SANDEAUS (VAN DER SANDT), MAXIMILIANUS. - Jesuit theologian, prolific ascetical and mystical writer, born in Amsterdam on 18 April 1578, died in Cologne on 21 June 1651. He studied the humanities in Groningen, then in Cologne at the Jesuit Collegium Tricorontum, where he pursued the liberal arts and philosophy (master’s degree on 3 March 1597), and later law at Pont-à-Mousson. After his father’s death, he went to Italy, where he attended the universities of Padua, Bologna, and Siena for brief periods.
He was admitted into the Society of Jesus by Claudio Acquaviva in 1597 in Rome, where he completed his novitiate and theological studies and was ordained a priest. He made his tertianship under Fr Bernardino Rossignoli at Sezze. He then went to Würzburg (Germany), and from 1605 to 1631 taught philosophy and later theology at the university; he also directed the diocesan seminary of Würzburg. At Mainz and Cologne (from 1631 onward) he was an active preacher.
Sand, George - Engraved portrait by L. Calamatta after a drawing from life (1840).
Neither his teaching nor his preaching diminished his output as a controversialist, ascetical, and mystical writer. He could truthfully declare: Quot annos vixi, tot libros scripsi. At his death, nearly as many unpublished manuscripts were still found. His style, much admired by his contemporaries, is no longer appreciated today because it is overladen with recherché expressions, baroque witticisms, and artificial symbols and allegories. Theologia medica (Cologne 1635, 2nd ed. 1642) is a comprehensive ascetical treatise; no less learned is Theologia mystica (Mainz 1627), and especially Clavis Theologiae mysticae, SINESIO (v.) drew much. Sandeaus’s lasting merit lies in his defence of the mystical tradition, both within the Society and in the Church.