PO'COCKE, or POCOCK, EuwARti (1604.9I) . An English oriental scholar. Ile was horn at I IN ford. graduated B.A. from Corpus Christi Col lege, Oxford. in 1622. and received priest's orders in 1639. Ile early turned his attention to Orien tal studies and had the best teachers that England could suliply. In the Bodleian Library he discov ered a manuscript of the Syriac version of the New Testament, containing four epistles (11. Peter. 11. and 111. John, and Jude), which had been missing in the earlier editions. and published them under the title l'ersio et auto' quatuor pistolas syriarc (J.eyden, 1630). In 1620 he was appointed chaplain to the English 'Turkey Merehants' at Aleppo, and arrived at his post in October of the following year. He remained there for more than five years, during which time he mastered the Arabic language and continued the study of Hebrew, Syriac, Samaritan, and Ethiopic. Ile cultivated friendly relations with the natives and was extraordinarily successful in collecting valuable manuscripts. he performed the duties of his post faithfully, and in 1634, when the plague raged in Aleppo, remained in the town when others fled to the mountains. hi 1636 Poeneke returned to England to accept from Archbishop Laud an appointment as the first professor of a new Arabic 'lectureship' at Oxford. The following year he again went to the East to study and collect more manuscripts. For nearly three years lie resided at Constantinople, re turning to England in 1041. During the Civil War and the Commonwealth his connect kin with Laud and Royalist sympathies exposed him to much annoyance. his college presented him to the living at Childrey, Berkshire ( 1642). where his pa risliiithers cheated him and quartered soldiers at the rectory. The revenues of the Arabie lec tureship were illegally seized. but by the exertion of John Seidel] and other friends, Pocoeke was reinstated. Ile was made professor of Hebrew (1647). with a canonry. of which he was de prived in 1650, while allowed to retain his profes sorships through the unanimous interposition of all the heads of houses, masters, and scholars at Oxford. In 1655 a plan to deprive him of his
living was defeated through the influence of John Owen and other enlightened men, who urged "the infinite contempt and reproach which would re sult from such treatment of a man whom all the learned, not of England only, lint of all Europe, admired for his vast learning and accomplish ments." During these trouhlons, times Pocoeke steadily pursued his studies, and strove to fulfill all duties inemnbent upon him. but professed that "to do anything that may ever so little molest the quiet of my conscience would he more grievous than the loss, not only of my fortunes, but even of my life." He published his great work. the Sprrintrn iiislorim .1rabum, at Oxford in 1649 (241 ed. by Joseph White, 1806). This work marks an epoch in Arabic studies, and all later scholars have home testimony to its erudition and sound scholarship. Other works of the same period are the Porte ilosis, an edition of the six prefatory discourses of Maimonides on the Ali.shna, with Latin translations and notes (1655): the Coniesiio Geminorum, a Latin trans lation of the Annuls of Eat-chins ( 1658) ; and a treatise on The Nature of lire Drink liauhi or Coffee, Described by urn Arabian Physician (1659). Ile gave much assistance in the prepa ration of Walton's l'olyglot ( 1657). At the Restoration he was reinstated in his canonry of Christ Church, and thenceforth lived in quiet. and ease at Oxford, but with no abatement of his devotion to study. He published several works, the most important of which were his com mentaries on the Minor Prophets (Micah and Malachi, 1677; Hosea, 1685; Joel, 1691). Ile died September 10, 1691. Pococke's life was writ ten by the Rev. Leonard Twills and prefixed to his edition of The Theologieal Works of the Learned Dr. Pococke (2 vols., London, 1740).