ELIAS

elias, john (1774-1841), welsh nonconformist preacher and reformer, was born on the 2nd of may 1774, in the parish of abererch, carnarvonshire. in his youth he came under the influence of the calvinistic methodist revival and became a preacher at nineteen. in 1799 he married and settled at llanfechell in anglesey, giving up his trade as a weaver to become a small shopkeeper. his fame as a preacher increased, and under the direction of thomas charles of bala he established numerous sunday schools, and gave and secured considerable welsh support to the founding of the london missionary society, the british and foreign bible society and the religious tract society. on charles's death in 1814 he became the recognized leader of the calvinistic methodist church, and the story of his life is simply a record of marvellously successful preaching tours. he died on the 8th of june 1841; ten thousand people attended his funeral. his eloquence was so remarkable that he was known as "the welsh demosthenes." his strength lay in his intense conviction of an intimate connexion between sin and punishment and in his power of dramatic presentation. as an ecclesiastic he was not so successful; he helped to compile his church's confession of faith in 1823, and laid great stress on a clause which limited the scope of the atonement to the elect. he was a stout tory in politics and had many friends among the anglican clergy; he opposed the movement for roman catholic emancipation. several of his sermons were published in welsh. elias levita (1469-1549), jewish grammarian, was born at neustadt on the aisch, a place in bavaria lying between nuremberg and wurzburg. he preferred to call himself "ashkenazi," the german, and bore also the nickname of "bachur," the youth or student, which latter he gave as title to his hebrew grammar. before the end of the 15th century he went to italy, which thenceforth remained his home. he lived first at padua, went in 1509, after the capture of this town by the army of the league of cambrai, to venice, and finally in 1513 to rome, where he found a patron in the learned general of the augustinian order, the future cardinal egidio di viterbo, whom he helped in his study of the kabbalah, while he himself was inspired by him to literary work. the storming of rome by the army of the constable de bourbon in 1527 compelled elias to go to venice, where he was employed as corrector in the printing-house of daniel bomberg. in the years 1541 and 1542 he lived at isny, in southern wurttemberg, where he published several of his writings in the printing-house of the learned pastor paul fagius. the last years of his life he spent at venice, continuously active in spite of ill-health and the weakness of old age. his monument in the graveyard of the jewish community at venice boasts of him that "he illuminated the darkness of grammar and turned it into light." the importance of levita rests both in his numerous writings and in his personal activity. in the remarkable period which saw the rise of the reformation and gave to the study of the hebrew bible and to its language an importance in the history of the world, it was levita who furthered in an extraordinary manner the study of hebrew in christian circles by his activity as a teacher and by his writings. to his pupils especially belong sebastian minoter, who translated levita's grammatical works into latin, also george de selve, bishop of lavaur, the french ambassador in venice (1536), who was instrumental in obtaining for levita an invitation from francis i. to come to paris, which invitation, however, levita did not accept. levita's writings on hebrew grammar (_bachur_, a text-book, 1518; _harkaba_, an explanation, alphabetically arranged, of irregular word-forms; a table of paradigms; _pirke elijahu_, a description--partly metrical--of phonetics, and other chapters of the grammar, 1520; his earliest work, a commentary on moses kimhi's hebrew grammar, 1508) were by reason of their methodical exposition, their clear articulation, their avoidance of prolixity, especially suited as an introduction to the study of the hebrew language. amongst levita's other writings is the first dictionary of the targumim (_meturgeman_, 1541) and the first attempt at a lexicon in which much of the treasure of late hebrew language was explained (_tishbi_, explanation of 712 new hebrew vocables, as a supplement to the dictionaries of david kimhi and nathan b. yehiel, 1542). scientifically most valuable, and of original importance, are the works of levita on the _massora_; his concordance to the massora (_sefer zikhronot_ completed in the second revision 1536), of which hitherto only a small part has been published, and especially his most celebrated book _massoreth hamasoreth_ (1538), published with english translation by chr. d. ginsburg, london, 1867. this was the first attempt to give a systematic account of the contents and history of the massora. by his criticism of the massora, and especially by proving that the punctuation of the books of the hebrew bible is of late origin, levita exercised an epoch-making influence. of his other writings may be mentioned his running commentary on david kimhi's grammar and dictionary (in the bomberg editions 1545, 1546), his german translation of the psalms (1545) and the _baba-buch_ (more properly _buovobuch_, a german recension of the italian novel _historia di buovo d' antona_, 1508). of the literature on levita may be mentioned: y. levi, _elia levita und seine leistungen als grammatiker_ (breslau, 1888); w. bacher, "e. levita's wissenschaftliche leistungen" in _z. d. d. m. g._ xliii. (1889), p. 206-272. (w. ba.)