William Cureton
William Cureton (* 1808 in Westbury , Shropshire , † June 17, 1864 ) was a British orientalist .
Life
At the age of 20, Cureton came to Christ Church College at the University of Oxford in 1828 . In 1832 he received the Sacrament of Orders and two years later he was appointed sub-librarian of the Bodleian Library .
In 1837 Cureton was appointed to the British Museum , where he researched ancient Egyptian and early Christian manuscripts. Nine years later he began to publish a catalog of Arabic manuscripts. During this time (around 1847) Queen Victoria appointed him her chaplain . In 1838 he was elected as a member (" Fellow ") in the Royal Society . In 1850 Cureton was appointed Canon of Westminster Abbey ( City of Westminster ) and at the same time pastor of St Margaret's Church . In 1860 he was elected a corresponding member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences . In 1862 he was accepted as a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg .
William Cureton died on June 17, 1864 of the consequences of a railway accident at the age of about 54.
reception
His reputation in the learned world is mainly based on the publication of previously unknown, but important Syrian documents for the history of the old Christian Church from the manuscript collection which Henry Tattam had acquired for the British Museum in 1841 from a monastery in the Egyptian soda desert. The first publication from it was a Syrian translation of Ignatius' letters to Polycarp , and to the Ephesians and Romans (London 1845). It was precisely this translation (more of an interpretation) that experienced a sometimes very controversial discussion, which Cureton defended vehemently.
Works (selection)
- Vindiciæ Ignatianæ or the genuine writings of St. Ignatius . London 1846.
- Corpus Ignatianum. A complete collection of the Ignatian epistles . London 1849.
- The festal letters of Athanasius. Discovered in an ancient Syriac version . London 1848 (Festive Letters from Athanasius the Great )
literature
- Stanley Lane-Poole : Cureton, William . In: Leslie Stephen (Ed.): Dictionary of National Biography . Volume 13: Craik - Damer. , MacMillan & Co, Smith, Elder & Co., New York City / London 1888, pp. 325 - 326 (English).
- Stanley Lane-Poole, rev. Sinéad Agnew: Cureton, William (1808–1864), Syriac scholar. In: Henry Colin Gray Matthew, Brian Harrison (Eds.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , from the earliest times to the year 2000 (ODNB). Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-861411-X , ( oxforddnb.com license required ), as of 2004 (not viewed).
- Cureton, William . In: Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon . 6th edition. Volume 4, Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig / Vienna 1906, p. 377 .
- Cureton . In: Heinrich August Pierer , Julius Löbe (Hrsg.): Universal Lexicon of the Present and the Past . 4th edition. tape 19 . Altenburg 1865, p. 830-831 ( zeno.org ).
Web links
- Literature by and about William Cureton in the catalog of the German National Library
- Entry for Cureton, William (1808-1864) in the Archives of the Royal Society , London
Individual evidence
- ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 63.
- ^ Foreign members of the Russian Academy of Sciences since 1724. William Cureton. Russian Academy of Sciences, accessed September 26, 2015 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Cureton, William |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British orientalist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1808 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Westbury, Shropshire |
| DATE OF DEATH | June 17, 1864 |