HUMPHREY

See also:

• HUMPHREY HODY (1659-1707)

HODY (1659-1707)  , English divine, was born at Odcombe in Somersetshire in 1659 . In 1676 he entered Wadham College, Oxford, of which he became fellow in 1685 . In 1684 he published Contra historiam Aristeae de LXX. interpretibus dissertatio, in which he showed that the so-called letter of Aristeas, containing an account of the production of the Septuagint, was the late forgery of a Hellenist Jew originally circuiated to lend authority to that version . The dissertation was generally regarded as conclusive, although Isaac Vossius published an angry and scurrilous reply to it in the appendix to his edition of Pomponius Mela . In 1689 Hody wrote the Prolegomena to the Greek chronicle of John Malalas, published at Oxford in 1691 . The following year he became chaplain to Edward Stillingfleet, bishop of Worcester, and for his support of the ruling party in a controversy with Henry Dodwell regarding the non-juring bishops he was appointed chaplain to Archbishop Tillotson, an office which he continued to hold under Tenison . In 1698 he was appointed regius professor of Greek at Oxford, and in 1704 was made archdeacon of Oxford . In 1701 he published A History of English Councils and Convocations, and in 1703 in four volumes De Bibliorum textis originalibus, in which he included a revision of his work on the Septuagint, and published a reply to Vossius . He died on the loth of January 1707 . A work, De Graecis Illustribus, which he left in manuscript, was published in 1742 by Samuel Jebb, who prefixed to it a Latin life of the author .