AYROLI, GIACOMO MARIA. - Jesuit exegete, b. in Genoa in 1660, professor of Hebrew at the Roman College, successor of Cardinal Tolomei in the chair of controversies, d. in Rome on 27 March 1721.
He gave proof of broad culture in the classical and Oriental languages in a Dissertatio biblica (Rome 1704), containing the philological exegesis of the most important passages of Sacred Scripture. He published various other dissertations on controverted biblical subjects, especially of chronology. In the Liber LXX hebdomadarum resignatus (Rome 1713; reprints 1714 and 1748) he treats the messianic prophecy of Dan. 9. Against Fr. de Tournennine, who refuted its judgment, he defended himself by publishing (1720) the Theses contra Indaeos de LXX hebd. In 1718 appeared the Dissertatio chronologica de anno, mense et die mortis D.N.I.C.; in 1722 the Dissertatio de annis ab exitu Israel de Aegypto ad IV Salomonis.
The Acta eruditorum of Leipzig (1717, pp. 422-28; 1748, pp. 551-57), reviewing the dissertation on the prophecy of Daniel, praise the «pracelara atque singularis auctoris doctrina» both in the philological field and in the chronological and historical one, expressing the wish to see completed as soon as possible the «opus ipsius quadripartitum» in which the A. reserved to himself to develop thoroughly his favorite theme, but he was unable to carry out the cherished project.
Bibliography3 works
Antonio Carrozzini