Antiquitates Christianae: Or, The History of the Life and Death of the Holy Jesus

London: J. Walthoe et al, 1742. Tenth edition. Hardcover. Very good. [6], L, [8], xxviii, vii, [3], 622 p., interspersed with plates. 36 cm. 76 b&w engraved plates, including one fold-out across from p. 60 and the frontispiece. Some plates double numbered. Black and red title page. Full burgundy leather with raised bands and gilt impressing to spine. Respined with original spine overlaid. Repaired corners. Spots pp. 513-522 in margins. Tear in bottom of fold-out not affecting illustration. Tear in bottom of p. 89 not affecting text. Other small spots and thumbing. New free endpapers. Ink signature on front pastedown is that of "Frederick Hanmacher."

Title continues: "As Also the Lives, Acts and Martyrdoms of His Apostles. In Two Parts. The First Part, containing The Life of Christ, Written by Jer. Taylor, late Lord Bishop of Down and Connor. The Second, containing The Lives of the Apostles, with an Enumeration and some Brief Remarks upon their first Successors in the Five Great Apostolical Churches." Jeremy Taylor (1613 – 1667) was a cleric in the Church of England who achieved fame as an author during the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell. He is sometimes known as the "Shakespeare of Divines" for his poetic style of expression and he is frequently cited as one of the greatest prose writers in the English language. The less well known William Cave (1637 – 1713) was an English divine who became a patristic scholar - that is, he studied the early Christian writers who were considered Church Fathers. Although his Lives of the Apostles was originally published here as the second part of Taylor's Antiquitates Christianae, it was later published separately as an ecclesiastical history of the first four centuries.