Concordance, a book which contains all or the principal words that occur in the Bible, arranged in alphabetical order, with references to the book, chapter, and verse in which each occurs, designed to assist the inquirer to find any passage of Scripture of which he may remember one or more words. Concordances of the Hebrew and Greek texts have been made, and of the principal modern translations. The earliest concordances were of the Latin Vulgate, in the 13th century, the first being that of Antonius of Padua, and the second that of Cardinal Hugo de St. Cher. Euthalius of Rhodes made one of the Greek text about the year 1300, which was however lost; and the task was performed again for the New Testament, in the middle of the 16th century, by Betuleius, and for the Septuagint, at the beginning of the 17th, by Konrad Kircher. The latter work was improved by Trommius about 1690, and the former by Henry Stephens about 1600, and still further by Schmidt in 1638. The most recent Greek concordance is that of Bruder (Leipsic, 1843). The first Hebrew concordance was completed by Rabbi Isaac ben Calonymos Nathan about 1438, was printed at Venice in 1523, and again in 1564, and has been improved by Calasio (Rome, 1621), Buxtorf (Basel, 1632), and Fiirst (Leipsic, 1837 et seq.). All the concordances, except the Hebrew, prior to the editions of the Bible by Robert Stephens (about 1550), which first contained the Greek and Latin texts divided into verses, made references only to chapters, and then indicated whether the passage was near the beginning, middle, or end of the chapter, by the letters a, b, c, etc.

The first English concordance was of the New Testament, by Thomas Gybson, prior to 1540. The earliest English concordance of the entire Bible is that of Marbeck (1550). Cruden's "Complete Concordance" (1737, and often since) is the basis of every English concordance since published. The best edition is that of the society for the promotion of Christian knoAvl-edge (London, 1859). This, however, is far from complete, many important words being wholly omitted. An "Exhaustive Concordance," by James Strong, is announced (1873) as nearly ready for publication. In "The Englishman's Hebrew Concordance" (London, 1843), and "The Englishman's Greek Concordance " (London and New York, 1848), the words in the original tongues are given in their alphabetical order, but the passages are quoted from the English version. - Similar alphabetical vocabularies of other books than the Bible are termed concordances, as the concordance to Shakespeare, by Mary Cowden Clarke.