Poole (Pole, Polus), Matthew

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 took the degree of 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.

Known from 1654 as a Puritan polemical writer, he began in 1666 his great work Synopsis criticorum aliorumque S. Scripturae interpretum (5 vols. in folio, 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 learned continental scholars. The 2nd ed. appeared at Frankfurt in 1678, the 3rd at Utrecht (1684-86), the 4th at Frankfurt (1694), and there too the 6th in 6 vols. (1709-12), with a commentary on the Apocrypha added. The Synopsis was placed on the Index expurgatorius on 21 Apr. 1693. P. also wrote Annotation upon the Holy Bible (down to Is. 58; a posthumous work completed by his nonconformist colleagues in the years 1683-85) and a polemic on the Nullity of the romish faith (London 1666). On account of the terrorism aroused by T. Oates, he fled to Amsterdam. In his Synopsis, P. cites rabbinic and Catholic authors; from Calvin he took very little; from Luther nothing.