MAES (Masius), ANDREAS. - Belgian Orientalist, b. in 1514 at Lennick-lez-Bruxelles, d. near Cleves in 1573. "Primus" of the Faculty of Arts at Louvain in 1533, having perfected himself in the Latin, Greek and Hebrew languages, in Rome he learned Syriac and also (but only a little, it seems) Arabic (1547-48; 1551-52).
M. was the first European who composed a grammar and a lexicon of Syriac, reproduced by Arias Montano in the Polyglot of Antwerp. He published in Latin version two ancient Syriac texts; then a work of polemic against the Calvinists, In Deut. c. XVI et seq. annotationes (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 makes use of his Orientalist and rabbinic knowledge; he inserts there various reflections on the reform of the Church which displeased several; in textual criticism, he does not intend to follow the Masoretic text blindly; in literary criticism, he raises doubts about the authenticity of the book of Joshua; for such progressive opinions the work of M. was condemned by the Index of Lisbon in 1581 and prohibited "donec corrigatur" by Quiroga, then by Sixtus V and Clement VIII.
Bibliography3 worksJ. N. Paquot, Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire littéraire des dix-sept provinces des Pays-Bas, de la principauté de Liège et de quelques co
BIBL.: J. N. Paquot, Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire littéraire des dix-sept provinces des Pays-Bas, de la principauté de Liège et de quelques contrées voisines, II, Louvain 1768, pp. 274-278; E. J. Lamy, s. v. in Biographie nationale de Belgique, XIII (1894-95), pp. 120-25; M. Losson, Briefe von Andreas Masius und seinen Freunden, Leipzig 1886. From the Protestant point of view: V. Baroni, La Contre-réforme devant la Bible, Lausanne 1943, see index.
Coppens, Giuseppe. “Maes (Masius), andreas.” In Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. VII, coll. 1801–1802. Città del Vaticano: Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1951. https://azioneromana.com/article/maes-masius-andreas.
MLA
Coppens, Giuseppe. “Maes (Masius), andreas.” Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. VII, Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1951, coll. 1801–1802. Azione Romana, https://azioneromana.com/article/maes-masius-andreas.
BibTeX
@incollection{ec7_maes_masius_andreas,
author = {Coppens, Giuseppe},
title = {Maes (Masius), andreas},
booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica},
volume = {VII},
pages = {1801--1802},
note = {Cited by column},
publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico},
address = {Città del Vaticano},
year = {1951},
url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/maes-masius-andreas}
}
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