HUMMELAUER, FRANZ. - Jesuit exegete, b. in Vienna (Austria) on 14 Aug. 1842, d. at 's Heerenberg (Holland) on 12 Apr. 1914. On 2 Aug. 1860 he entered the Society of Jesus; he resided for a long time (1895-1908) at Valkenburg; in 1903 he was named among the first consultors of the Biblical Commission; from 1908 to 1911 he engaged in apostolic ministries at Berlin; he spent his last years, ill, in the novitiate house at 's Heerenberg.
He began his exegetical work with 18 articles on the origins of the human race, which he published in the periodical Stimmen aus Maria Laach (1873-82). Then he commented, in volumes published in the collection Cursus Scripturae Sacrae (Paris), on the Pentateuch and the following historical books: Libri Samuelis seu I-II Regum (1883), Indices et Ruth (1888), Genesis (1895), Exodus et Leviticus (1897), Numeri (1899), Deuteronomium (1901), Iosue (1903), Liber I Paralipomenon (1905); but he did not complete Paralipomeni nor III and IV (I-II) Re. He also wrote four monographs, twice treating Der Biblische Schöpfungsbericht (Freiburg 1877-98), then Exegetisches zur Inspirationsfrage ([Bibl. Studien, 9, iv], Freiburg in Br. 1904). This work especially provoked contradictions and it cannot be denied that some conclusions are less solid and some statements hasty; yet everything was said with profound learning, in the pure intention of opening a way to the solution of present difficulties. He left an excellent book of meditations: S. Ignatii de libro Exercitorum meditationum et contemplationum puncta (Freiburg in Br. 1896; 3rd ed. ibid. 1925).