The New International Encyclopædia/Lagarde, Paul Anton de

LAGARDE, lȧ'gärd' (properly Bötticher, Lagarde being his mother's name), Paul Anton de (1827-91). One of the greatest Orientalists of the nineteenth century. He was born at Berlin, November 2, 1827. He studied theology, philosophy, and Eastern languages at Berlin and Halle, and began his academic career in the latter place in 1851. From 1854 to 1866 he was teacher at a gymnasium in Berlin. In 1869 he became Ewald's successor at Göttingen and remained there till his death, December 22, 1891. Lagarde's writings were very numerous, and represent a wide field of activity. His earlier studies were on Iranian subjects, and were published as Gesammelte Abhandlungen (1866). As the result of investigations in London and Paris in 1852-53 he published several Syriac and Greek texts and critical studies, among them: Didascalia Apostolorum (1854); Analecta Syriaca (1858); the books of Titus Bostrenus against the Manichæans, Greek and Syriac (1859); Geoponica (1860); Reliquiæ Juris Ecclesiastici Antiquissimæ Græce (1856); Constitutiones Apostolorum (1862); Clementina (1865). Other studies of a like character are the Prætermissorum Libri Duo (1879); Petri Hispani de Lingua Arabica Libri Duo (1883); Judæ Harizii Macamæ Hebraice (1883). He edited the Opere italiane of Giordano Bruno (1888-89). In his Armenische Studien (1877) and Persische Studien (1884) he continued his Iranian studies. The latter contains valuable articles on the Judæo-Persian text of Isaiah and Jeremiah. Semitica (1878-79); Orientalia (1879-80); Ægyptiaca (1883); and the Uebersicht über die im Aramaischen, Arabischen und Hebräischen übliche Bildung der Nomina (1889) were important works. Lagarde's most valuable work, perhaps, was his contributions to the textual criticism of the Bible and upon the Old Testament Apocrypha and the Septuagint, represented by a long list of editions and criticisms of Syriac, Arabic, Coptic, and Greek versions and fragments. Symmicta (1877-80) and the Mitteilungen (1884-91) contain some of the best of his later work. Consult the “Bibliography of the Works of Paul Anton de Lagarde,” by Gottheil, in the Proceedings of the American Oriental Society for 1892. Lagarde also attempted to play the part of a politician (cf. Deutsche Schriften, 1878-81), but not so successfully as that of the scholar. A volume of poems written by him appeared after his death (1897). His library is now owned by the New York University. Consult the memoirs by Anna de Lagarde (Göttingen, 1894) and by Albrecht (Berlin, 1901).