LEVDEKKER (Marcmolt) was born at /vliddleburg in Holland, in the year 1642. From 1679 to his death in 1721, he zealously discharged his duties of professor of divinity at Utrecht, in defence of the Reformed Religion against all comers. The Cartesian philosophy, the theology of Cocceius, the writings of Drusius, and the Lutheran tendencies of Hermann Witsius, were all in their turn objects of his strenuous opposition. His polemical temper, which produced many works unsuitable for mention here, characterised even his great archaeological treatise, which entitles him to a place in our Cyc/opa?dia. This work, entitled De Republica HebriFornm, was published at Amsterdam in 1704 in a thick folio volume, and is one of the largest repertories ever written on the wide subject of Hebrew antiquities. In his treat ment of it the author has exhibited vast stores of Scriptural, Rabbinical, and historical learning. It adds to the interest of the subject that his disserta tions on the Hebrew law. and customs, both political and religious, are inwoven in an historical narrative, in which the Sacred History is developed, by epochs, from the earliest period to the latest. The author in his progress learnedly investigates the history, pari passii, of the leading Gentile nations, very much after the manner of Shuckford tnd Russell, in their Connections. This valuable work, on which Leydekker's fame deserves mainly to depend, is singularly enough ig-nored in Schwei ?.er's sketch of the author (Herzog's Real-Encykl.,
viii. 36o, 361). Leydekker's academical duties recalled his attention from polemical and clerical pursuits to the Biblical studies which his early years had been devoted to. At the age of seven teen he had made considerable advance in Rabbi nical literature under the guidance of a learned Rabbi. He found no difficulty therefore in after life in turning his attention to his youthful studies. Attempting to fit the works of Godwin (Moses and Aaron) and Cunxus (De Rtpublica Hebr.) to his a.cademical purposes, he soon discovered their in sufficiency. To this discovery we owe bis own more copious treatise, which is everywhere marked by a vigorous and independent judgment. While he conceals not his aversion to the futilities' of the Talmud, he quotes the great Rabbins with respect. He moreover keeps a sharp eye on the extravagancies of Christian writers, and his work censures with even-handed justice the well known Rabbinism of the Buxtorffs and the .Egy"firm of our Spencer (De legibus "Mr.) it is only cha racteristic of this unsparing criticism of the ortho dox author, that he adds an appendix of severe animadversion against the cosmogony of our Thomas Burnet, to whose Thearia Ile pre fixes the predicate "rotrna. The six dissertations of this appendix, whatever may be thought of the author's views, are valuable for their learning, and interesting as closely bearing on the questions now raised on the Mosaic cosmogony.—P. H.