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Huntington, Robert, D.D.

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

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Huntington, William

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a distinguished English theologian and Orientalist, was born in February, 1636, at Deorhyrst, in Gloucestershire, where his father, of the same names, was parish clergyman. He was educated at the free-school of Bristol, was admitted in 1652 a portionist of Merton College, Oxford, received his bachelor's degree in 1658, and was shortly after elected to a fellowship in that college. He took his degree of Master of Arts in 1663, and, having then applied himself with great success to the study of the Oriental languages, he was in 1670 appointed to the situation of chaplain at Aleppo. From 1677 to 1682 he traveled in the East, and a short time after his return, in 1683, was appointed provost or master of Trinity College, Dublin, receiving about this time the degree of D.D.; he resigned this position in 1691, and once more returned to England. In August, 1692, he was presented by Sir Edward Turner to the rectory of Great Hallingbury, in Essex; and while there he married a sister of Sir John Powell, one of the justices of the King's Bench. In 1701 he was elected bishop of Raphoe, but he died before consecration, Sept. 2, of this year. Dr. Huntington is principally distinguished for the numerous Oriental manuscripts which he procured while in the East and brought with him to England. Besides those which he purchased for archbishop Marsh and bishop Fell, he obtained between six and seven hundred for himself, which are now in the Bodleian Library, to which he first presented thirty-five of them, and then sold the rest in 1691 for the small sum of 700. Huntington, however, missed the principal object of his search, the very important Syriac version of the epistles of St. Ignatius, a large portion of which was recovered in 1843 by Mr. Tattam from one of the very monasteries in Nitria, which Huntington had visited in the course of his inquiries. Several of Huntington's letters, which are addressed to the archbishop of Mount Sinai, contain inquiries about the manuscript of St. Ignatius, and the same earnest inquiries are made in his letters to the patriarch of Antioch. See Vita I. et epistolae, edited by Thomas Smith (Lond. 1704, 8vo); English Cyclop. s.v.; Allibone, Dict. of Authors, i, 924; Hook, Eccles. Biog. 6:224; Darling, Cyclop. Bibliog. 1, 1585. (J. H. W.)