EDWARDS, THOMAS (1652 - 1721), cleric and Coptic scholar

Born at Llanllechid, Caernarfonshire. He attended school at Bangor, proceeded to S. John's College, Cambridge, in 1670, graduated B.A. in 1673, and M.A. in 1677. For some time, ending with Dr. Edmund Castell's death in 1685, Edwards lived with this learned professor of Arabic at Cambridge. He then became chaplain of Christ Church, Oxford, apparently in order to pass through the press the Coptic New Testament held up by the death of its editor Dr. Thomas Marshall in 1675. Owing to the death (1686) of John Fell, bishop of Oxford, his patron (credited by Schwartze with persuading him to take up Coptic), further publication of the Coptic N.T. was suspended, and he was never able to publish even a specimen of his manuscript Coptic lexicon compiled from various sources and preserved in the Bodleian library. From 1690-1708 he was vicar of Badby, Northants; then rector of Aldwinckle All Saints until his death 5 September 1721. His only published works seem to be A Discourse Against Extempore Prayer (London, 1703), criticized by Edward Calamy in such a way as to provoke Diocesan Episcopacy proved from Holy Scripture (London, 1705).

Author

• Dafydd Rhys ap Thomas

Sources

• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
• Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses
• M. G. Schwartze, Koptische Grammatik (Berlin 1850), 17

Further Reading

• Wikipedia Article: Thomas Edwards

Additional Links

• VIAF: 48247899
• Wikidata: Q7789292

Published date: 1959

Article Copyright: http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/