NICHOLAS OF LYRA (Lat. Lyranus). - Franciscan exegete, b. at Lyre (Normandy) ca. 1270, d. at Paris in Oct. 1349. In 1292 he entered the Order of Friars Minor; from 1308 he was master of theology at Paris, from 1319 to 1324 provincial minister of the province of France, and from 1324 of Burgundy. He carried on his literary activity especially from 1326. He is called *doctor planus* or *utilis*.
His genuine works number 12, the doubtful or pseudepigraphic ones 54. Among the former, the principal ones are the *Postillae perpetuae in Vetus et Novum Testamentum* (literal postil), completed by the *Moralitates* or *Moralia* (moral postil). He also wrote *De differentia translationis nostrae et Hebraica littera Veteris Testamenti*; *Probatio adventus Christi*; and *De visione divinae essentiae ob animabus sanctis a corpore separatis*.
Of these works there exist more than 100 manuscripts and more than 100 editions. Above all, the great fame of Nicholas and the extraordinary diffusion of the *Postilla* are explained by the fact that he clearly and briefly set forth the literal sense of Holy Scripture, with full knowledge of Hebrew. He was not the first in the Middle Ages to expound the literal sense, but he freed exegesis from the excessive divisions and subdivisions then in use, which often caused more confusion than clarity, reducing to a more sober measure both the analysis of the text and the citation of more or less parallel passages.