page_title: Robert Boyd (university principal)
section_title: Works
hierarchical_section_title: Robert Boyd (university principal) / Works
caption_attribution_description: English: Portrait of Robert Boyd
context_page_description: Robert Boyd of Trochrig was a Scottish theological writer, teacher and poet. He studied at the University of Edinburgh and after attending lectures by Robert Rollock, prosecuted his studies in France, and became a minister in the French Church. All accounts represent him as a most accomplished scholar. A friend said of him, with perhaps some exaggeration, that he was more eloquent in French than in his native tongue; and Livingstone tells us that he spoke Latin with perfect fluency, but that he had heard him say, if he had his choice, he would rather express himself in Greek than in any other language. The Church of Boyd's adoption, which had given Andrew Melville a chair in one university, and Sharp a chair in another, was not slow to do
  honour to their brilliant countryman. He was made a professor in the protestant Academy of Saumur; and there
  for some years he taught theology. He was persuaded, however, in 1614 to come home and accept the Principalship of the Glasgow University. Though he was far from extreme in his Presbyterianism, he was found to be less tractable than the king and his advisers expected, and was obliged to resign his office.
context_section_description: Boyd's major work was an elaborate 'Commentary on the Epistle to the Ephesians', not published until 1652 and described as a theological thesaurus. His Latin poem Hecatombe ad Christum Salvatorem was included by Sir John Scot of Scotstarvet in his Delicias Poetarum Scotorum, reprinted at Edinburgh by Robert Sibbald, nephew of Dr. George Sibbald, who later married his widow Ann.
  Walker says that Boyd's great work is his Commentary on the Epistle to the Ephesians. He says that as a work it is of stupendous size and stupendous learning. There is more in it than in the four quarto tomes of Turretin. Its apparatus criticus is something enormous. The Greek and Latin Fathers; the writers of the dark ages; the Protestant and Romish theologians of his own time; Justin and Irenaeus; Tertullian and Cyprian; Clement and Origen; Augustine and Jerome; Gregory Nyssen and Gregory Nazianzen; Anselm, and Bonaventure, and Bernard; Calvin and Rollock; Bellarmine and Pighius, — are all at hand to render aid or to receive replies. In one sense, Boyd on the Ephesians is a commentary, that is to say, the author discusses the meaning of every verse and clause, and does so well. But much more properly it might be called a theological thesaurus. You have a separate discussion of almost every important theological topic. The Trinity, the Incarnation, Original Sin, Baptism, Arianism, Ubiquitarianism, the Nature and Extent of Redemption, are all fully handled. There is a treatise on Predestination which alone would make a considerable volume. One can only regret that a selection of these separate essays or discussions was not published, rather than the huge indiscriminate mass, which has led to the calamitous result of a great divine being buried under his own erudition.
  Reid's Works of Robert Boyd of Trochrigg:
  I. Roberti Bodii a Trochoregia Scoti, SS. Theologiae in Academiis Salmuriana, Glascuana, et Edinburgena Professoris eximii, in Epistolam Pauli Apostoli ad Ephesios Praelectiones supra CC. . . . Opus Posthumum. . . . Londini : impensis Societatis Stationariorum 1652. [Dedication by Boyd's son to the Reformed Pastors and Professors of France and Scotland : Life by A. Rivet : Letter to the reader, by Robert Baillie. 1245 pp folio],
  2. Roberti Bodii a Trochoregia Hecatombe Christiana. [In Johnston's Delitiae Poetarum Scotorum, 12mo. 2 vols. 1637, vol. ii. 209-219. A hundred Latin verses in praise of Christ our Saviour.]
  3. Monita de filii sui primogeniti institutione, ex Authoris M.S. autographis per R(obertum) S(ibbaldum), M.D., edita, Edin., 8vo. 1701. [A short paper on the education of his eldest son, edited by Dr. Sibbald.] Reprinted in Wodrow (Life of Boyd, App. xvii. Maitland Club). Wodrow gives a list of unprinted MSS. (Life of Boyd, p. 256, 257.) These include the Philotheca a fragment of autobiography in Latin verse.
  Hecatombe ad Christum Servatorem (Edinburgh, 1627., 1825) ;
  A Spirituall Hymne, or the Sacrifice of a Sinner, to be offered upon the Altar of a Humbled Heart to Christ our Redeemer, Inverted in English Sapphicks, from the Latin of that Revered, Religious, and Learned Divine, Mr Robert Boyd [by Sir William Mure, younger of Rowallan] (Edinburgh, 1628) ;
  In Epistolam Pauli Apostoli ad Ephesios Praelectiones (London, 1652 ; Geneva, 1661) ; Monita de filii sui primogenita institutione (Edinburgh, 1701);
  Ode, "D. Georgio Sibbaldo, M.D." (Del.Poetar. Scot., A., 209);
  "Verses to King James " {Muse's Welcome) ;
  Extracts from Obituary {Bannatyne Miscell., i).
  He left in MSS., Sermons, 3 vols. ; Apodyterium ;
  Sermons in French, several vols. ;
  Philotheca.
caption: Robert Boyd of Trochrig
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