Name Johann Schudt | ||
Died February 14, 1722, Frankfurt, Germany | ||
Johann Jakob Schudt (January 14, 1664 – February 14, 1722) was a German polyhistor and Orientalist.
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Life
Schudt was born and died in Frankfort-on-the-Main. He studied theology at Wittenberg, and went to Hamburg in 1684 to study Orientalia under Ezra Edzardi. He then settled in his native city as teacher in the gymnasium in which he had been educated, and of which he became rector in 1717.
Works
He devoted himself especially to Jewish history and antiquities, beginning with the publication of a Compendium Historiae Judaieae (1700). His greatest work was his Judische Merkwurdigkeiten, of which three parts appeared in 1714, and a supplementary part in 1717.
Up to that time he had been on friendly terms with the Jews of Frankfurt, writing a preface to Grunhut's edition of David Kimhi's Commentary on the Psalms, 1712, while in 1716 he published the Purim play of the Frankfurt and Prague Jews with a High German translation. He had, however, previously published Judaeus Christicida, attempting to prove that Jews deserved corporal as well as spiritual punishment for the crucifixion.
His "Judische Merkwurdigkeiten" is full of prejudice, and repeats many of the fables and ridiculous items published by Johann Andreas Eisenmenger; but it contains also details of contemporary Jewish life, a source for the history of the Jews, particularly those of Frankfurt.
Schudt also contributed to Ugolini's "Thesaurus" (vol. xxxii.) a dissertation on the singers of the Temple.