The New International Encyclopædia/Concordance

CONCORDANCE (ML. concordantia, agreement, from Lat. concordare, to agree, from com-, together + cor, heart). A book arranged in alphabetical order, and showing in what passages all, or at least all of the more important, words in any work occur. For writings of universal import from which passages are continually being adduced to prove or support principles affecting our daily life and action, such a handbook is indispensable. The necessity for such a book upon the Bible was doubtless early felt, but the first Bible concordance was made by the famous Saint Anthony of Padua (q.v.), who in the early part of the thirteenth century published it under the title Concordantiæ Morales in Sacra Biblia (best edition, de la Haye, Paris, 1641). His example was followed by Cardinal Hugo de Saint Cher in 1244 with his Concordantiæ Jacobi, so called because made in the Convent of Saint James in Paris. Both these works were of course based on the Vulgate, as were several similar ones before the invention of printing. The earliest printed concordance to the Vulgate is by Joannes de Segovia and Sebastian Brant (Basel, 1496), and it is the basis of that published and edited by Robert Stephens (Paris, 1555). A concordance to the Greek Bible (Old and New Testament) was made by Euthalius of Rhodes about 1300; it has never been printed, but a manuscript copy was seen in Rome in the seventeenth century. One to the Septuagint was compiled by Conrad Kircher (Frankfort, 1607); and to the Greek New Testament by Xystus Betuleius (Basel, 1546), which, as amended by Robert Stephens and his son Henry, was published by the latter (Paris, 1594). Rabbi Isaac Nathan finished in 1448 a concordance to the Hebrew Bible (Venice, 1524), which in amended form by Marius de Calaris was published (Rome, 1621-22); another was begun by the elder and finished by the younger Johann Buxtorf (Basel, 1632). The first work of this kind in English was a concordance to the New Testament printed and in all probability prepared by Thomas Gibson (London, 1535); but the first concordance to the entire English Bible was by John Marbeck (London, 1550). Luther's German Bible had to wait till 1610 before a concordance to it appeared at Frankfort. The author was Conrad Agricola.

But all these works are now superseded by the vastly better modern works. For the Hebrew Bible the standard concordance is that by Julius Fürst and Franz Delitzsch, in Latin (Leipzig, 1837-41); but just as good for all practical purposes will be found The Englishman's Concordance to the Hebrew Old Testament (London, 1843; 4th ed., 1873), compiled by Tregelles, B. Davidson, and others. For the Septuagint, the best is by Edward Hatch (London, 1892); for the Vulgate, the latest is by V. Coornaert (Bruges, 1892). To the Greek New Testament the best concordance in Latin is by C. H. Bruder (Leipzig, 1842; 5th ed., Göttingen, 1900); in English by W. F. Moulton and A. S. Geden (London and New York, 1897). To Luther's Bible the standard is M. G. Büchner's (Jena, 1740; 23d ed., Berlin, 1899). To the Authorized Version of the English Bible, Alexander Cruden was the first to prepare a concordance which met with wide acceptance (London, 1737), and it has been reprinted so often, complete or in condensation, that Cruden has become a household word. Two others, however, compete for the palm of superiority—Robert Young, Analytical Concordance to the Bible (Edinburgh, 1879), often reprinted, and James Strong, The Exhaustive Concordance (New York, 1894), which takes account of every word and is surely the most ambitious work of its kind.

Other books than the Bible have been furnished with concordances by the patient and long-continued labors of scholars. To enumerate a few: Dante, E. A. Fay (Boston, 1889); Chaucer, the Chaucer Society (begun London, 1872); Shakespeare, Mrs. Mary Cowden Clarke (London, 1845); or better, John Bartlett (New York, 1894); Milton, Poetical Works, G. L. Prendergast (Madras, 1857); C. D. Cleveland (London, 1867); Pope, E. Abbott (ib., 1875); Cowper, Poetical Works, J. Neve (ib., 1887); Shelley, F. S. Ellis (ib., 1892); Dickens, G. A. Pierce (ib., 1898); Tennyson, D. R. Brightwell (ib., 1869).