SURIO (SAUER), LAURENTIUS. - Carthusian writer, b. at Lübeck in 1522, d. 23 May 1578 at Cologne.
A student at Frankfurt an der Oder, he returned to Catholicism at Cologne through the efforts of St. Peter Canisius, his fellow student. A Magister artium in 1539, he became a Carthusian at Cologne on 23 February 1540 under the discipline of Justus Lansperger. A priest in 1543, he scarcely ever left the Carthusian monastery of Cologne again, always intent on writing for the benefit of the faith. He translated into Latin the works of Suso, Tauler, Ruusbroec (v.), Gropper and other German mystics and apologists. Against the work of Sleidanus (v.) he published Commentarius brevis rerum in orbe gestarum, 1500-64 (Louvain 1566, translated into German by Heinrich Fabricius [Cologne 1568], and into French), which aroused the wrath of the Protestants and was continued by others down to 1673. Then in 1567 he published in 4 vols. at Cologne a Conciliorum collectio; an edition of the works of St. Leo I (1568); a vol. of Homiliae sive Conciones drawn from the Holy Fathers and distributed among the feasts of the ecclesiastical year. Better known and more widely circulated is the collection De probatis sanctorum historii, which he took from the work of Alvise Lipomano and enriched with his own researches; it appeared in 6 vols., and then in 7 in 1576-81, followed by a German translation by E. Fabricius. Since S. had retouched the original text to reduce it to better Latinity, a new edition in 12 vols. in 1618, with a biography of the author, restored the lives to their original form. An edition with notes in 12 vols. appeared at Turin in 1875-80. It may be said that this work of S. prepared the way for the work of the Bollandists. His letters are among those of Sirleto and Canisius.
Bibliography3 works
Pio Paschini