L'Homond's Epitome Historiae Sacrae

David and Goliath - Michelangelo

The Abbot Charles L'Homond composed the Epitome Historiae Sacrae toward the end of the 18th century for students as their first encounter with continuous Latin prose. The subject matter is that of the Old Testament--all the way from Creation to the Maccabees. Because his work was an introduction to Latin prose, L'Homond composed a graded reader. The stories from Creation to Joseph follow a more simple subject-verb-direct object model. This schema changes with Moses to the more Latinate subject-direct-object-verb, although the stories do continue to get progressively more challenging as they go on.

With respect to the other commentaries on this site. The Epitome Historiae Sacrae best fits after either Francis Ritchie's Fabulae Faciles or Miraglia's Fabulae Syrae, but before Woodford's Epitome Caesaris.

The text used here is from Ironside and Joy's 1843 edition.

Note: More commentaries will be forthcoming, though the author is unlikely to edit any of the stories prior to Moses.

Important: These commentaries are meant to be used in conjunction with The 200, a list of the two hundred most common Latin words as found at Dickinson College Commentaries.

Part I - From Moses to the Samson v. 1.03

Part II - From Samuel to the Fall of the North Kingdom - text v. 1.02
Part II - From Samuel to the Fall of the North Kingdom - commentary v. 1.05

Part III - Tobit

Part IV - From the Babylonian Exile to the Roman Conquest