VOSTÉ, JACQUES-MARIE. - Exegete and Orientalist, b. at Bruges on 3 May 1883, a Dominican from 1900, a priest from 1906, d. at Rome on 2 Feb. 1949.
Before obtaining the Magisterium in Sacred Theology, he began biblical and Oriental studies at the University of Louvain; he continued them for two years at the École biblique in Jerusalem under the direction of Fr. M.-J. Lagrange (v.), afterwards taking all the examinations required up to the doctorate (1920) before the Pontifical Biblical Commission. From 1911 to 1946 he taught biblical exegesis, especially of the New Testament, at the Pontifical Institute "Angelicum" in Rome. In 1929 he was appointed consultor of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, of which he became secretary in 1939. He was furthermore consultor of the Sacred Congregations for the Oriental Church and for Seminaries and Universities, a member of the Commission for the Codification of Oriental Law, president of the Commission for the edition of the Pontificale of the Chaldeans and of the Syrians of Antioch, and a member of the Belgian-Flemish Academy of Sciences and Fine Arts.
He wrote a great many articles in various journals and many works on biblical and Oriental questions (a list comprising 158 items, in Angelicum, 20 [1943], pp. 4-15, dedicated to V. on his 60th birthday, and continued [with another 62 items] until his death, ibid., 26 [1950], pp. 174-78). His principal works are: Comm. in Ep. ad Thessalon. (Rome 1917); Comm. in Ep. ad Eph., (2nd ed. ibid. 1932); De div. inspiratione et veritate S. Scripturae (2nd ed., ibid. 1932); Parabolae Domini nostri (2 vols., 2nd ed., ibid. 1933); Theodori Mopsuesteni commentarius in ev. Johan. ap. (Corpus Script. Christ. Orient., Script. Syri, nos. 115-16, Paris-Louvain 1940); Pontificale iuxta ritum Eccl. Syrorum occident., id est Antiochiae (Latin version of I. Al. Assemani emended and illustrated with notes, Rome 1940, 1942, 1944).
Pietro Gerardo Duncker