Humphrey Prideaux (1648–1724), Doctor of Divinity and scholar, belonged to an ancient Cornish family, was born at Padstow, and educated at Westminster School and at Oxford.
He first attracted notice by his description of the Arundel marbles (1676), which gained for him powerful patrons, and he rose to be Dean of Norwich. Among his other works were an anti-Islamic Life of Mahomet (1697). It was really a polemical tract against the deists and now has no biographical value.[1] The Old and New Testament connected in the History of the Jews and Neighbouring Nations (1715–17) was long an important work, of which many editions were brought out. It was among the earliest English works to use the term Vulgar Era,[2][3] though Kepler used the term as early as 1635.[4]
Like many high churchmen of his day, Prideaux was as much concerned with politics as with religion. In January 1674, for instance, Prideaux recorded in his letters a visit to his home of William Levett, a fellow Doctor of Divinity from Oxford, Principal of Magdalen Hall (and later Dean of Bristol). With Levett came Lord Cornbury, son of the Earl of Clarendon, Levett's principal patron. In other letters, Prideaux mentioned alliances with Levett in ongoing church political maneuverings.[5] His sympathies inclined to Low Churchism in religion and to Whiggism in politics. He published the following pamphlets: “The Validity of the Orders of the Church of England” (1688), “Letter to a Friend on the Present Convocation” (1690), “The Case of Clandestine Marriages stated” (1691).[1]