John Spencer (priest)

For other people named John Spencer, see John Spencer.
Not to be confused with John Spenser, President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford.

John Spencer
Born1630 Edit this on Wikidata
Died27 May 1693 Edit this on Wikidata (aged 62–63)
Arms of John Spencer, ceiling, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge: Dean of Ely impaling Spencer (ancient)

John Spencer (1630–1693) was an English clergyman and scholar, and Master of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. An erudite theologian and Hebraist, he is best remembered as the author of De Legibus Hebraeorum, a pioneer work of comparative religion, in which he advanced the thesis that Judaism was not the earliest of mankind's religions.[1]

  1. ^ Margaret T. Hodgen, Early Anthropology in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (1971), p. 330.