ARIAS MONTANO, BENITO. — Spanish Orientalist, exegete, and humanist, born in 1527 at Fregenal de la Sierra, died at Seville on 6 July 1598. Ordained a priest around 1555, he entered religious life in 1560 among the Knights of Santiago. From May 1562 he was at the Council of Trent as theologian to his fellow religious Martín Pérez de Ayala, bishop of Segovia; at the beginning of 1564 he returned to his austere hermitage at Peña de Alájar (today Peña de A. M.), near Seville. He united rare virtue with an extraordinary capacity for work and truly gigantic erudition, so much so that posterity reputed him a magician. At the king’s command he founded the library of the Escorial (1566), which he subsequently continued to enrich with manuscripts obtained from every quarter, finally leaving it his rich collection of Hebrew, Arabic, Latin, and Greek manuscripts.
His most extensive work is the edition of the Bible known as the Polyglotta regia, or of Antwerp, which he prepared at Antwerp during the years 1568–72 at the command of Philip II, and which was published by the printer Christopher Plantin from 1569 to 1573, in 8 volumes: Biblia sacra, hebraice, chaldaice, graece et latine, Philippi II Regis Catholici pietate et studio ad Sacrosanctae Ecclesiae usum, cura et studio B.A.M.
The first 5 volumes contain the sacred text in the four languages (in the V, together with the New Testament, there is the Syriac); it is essentially the Complutensian Polyglot, improved and completed. The last 3 volumes are a new work. The VI contains grammars and lexicons of Greek, Syriac (by A. Maes), Chaldean (by Guy Lefèvre de la Boderie), and Hebrew (by S. Pagnini). The VII contains the critical apparatus: a version (a reworking of that of S. Pagnini) of the Hebrew Old Testament, a critical edition of the Greek New Testament with the Vulgate, and a new version by A.; all these works were often reprinted separately. The VIII comprises A.’s treatise on the Hebrew idioms of the Old Testament and nine of his historical-archaeological treatises on the Old Testament (published separately: Antiquatorum iudaisorum II, IX, Leiden 1593, and among the Critici sacri, London 1660), which earned him the title of “Father of biblical archaeology.”
The work, immensely learned, aroused distrust in Rome because of A.’s excessive dependence on Talmudic and rabbinic influences; moreover, some cardinals seemed to fear that the authority of the Vulgate was being threatened. Having gone to Rome, A. obtained from Gregory XIII a brief of privilege (23 Aug. 1572). He was asked to remain in Rome, but had to return to Antwerp at the king’s command. He reappeared in Rome in 1575 to defend himself against accusations (Judaic and heretical tendencies) brought by León de Castro before the Spanish Inquisition; A. was acquitted, but the learned Jesuit Mariana, in his judgment as censor (1579), while acknowledging his orthodoxy, denied the scholarly value of the Polyglot.
A much-listened-to chaplain and adviser of Philip II, to whom he wrote freely from Antwerp (where he lived from 1568 to 1576), he directed the religious policy of Flanders. Under A.’s guidance the severe Index expurgatorius was drawn up and promulgated by the duke of Alba (1571). He directed the editions of the Breviary and the Missal for Spain (Antwerp, Plantin, 1569–71). In 1576 he had himself recalled to Spain and settled at the Escorial as librarian. Through a secret mission (1578) he prepared the annexation of Portugal to Spain (1580). He then returned, refusing the episcopate offered him by the king, to his hermitage at Peña. He took part, with great distinction, in the Council of Toledo (1582–83), which promulgated the Council of Trent. From 1584, renouncing the royal chaplaincy, he lived among his fellow members of Santiago.
More a philologist and critic than a theologian, A., highly versed in the Semitic (Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, and Arabic), classical, and modern languages, was concerned solely with the literal sense, intending thereby to undertake apologetic work against the Protestants. Of his project for a commentary on the entire Bible, he was able to complete only the New Testament and a few books of the Old (at Plantin’s, Antwerp): 12 Profeti minori (1571), Vangeli e Atti (1575), Epistole degli Apostoli e Apoc. (1588), Ios. (1583), Iude. (1592), Is. (1599), the first 31 psalms of David (1605). Of the long-conceived Opus Magnum of biblical synthesis he published only: Liber generationis et regenerationis Adam (1593), on biblical theology, and Naturae historia prima (1601), on the sciences in the Bible. He was the first to translate from Hebrew into Latin (1575) the itinerary (Mas-sd'óth) from Spain to Baghdad (between 1159 and 1173), passing through Palestine, by Benjamin of Tudela.
A.’s scientific activity must not cause us to forget his fine ascetical manual inspired by the life of Christ and the apostles (Dictatum christianum sive communes et aptas discipularum Christi omnium partes, Antwerp 1575), nor his numerous Latin poems and hymns (as early as 1552 A. was solemnly crowned poet at Alcalá), almost all on religious subjects, which reveal the humanist’s purpose, among them Humanæ salutis monumenta (Antwerp 1571), Hymni et saecula (IV. 1593), his masterpiece. His production in Castilian was limited; but his Parafrasis sobre el Cantar de los Cantares has been compared with the analogous poem of s. Giovanni della Croce.
In his honor the Spanish government founded in Madrid in 1940 the Instituto A. M. de Estudios Hebrdicos y Oriente Próximo.