MALDONADO (Maldonatus), GIOVANNI. — One of the founders of modern exegesis, born at Casas de la Reina (Estremadura) in 1533, died in Rome on 5 January 1583. At the University of Salamanca he acquired a solid humanistic, philosophical, and theological formation under the guidance of distinguished masters (Dom. Soto, Melchior Cano, Fr. Toledo). He then succeeded Toledo in the chair of philosophy, and shortly afterward in that of theology. Having entered the Society of Jesus in Rome on 10 August 1562, he was ordained a priest in 1563 and assigned to the College of Clermont in Paris, where he taught philosophy and then theology (1565–77).
The success was enormous. His lectures were followed with the greatest interest not only by students, but also by professors of other faculties, ecclesiastics, and even Calvinists. In the fifteenth century theology had strayed, devoting itself excessively to questions of pure philosophical speculation. M., however, adapting the salutary reforms he had learned at Salamanca from the Dominican masters, treated theology by grounding it in Scripture, the holy Fathers, and ecclesiastical Tradition, thus making it an effective weapon against the snares of the encroaching heresy. At the behest of Charles IX he also worked directly for Catholic reform, preaching missions and giving conferences in a thoroughly Protestant environment. Because of the jealousies of the Sorbonne, M. was forced to leave Paris and theology and retire to Bourges, where he devoted himself to compiling commentaries on Sacred Scripture.
In 1578 he was appointed visitor of the Society in Lorraine; in February 1581 he took part in the Order’s General Congregation. Gregory XIII had him remain in Rome as a member of the commission charged with revising and publishing the Greek Bible of the Septuagint. Having put the final touches to his commentary on the Gospels, on 21 December 1582 he presented its first part, the commentary on Matteo, to the Superior General, Fr. Claudio Acquaviva. A few days later he died suddenly, scarcely fifty years old.
In his biblical commentaries, especially that on the Gospels, which is his masterpiece and one of the best modern commentaries, M. pours forth his vast erudition, expounding the literal sense of the sacred text and adding to it a considerable number of historical-theological dissertations.
All M.’s works are posthumous. The principal ones are: Commentarii in 4 Evangelistas (Pont-à-Mousson 1596, 2 vols. in-fol., reproduced in very many other editions); Commentarii in prophetas 4, Ieremiam, Ezechielem, Baruch et Danielem (Lyons 1609, and other subsequent editions); Commentarii in praecipuos S. Scripturae libros Veteris Testamenti (Paris 1643); De caeremonii tractatus, on the ceremonies of the Mass, published by F. A. Zaccaria in Bibliotheca ritualis (II, II, Rome 1781, pp. 1–210)