SCHÜGL, NIVARD. - Born Johannes; a man of great gifts and great defects, born on 4 June 1864 in Gaaden (near Mödling, Lower Austria), died in Vienna in 1939. He entered the Cistercian Order in 1884, became professor of the Old Testament at Heiligenkreuz in 1896, and at the University of Vienna in 1908; in 1922–23 he was transferred to the Faculty of Philosophy.
A former Sängerknab (choir boy) at Heiligenkreuz (from 1876, at age 12), he was also a poet (Das Waldtal-Kloster, Paderborn 1897), with a marked preference for the poetic passages of the Bible and their metre. He translated works into his fine and expressive German (e.g., Geist des Hl. Bernard, ibid. 1898). He devoted several studies to Hebrew metre, the best of which is the first (De re metrica Hebraeorum veterum, Vienna 1899). He defended the opinion of his Vienna colleague Hubert Grimme, who admitted a rhythm not only of thought (parallelism) but also of words. Among the various systems he reviewed, he proposed a conciliatory view based primarily on accents, though he also took syllable quantities into account. Following this system, often with literary-critical ideas that were too conservative and often too bold, he attempted to reconstruct the original texts of the Bible, e.g., Sir 29:12–49:16 of the Hebrew Sirach newly found in the Cairo Genizah (Vienna 1901), the Song of Songs (ibid. 1902), and the Psalms (Graz 1911; Heb. and Ger.). According to his criteria, even compositions such as 1–2 Samuel (Vienna 1904), Kings and Chronicles (ibid. 1911) were rhythmic and metrical or even poetry in the original text. He finally maintained that all the books of the Old Testament had been written in their original form with rhythm and metre, and set out to prepare such a version for the German people; only the Psalms and Isaiah (ibid. 1915), and Job (ibid. 1916), saw the light of day. He even applied his metrical theories to the New Testament (largely translated from Hebrew, not Aramaic, according to S.), publishing Schriften des Neuen Bundes (ibid. 1920), to which he added Schriften des Alten Bundes (ibid. 1922; 2 vols., the 2nd incomplete), in excellent and poetic German, but with incredible arbitrariness in text and vocabulary. These writings were unanimously rejected by German Catholic exegesis (a fact overlooked by the reviewer in Revue biblique, 30 [1921], pp. 466–69). The complete Bible translation was placed on the Index in 1922 (AAS, 14 [1922], pp. 41, 349). Yet this blow did not disarm his immense industry, which found expression in articles and reviews in journals and encyclopaedias and, especially, in the composition of a commentary on the whole Bible, consisting of 20 large manuscript volumes according to these principles: reconstruction of the text according to his metrical theories, complete Latin and German translation, philological and other notes for the general public; the work, naturally, was never printed. He also translated some Talmudic books into German (Vienna 1922), always according to his personal criteria.
A fair assessment of S. and his work is difficult. He was an exegete of pre-modernist type, formed at a time when the Biblical Commission (v.) had not yet begun its salutary influence through its decrees. Moreover, he was trained before systematic excavations had revolutionised knowledge of the ancient Near East. He is a typical product of his generation; many who belonged to it, though they ended up being placed on the Index, nevertheless gave strong impetus to the renewal of Catholic exegesis. He was an exemplary religious; master of novices among the Cistercians from 1890 to 1907, later devoted to the pastoral care of students in Vienna, he was full of charity towards his neighbour and ready for every sacrifice.