LUDOLF OF SAXONY. — Ascetic and exegete, b. ca. 1295, d. at Strasbourg on 10 Apr. 1377. At the age of 18 he entered the Dominicans and remained there for about 26 years, distinguishing himself for his learning and piety. In 1340 he passed to the Carthusians at Strasbourg, where he remained until 1343; then he was named prior of Koblenz, but in 1348 he resigned, retiring to Mainz and later again to Strasbourg, where he died in a reputation for holiness.
His most famous work is the Vita Domini nostri Iesu Christi ex quatuor Evangelii, a celebrated composition that immortalized L.’s name. The first edition was printed at Strasbourg in 1474; thereafter more than 420 editions followed. Among the most recent are those of Bologna (1867, 2 vols.), Parma (1871–1873, 2 vols.), and Paris (1870–99, 7 vols.). This work is still considered one of the best coordinated and fused commentaries on the Gospels. Even before the invention of printing it was widely circulated and provided priests and the faithful with a rich and precious mine of spiritual instruction and meditation based on Scripture and the Fathers. Several times there have also been published: the collection of epigraphs with which L. concludes the chapters of his work, and which are a substantial summary of the doctrine and facts contained in each (Venice 1557), and the Expositio in Psalterium Davidis (Paris 1491), drawn from the commentaries of St. Jerome, St. Augustine, Cassiodorus, and Peter Lombard.