 and pp. 263-264 bound in at the end, with the text of the second version of p. 263 having been reset, with the last characters of the first four lines in superscript. This latter piece of information suggests that there must have been two printings of this text, leading one to surmise that the preface may have been suppressed. Internal evidence in this copy suggests that something has been removed and perhaps the title reattached in the manner of a cancel title. Further research into the limited copies available might yield some answers.
OCLC lists BN and Bibliothèques Mazarine (catalogue gives 330p.), and Saint-Geneviève, Lyon (without the preface), BL (without the preface), Trinity College, Cambridge and Princeton (catalogue gives 329p.).
Cioranescu 55884.