Andreas Masius

Andreas Masius or Andreas Maes (November 30, 1514 in Lennik near Brussels – April 7, 1573 in Zevenaar) was a Catholic priest, humanist and one of the first European syriacists. Following his education, and after a short period of training at Leuven Masius worked as secretary for the bishop of Constance, Johannes von Weeze († 13. November 1548). Later, among other things, he became the diplomatic representative in Rome for the Abbot Gerwig Blarer (1495-1567) of Weingarten. On behalf of Wilhelm, Duke of Jülich-Cleves-Berg in 1555 he requested permission from the Pope for the establishment of a university at Duisburg. After leaving the priesthood and marrying, in 1559, he settled in Zevenaar and in the last years of his life published several works.

Masius studied Hebrew in Leuven, Arabic in Rome with Guillaume Postel and in 1553 Syriac with Moses of Mardin, a priest of the Patriarchate of Antioch in Syria. In the same year in Rome he translated two creedal documents from Syriac for John Sulaqa, the (anti-)patriarch-elect of the Assyrian Church of the East. In 1554, probably in Germany, he made a Latin translation of the Syriac 'Basilius-Anaphora' for Julius von Pflug († 3. September 1564), the last Catholic bishop of Naumberg-Zeitz. These were printed together with Masius' translation of the treatise "De Paradiso" of Moses Bar-Kepha.

: De Paradiso Commentarivs : Scriptvs Ante Annos Prope Septingentos / à Mose Bar-Cepha Syro; ... Adiecta Est Etiam Divi Basilii Caesariensis Episcopi leiturgia siue anaphora ex vetustissimo codice Syrica lingua scripto. Praetera professiones fidei duæ, altera Mosis Mardeni Iacobitæ ... altera Sulaçe siue Siud Nestoriani ... Omnia ex Syrica lingua nuper tralata per Andream Masivm ... Antverpiæ, Ex Officina Christophori Plantini, 1569.

In 1571 Masius published his "Grammatica linguae syricae" as well as the dictionary "Syrorum Peculium. Hoc est, vocabula apud Syros scriptores passim vsurpata", at the Plantin press in Antwerp.

Literatur

* Albert van Roey: "Les études syriaques d'Andreas Masius". In: Orientalia Lovaniensia Periodica 9 (1978), 141-158.
* M. Lossen, "Briefe von Andreas Masius und seinen Freunden" (1538)
* J. W. Wesselius, "The Syriac Correspondence of Andreas Masius: A Preliminary Report"

External links

* [http://syrcom.cua.edu/Hugoye/Vol9No2/HV9N2Depuydt.html Syriac Mss at Yale] - contains an account of Masius's life.