KISTEMAKER, JOHANN HYAZINTH. - Professor of classical languages at the Lyceum and later also at the University of Münster (Westphalia), a man of deeply Catholic spirit, was born at Nordhausen (Hannover) on 15 August 1754 and died at Münster on 2 March 1834. Ordained priest in 1777, in 1779 he became professor at the Lyceum 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 Lyceum, 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 canon of the Cathedral.
K. was for many years, together with B. Overberg, a pedagogue of great renown, Kaspar Max and Clemens August von Droste zu Vischering, Friedrich Leopold Count of Stolberg and other distinguished men, a highly esteemed member of the most celebrated circle around Princess Amalia of Gallitzin, a German noblewoman (d. 1806). This circle was the most serious and serene union of qualified Catholic figures in Germany at the time. Remaining director of the Lyceum until 1819, he played a major part in the reform of higher educational institutions inaugurated by Fürstenberg. Firm and modest in his stance, he opposed the New Testament translation by van Ess, which was later placed on the Index (1821), and successfully resisted the rationalistic tendencies of his colleague at the University, Michael Wecklein, professor of Old Testament. In good health until 1825, he suffered from serious illnesses in his last ten years.
Works: schoolbooks in Greek, Latin and German (1787-1801); Notae in Thucydidem (1790); Kritik der griechischen, lateinischen und deutschen Sprachen (1793), a work which had been honourably mentioned in a competition at Mannheim; Prüfung der van Ess'schen Übersetzung des Neuen Testaments (1816); Die hl. Evangelien übersetzt und erklärt (4 vols., 1818-20); Die hl. Schriften des Neuen Testaments übersetzt und erklärt (7 vols., 1818-23; 3rd ed. 1845); Geschichte der Apostel übersetzt mit Anmerkungen (1821); Sendschreiben der Apostel übersetzt und erklärt nebst der Apokalypse (2 vols., 1828 sgg.); Bibbia sacra Vulgata editionis iuxta exemplar Vaticanum (3 vols., 1823 sgg.); Die hl. Schrift des Neuen Testaments übersetzt ohne Anmerkungen zum Gebrauch für Kirche und Schule (1825; 4th ed. 1844; 1st pocket ed. 1853, widely diffused, largely replacing that of van Ess).