Gerardus Vossius

Gerrit Janszoon Vos (March or April 1577, Heidelberg – 19 March 1649, Amsterdam), often known by his Latin name Gerardus Vossius, was a Dutch classical scholar and theologian.

Life

He was the son of Johannes (Jan) Vos, a

In 1600 he was made rector of the Latin school in Dordrecht, and devoted himself to philology and historical theology. From 1614 to 1619 he was director of the theological college at Leiden University.^[1]

In the meantime, he was gaining a great reputation as a scholar, not only in the Netherlands, but also in

He got permission from Charles I to return to the Low Countries. In 1632 he left Leiden to take the post of professor of history in the newly founded Athenaeum Illustre at Amsterdam, which he held until his death.^[1]

Family

His son Isaac (1618–1689), after a career of scholarship in Sweden, became residentiary canon at Windsor in 1673. He was the author of De septuaginta interpretibus (1661), De poematum cantu et viribus rhythmi (1673), and Variarum observationum liber (1685).^[1]

Others:

• His son
  Moses Maimonides
  .
• His third son Gerrit Vossius died 1640. He was an editor of Velleius Paterculus (1639).
• His son Matthew died 1646. He made a chronicle of Holland.
• Francis Vossius was Gerardus Vossius's brother.

A person also called Gerardus Vossius, a Roman Catholic who made annotated Latin translations of Gregory Thaumaturgus and Cicero and died in Liège in 1609, was a distant relation.^[2]

Works

Vossius was amongst the first scholars to treat both Christian theological dogma and non-Christian religion from a scientific-historical, instead of a theological point of view. His principal works are:

• Historiae de controversiis quas Pelagius eiusque reliquiae moverunt (1618)
• Aristarchus, sive de arte grammatica (1635 and 1695; new ed. in 2 vols., 1833–35)
• Etymologicum linguae Latinae (Etymology of the Latin Language; 1662; new ed. in two vols., 1762–63)
• Commentariorum Rhetoricorum oratoriarum institutionum Libri VI. (Essays on Rhetoric, or The Institutes of Oratory; 1606 and often)
• De Historicis Graecis Libri IV (The Greek Historians; 1624)
• De Historicis Latinis Libri III (The Latin Historians; 1627)
• Of Errors of Speech and Latino-Barbarous Terms (1640)
• De Theologia Gentili (1641)
• Dissertationes Tres de Tribus Symbolis, Apostolico, Athanasiano et Constantinopolitano (1642)^[3]
• The Times of the Ancient Poets (1654)
• Correspondence of Vossius with Eminent Men, (1691).

His collected works were published in Amsterdam (6 vols., 1695–1701).

In

References

• Jean-Pierre Nicéron, Mémoires pour servir de l'histoire des hommes illustres, vol. xiii. (Paris, 1730)
• Herzog's Realencyklopädie, art. "Vossius"
• "Vossius, Gerhard Johannes", Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (in German), vol. 40, Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, 1896, pp. 367–370
• C. S. M. Rademaker ss.cc., Life and Works of Gerardus Joannes Vossius (1577-1649), (Assen, 1981)
• G. J. Vossius, Poeticarum institutionum libri III (with English translation and commentary), (Stuttgart, 2006).
• Reynolds, Francis J., ed. (1921). "Voss, Gerhard Johann" . Collier's New Encyclopedia. New York: P. F. Collier & Son Company.

External links

• The Correspondence of Gerardus Joannes Vossius in EMLO (Early Modern Letters Catalogues)

Attribution:

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: "Vossius, Isaac". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Vossius, Gerhard Johann". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 28 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 215–216.