TIRINUS (LE THIRY), IACOBUS. - Flemish theologian, b. at Antwerp in 1580, d. there in 1636. Having entered the Society of Jesus in 1600, he held administrative offices for a large part of his life.
Cornelio a Lapide (v.), he always retained a lively interest in exegesis, which, besides moral theology, he taught at intervals, before 1616 and then from 1625 to 1629 and from 1633 to 1636.
In building the magnificent church (now S. Carlo) adjoining the professed house at Antwerp, he involved his province in an extremely dangerous financial venture (averted by his successor). His firm and prudent direction of the Dutch Mission from 1629 to 1633, a time of renewed Calvinist persecution, nevertheless earned him special merit. His sole, but very well-known, work is the Commentarius in Vetus et Novum Testamentum (Antwerp 1632), which had 26 editions (the last at Turin in 1882, in 5 vols.). It is rather a sequence of brief scholia, to which introductory treatises and especially indexes are added; it is a useful biblical manual in which T., more than a great exegete, appears as a practical professor. The index on controversies deserved refutation by the Calvinist Samuel Des Marets (Maresius) in two large folio vols.: Anti-Tirinus (Groningen 1646-48).