MAZZOCCHI, ALESSIO SIMMACO. - A most learned biblical scholar, philologist and archaeologist, b. at S. Maria di Capua on 22 Oct. 1684, d. at Naples on 12 Sept. 1771. A canon theologian at Capua (1712) and then at Naples, where Archbishop Spinelli also wished him to be rector of the Great Seminary, he devoted himself to biblical exegesis. Much esteemed by the king, who proposed him for an archbishopric, which M. always refused, he accepted the teaching of Sacred Scripture and of theology at the Royal University.
Among his many philological, archaeological and literary writings, the first place is held by the Spicilegium Biblicum, published in 3 vols. at Naples: a literal exegesis of Genesis (I: 1762); Exodus and other pericopes of the Old Testament (II: 1766); the Gospels, Acts and pericopes of St. Paul (III: 1778; cf. Introd., I, p. xvii ff.). Having obtained the commentaries of Calmet, just published, he prefixed to them a true general introduction, on the canon etc.; in numerous excursuses he treated at length the most debated questions.
M. was the first to discover and to evaluate the law of Hebrew parallelism, which he called "epesegesi" (I, pp. 44 f., 67, 168, 224 ff.; notes to Gen. 4, 23 f.; 11, 4; 49, 10 f.; II, pp. 102 f., 268; notes to Num. 23, 7; Is. 63, 1) already in the unpublished opuscule De poesi Hebraeorum of 1740; whereas the book of R. Lowth, to whom this discovery was attributed, is only of 1753. He advocated the correct pronunciation of the tetragrammaton (Jahveh).
The principal archaeological writings of M. are: a Distertatio historica de cathodrali Ecclesiae Neapolitanoe semper unica variis diverso tempore vicibus (Naples 1751). M. was the first to make known the discovery, which occurred in 1742, of the calendar carved on two marble slabs. In vetus marmoreum S. Neapolitanoe Ecclesiae Kalendarium commentarius (3 vols., ibid. 1744-55). He also published the text Actorum Bononensium s. Ianuarii et soc. martyrum (ibid. 1759). Other writings: Commentariorum in reg. Herculanensis Musei aeneas tabulas Heracleenses, pars I et II (ibid. 1754-55); Opuscula (3 vols., ibid. 1771-1824).