AINSWORTH, HENRY. - English nonconformist theologian, b. at Swanton Morley (Norfolk) in 1571, d. at Amsterdam, poisoned, it is said, by the Jews in 1622 or 1623.

He studied at Caius College in Cambridge (from 1587); having gone over to the puritanism of Robert Brown, he had to flee to Holland. At Amsterdam from 1593, on the death of John Greenwood he became (1594 or 95) the "teacher" of his church, and, joined with Francis Johnson (from whom he separated in 1610), he polemicized against Anglicans and Catholics (The Trying out of the Truth, 1615, against John Ainsworth, who had converted to Catholicism). He is known for the highly erudite Annotations on the five books of Moses, the Psalms and the Song of Salomon. The work had many editions (the best is that of London 1639, in fol.), was used in the Synopsis criticorum of Matthew Poole (v.), and was reprinted at Glasgow in 1843. The commentary is philologically valuable, although the translation is marred by servility.

Bibliography2 works

BIBL.: W. E. Armitage Axon, H. A. the Puritan Commentator, Manchester 1889; F. Loofs, s. v. in Reulewykh, für protest. Theol. und Kirche, X (1901), p. 683.

Antonino Romeo

@incollection{ec1_ainsworth_henry, author = {Romeo, Antonino}, title = {Ainsworth, henry}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {I}, pages = {605}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1948}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/ainsworth-henry} }

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Ainsworth, Henry

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