POOLE (POLE, POLUS), MATTHEW. — Puritan minister and biblical commentator, b. at York in 1624, d. at Amsterdam in 1679. Admitted to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in 1645, he graduated as Magister Artium in 1652; he taught at Oxford from 1657. He became incumbent of St. Michael le Querne (London) in 1649, but resigned on account of the “Act” of 1662.
Noted since 1654 as a Puritan polemical writer, in 1666 he began his great work, Synopsis criticorum aliorumque S. Scripturae interpretum (5 vols. fol., 1669–76), suggested by his friend W. Lloyd (later Protestant bishop of Worcester), whose prospectus also bore the names of 8 Protestant bishops and 5 Continental scholars. The 2nd ed. appeared at Frankfurt in 1678, the 3rd at Utrecht (1684–86), the 4th at Frankfurt (1694), and there also the 6th in 6 vols. (1709–12), with an added commentary on the Apocrypha. The Synopsis was placed in the Index expurgatorius on 21 Apr. 1693. P. also wrote Annotation upon the Holy Bible (as far as 15. 58; posthumous work completed by his nonconformist colleagues in 1683–85) and a polemic on the Nullity of the roman faith (London 1666). Owing to the terrorism stirred up by T. Oates, he fled to Amsterdam. In his Synopsis, P. cites rabbinic and Catholic authors; from Calvin he took little; from Luther nothing.