Maturin Veyssière La Croze

Maturin Veyssière de La Croze (also Mathurin; * December 4, 1661 in Nantes, † May 21, 1739 in Berlin) was a French orientalist and librarian. He worked at the Berlin court and belonged to the community of Huguenots. He left four dictionaries in Coptic, Armenian, Slavic and Syriac.

Life and work

Maturin Veyssière de La Croze was born on December 4, 1661 in Nantes, France. His first education and private lessons he got from his father and from his father's library. 1677 impoverished the family and he became a novice in the monastery of Saint- Florent in Saumur. He studied theology at Le Mans. 1682 he was a Benedictine monk at the Abbey of Saint- Germain -des- Prés in Paris. He worked on a large edition of the Church Fathers. In 1696 he came into conflict with the Prior and fled to Basel. He found support with Professors Peter Werenfels and Johann Jakob Buxtorf and stepped over to the Reformed Church.

In 1697 he was the Electoral librarian. Along with the rise in rank of Elector Frederick I, King in 1701, he became royal librarian in Berlin. He taught some members of the ruling family, including Wilhelmina of Prussia. 1725 he had also a professor of philosophy at the French Collegium in Berlin. He was considered one of the most educated men of his time and conducted extensive correspondence with many important other scholars. While he was at the beginning of his time in Berlin by Frederick I good conditions, although little had budget for the expansion of the Berlin Library, the interests of the soldier king Friedrich Wilhelm I of education were hostile. So the budget has been completely removed for new acquisitions of books and at times even the salaries for all library staff. Only thanks to a lottery prize and other income he could continue his job as a librarian. He cataloged the complete manuscripts of the library and made so accessible to research. He wrote several works on the history of mission in India, Ethiopia and Armenia. He died in Berlin on May 21, 1739th

He left behind an important private library and a large estate with numerous unpublished works. His manuscripts were awarded to T. Hirsch Charles Étienne Jordan. His manuscript for a Coptic lexicon formed the basis for the Lexicon Ægyptiaco - Latinum, released posthumously and also Jean -François Champollion used for his work. Adolf von Harnack writes about him: "Not only the Cultursprachen he dominated sämmtlich, but he also came, although all self-taught, in the Slavonic languages ​​, the Basque, the Armenian, the Semitic, the Chinese, but especially in the Coptic one. "

Works (selection)

Most German title previously published in French.

• Vindiciae veterum scriptorum, contra J. Harduinum SJP Rotterdam, 1708 (Latin )
• Manuscript of the Coptic - Latin lexicon, dated 1721, preserved in Leiden under the signature Or 431 B.
• Lexicon Ægyptiaco - Latinum, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1775. The work was posthumously edited by Christian Scholz and published in the print of Karl Gottfried Woide (Latin ).
• Histoire du christianisme des Indes, 1724. (French)
• Picture Of Indian Christians - State. 1726 German translation.
• Abrégé de l' histoire universelle, Amsterdam in 1761.
• Historical description of the state of the Christian religion in Ethiopia and Armenia, Gdansk 1740, German translation.
• Short term general world history. Gotha, 1755.
• Published letters