The most comprehensive and extensive treatment to date, based on a major reinterpretation, of what has been called late medieval Augustinianism.

Focusing upon the extraordinary circumstances of the production of the editio princeps of the Syriac New Testament in 1555 and establishing a reliable history of that edition, this book offers a new account of the origin of Syriac studies in Europe and a fresh evaluation of Catholic Orientalism in the sixteenth century. The reception of Syriac into the West is shown to have been characterised, under the influence of Egidio da Viterbo and Postel, by a Christian Kabbalistic world-view which also determined the reception of other Oriental languages. The companion volume The Kabbalistic Scholars of the Antwerp Polyglot Bible exhibits the continuing influence of Christian Kabbalism on later editions.

Saak re-interprets Martin Luther as an Augustinian Hermit, whose 95 Theses came as the culmination of the late medieval Reformation.