Early Life
He was the son of clergyman from Chieveley in Berkshire, and was educated at Lord Williams's School of Thame in Oxfordshire and at Corpus Christi College, Oxford (scholar in 1620, fellow in 1628). He was ordained a priest of the Church of England 20 December 1629. The first result of his studies was an edition from a Bodleian Library manuscript of the four New Testament epistles (2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude) which were not in the old Syriac canon, and were not contained in European editions of the Peshito. This was published at Leiden at the instigation of Gerard Vossius in 1630, and in the same year Pococke sailed for Aleppo as chaplain to the English factor. At Aleppo he studied the Arabic language, and collected many valuable manuscripts.
At this time William Laud was both Bishop of London and chancellor of the University of Oxford, and Pococke was recognised as one who could help his schemes for enriching the university. Laud founded a Chair of Arabic at Oxford, and invited Pococke to fill it. He entered the post on 10 August 1636; but the next summer he sailed back to Constantinople in the company of John Greaves, later Savilian Professor of Astronomy at Oxford, to prosecute further studies and collect more books; he remained there for about three years.
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