HETZENAUER, MICHAEL. - Capuchin, biblical scholar, b. at Zell (Tyrol) on 30 Nov. 1860, d. at Rome on 4 Aug. 1928. Professor of Sacred Scripture in the study house of his Order at Innsbruck from 1885 to 1904, the year in which he was called by Pius X to the chair of biblical exegesis in the Pontifical Athenaeum of the Roman Seminary, where he taught until his death. From 1914 he was a consultor of the Pontifical Biblical Commission. He took an active and tenacious part in the anti-modernist struggle. Admirable for his industriousness, he concerned himself with the government and history of his Order, with ascetics, and above all with biblical sciences, through articles and some fifty works, many of which are of great scientific seriousness.
Worth remembering: Das Kapuzinerkloster zu Innsbruck (Innsbruck 1893); Novum Testamentum graece et latine (ibid. 1896-98: critical edition, of which separate editions followed in 1899 and 1904); Wesen und Prinzipien der Bibelkritik auf katholischer Grundlage (ibid. 1900); Epitome exegeticae biblicae catholicae (ibid. 1903); De recognitione principiorum criticae textus Novi Test. sec. A. de Harnack (Rome 1920; Regensburg 1921); De annis magisterii publici Iesu Christi (Rome 1921). Fundamental, however, are the Theologia biblica of the Old Testament (Freiburg 1908; that of the New Testament, ready for the press, has been lost), the Commentarius in librum Genesis, with an ample introduction also printed separately (Graz 1910) and above all the critical edition of the Vulgate, in two different editions: the typical one, for scholars: Biblia Sacra Vulgatae editionis ex ipsis exemplaribus Vaticanis inter se atque cum indice errorum corrigendorum collatis critice edita (Innsbruck 1906), regarded by Nestle as a definitive work, and the common one: Biblia Sacra Vulgatae editionis Sixti V P. M. iuxu recognita et Clementis PIII auctoritate edita, with analysis of the text, internal and marginal (Regensburg 1913, 1922 and 1929), of which he also prepared a pocket edition (5 vols., ibid. 1920-22).
If in H.'s scientific work some element is ephemeral (such as the periodistic interpretation of the Hexaemeron), there nonetheless shine forth in it «an enlightened science and a sound doctrine» (L. Méchineau), clarity, vast erudition, absolute precision.
Bibliography4 works
Igino Cecchetti