WEITENAUER, Ignaz. - Jesuit, polyglot, and exegete, b. at Ingolstadt on 10 Nov. 1709, d. at Salem on 4 Feb. 1783. Having entered the Society of Jesus in 1724, he taught Oriental languages at Innsbruck for 20 years. After the suppression of the Order (1773), he retired to the Cistercian abbey of Salem, where he continued his literary work.
W. composed many philological writings, some of which were grammatical in character on modern languages. Evidence of his piety and zeal are the *Subsidia eloquentiae sacrae* (19 vols., Augsburg 1764–69). He wrote a *Hierolexicon linguarum Orientalium* (ibid. 1759), which, even in its popular character, reflects the state of Oriental studies at the time. He edited a critical edition of the Vulgate (*Biblia sacra utriusque Testamenti*, 7 vols., ibid. 1773) and a German translation, of which the New Testament appeared in 2 vols. (ibid. 1777–78) and the entire Bible in 14 vols. (ibid. 1781–83). A far greater success was achieved by his concise biblical lexicon, *Lexikon biblicum in quo explicantur Vulgatae vocabula et phrases* (Innsbruck 1758), which was reprinted many times (the last edition appeared more than a century later in Turin, at the Marietti press, in 1866).