Kistemaker, Johann Hyazinth

KISTEMAKER, JOHANN HYAZINTH. - Professor of classical languages at the Gymnasium and later also at the University of Münster (Westphalia), an exegete of profoundly Catholic spirit, b. at Nordhausen (Hanover) on 15 Aug. 1754, d. at Münster on 2 March 1834. A priest in 1777, in 1779 he became a professor at the Gymnasium of Münster through the intervention of F. F. W. von Fürstenberg, who was vicar general, spiritual and temporal head of the diocese; from 1785 he was professor of philology, and from 1795 also of exegesis at the University. In 1794 he was appointed director of the Gymnasium, in 1798 examinator prosynodalis; from 1816 to 1818 he was a member of the Consistory for the new province of Westphalia; in 1823 he became a canon of the Cathedral.

K. was for many years, together with B. Overberg, a pedagogue of great renown, Kaspar Max and Klemens August von Droste zu Vischering, Friedrich Leopold Count of Stolberg and other illustrious men, a highly esteemed member of the celebrated circle around Amalia Princess of Gallitzin, a German gentlewoman (d. in 1806). This circle was the most serious and most serene union of qualified Catholic figures in the Germany of that time. Remaining director of the Gymnasium until 1819, he had a large part in the reform of the higher educational institutions inaugurated by Fürstenberg. As an exegete, with as much firmness as modesty, he opposed van Ess's version of the New Testament, later placed on the Index (1821), and resisted with equal success the rationalistic tendencies of his colleague at the University, Michael Wecklein, professor of the Old Testament. Of good health until 1825, he suffered in his last ten years from serious illnesses.

Works: books for schools, Greek, Latin, German (1787-1801); Notae in Thucydidem (1790); Kritik der griechischen, lateinischen und deutschen Sprachen (1793, a work that had been honorably mentioned in a competition at Mannheim); Prüfung der von Ess'schen Übersetzung des Neuen Testamentes (1816); Die hl. Evangelien übersetzt und erklärt (4 vols., 1818-20); Die hl. Schriften des Neuen Test. übers. und evtl. (7 vols., 1818-23; 3rd ed. 1845); Geschichte der Apostel übers. mit Anmerkungen (1821); Sondschreiben der Apostel übers. und evtl. nebst der Apokalypse (2 vols., 1822 ff.); Bibbia sacra Vulgatae editionis iuxta exemplar Vaticanum (3 vols., 1823 ff.); Die hl. Schrift des Neuen Test. übers. ohne Anmerk. zum Gebrauch für Kirche und Schule (1825; 4th ed. 1844; the pocket edition of 1853, very widespread, largely replaced that of van Ess).

Raimondo Köbert