WUTZ, FRANZ XAVER. - Philologist and scholar of biblical textual criticism, b. at Eichstätt on 21 Oct. 1882, d. there on 19 March 1938. Ordained priest in 1911, W. spent almost his entire life at the seminary of Eichstätt, as professor of exegesis.
The dissertation which he submitted to the theological faculty of Munich in 1910, on St. Jerome’s Liber interpretationis nominum Hebraicorum, became the basis of an imposing work on the Onomastica sacra, which he published in 2 large vols.: I: Quellen und System der Onomastika; II: Texte der Onomastika und Register, in Texte und Untersuch. zur Gesch. der altkirist. Lit., 3rd series, XI, 1 and 2 (Leipzig 1914–15). In other works, among which particular mention should be made of Die Psalmen textkritisch untersucht (Munich 1925); Die Transkriptionen von der Septuaginta bis zu Hieronymus (2 vols., Stuttgart 1925–33); Systematische Wege von der Septuaginta zum hebräischen Urtext (ibid. 1937), W. was especially concerned with a hypothetical restoration of a Hebrew text older than the Masoretic one, through comparison with the ancient versions. He maintained that the Greek translators used a Hebrew text already transcribed into Greek. The complexity of the system he devised, together with the silence of ancient writers on the matter, greatly tempered much of the enthusiasm that was manifested in some quarters upon the appearance of W.’s theory, which was also accepted by eminent scholars (R. Kittel, M. Ginsburger, J. Götzberger). There was no lack of rather severe criticism of this bold attempt to revive an old and highly improbable hypothesis of O. G. Tychsen. Brief commentaries on Giobbe (Stuttgart 1939) and on the Cantico dei Cantici (ibid. 1940) appeared posthumously. Angelo Penna