MAES (Ma-sius), ANDREAS. - Belgian Orientalist, b. in 1514 at Lendick-lez-Bruxelles, d. near Clèves in 1573. "Primus" of the Faculty of Arts at Louvain in 1533, he perfected his knowledge of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and at Rome he learned Syriac and also (though only slightly, it seems) Arabic (1547-48; 1551-52).
He was the first European to compose a grammar and lexicon of Syriac, reproduced by Arias Montano in the Antwerp Polyglot. He published in Latin translation two ancient Syriac texts; then a work of polemics against the Calvinists, In Deut. c. XVI et seq. annota-tiones (J.-P. Migne, Cursus completus Scripturae S., 7-8), and a De paradiso commentarius (Antwerp 1569). But his principal work is the commentary on Joshua (Josue imperatoris historia illustrata atque explicata, ibid. 1571), in which he employs his Orientalist and Rabbinic knowledge; he introduces various reflections on the reform of the Church which displeased many; in textual criticism, he does not intend to follow the Masoretic text blindly; in literary criticism, he expresses doubts about the authenticity of the Book of Joshua; for these progressive opinions his work was condemned by the Index of Lisbon in 1581 and prohibited "donec corrigatur" by Quiroga, then by Sixtus V and Clement VIII.