José Miguel Petisco ( Ledesma,

Salamanca Salamanca () is a Municipality of Spain, municipality and city in Spain, capital of the Province of Salamanca, province of the same name, located in the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is located in the Campo Charro comarca, in the ...

, September 28, 1724 – ''ibid.'', January 27, 1800) was a Spanish

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

and

Hellenist Classics, also classical studies or Ancient Greek and Roman studies, is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, ''classics'' traditionally refers to the study of Ancient Greek and Roman literature and their original languages, ...

, known as one of the first Catholics to translate the entire Bible into Spanish, serving as a foundation for the Torres Amat Bible. José Miguel Petisco joined the

Society of Jesus The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rome. It was founded in 1540 ...

on September 29, 1738, at the novitiate in Villagarcía de Campos (Valladolid). He was ordained as a priest in 1747 and taught Grammar for three years in

Medina del Campo Medina del Campo is a town and municipality of Spain located in the autonomous community of Castile and León. Part of the Province of Valladolid, it is the centre of a farming area. It lies on the banks of the Zapardiel river, in the centre of t ...

. He began teaching philosophy in Pamplona when, at the suggestion of Father Francisco Rábago, he traveled to the Jesuit college in

Lyon Lyon (Franco-Provençal: ''Liyon'') is a city in France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of the French Alps, southeast of Paris, north of Marseille, southwest of Geneva, Switzerland, north ...

on a scholarship from the Spanish government to specialize in Greek and Hebrew, or, as his friend the linguist

Lorenzo Hervás y Panduro Lorenzo may refer to: People * Lorenzo (name) Places Peru * San Lorenzo Island (Peru), sometimes referred to as the island of Lorenzo United States * Lorenzo, Illinois * Lorenzo, Texas * San Lorenzo, California, formerly Lorenzo * Lorenzo State ...

put it, “to specialize in all kinds of literature.” He stayed there from 1751 to 1754. Afterward, he taught rhetoric and Greek and Hebrew at the Jesuit college in Villagarcía for six years, Controversies at the English College in

Valladolid Valladolid ( ; ) is a Municipalities of Spain, municipality in Spain and the primary seat of government and ''de facto'' capital of the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Castile and León. It is also the capital of the pr ...

, and dogmatic theology and interpretation of Sacred Scripture at the Jesuit Royal College in

. For his theological work, he composed a ''Tractatus Theologicus,'' which remains unpublished in the library of the University of Salamanca. After completing his third probation, he made his fourth vow in Villagarcía on February 2, 1758. When the Jesuit order was expelled from Spain in 1767, he moved to

Corsica Corsica ( , , ; ; ) is an island in the Mediterranean Sea and one of the Regions of France, 18 regions of France. It is the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, fourth-largest island in the Mediterranean and lies southeast of the Metro ...

for a year and then to

Bologna Bologna ( , , ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in northern Italy. It is the List of cities in Italy, seventh most populous city in Italy, with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nationalities. Its M ...

, where he taught Sacred Scripture at the Fontanelli residence. In September 1769, he visited the Bianchini residence with Francisco Javier de Idiáquez. In 1773, he composed a funerary tribute to Pedro Calatayud (Tafalla, 1689 – Bologna, 1773), a respected Jesuit missionary. After the

suppression of the Jesuits Suppression may refer to: Laws * Suppression of Communism Act *Suppression order a type of censorship where a court rules that certain information cannot be published * Tohunga Suppression Act 1907, an Act of the Parliament of New Zealand aimed ...

by the pope in 1773, Petisco remained in Bologna. Influenced by the Italian translation of the ''Vulgate'' by

Antonio Martini Antonio Martini (b. at Prato in Tuscany, 20 April 1720; d. at Florence, 31 December 1809) was an Italian biblical scholar and Archbishop of Florence. His translation of the Bible in Italian language, Italian, formally approved by the papacy, was ...

and new Spanish Inquisition directives of 1782, he began translating the ''Vulgate'' into Spanish in 1786. He returned to Spain with the nearly completed text in 1798, passing away on January 27, 1800. His brother, Manuel Petisco (Ledesma, 1733–1800), also a Jesuit, died the same year. Petisco also edited and commented on works by

Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, orator, writer and Academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises tha ...

, published the ''

Georgics The ''Georgics'' ( ; ) is a poem by Latin poet Virgil, likely published in 29 BCE. As the name suggests (from the Greek language, Greek word , ''geōrgiká'', i.e. "agricultural hings) the subject of the poem is agriculture; but far from bei ...

'' and the ''

Eclogues The ''Eclogues'' (; , ), also called the ''Bucolics'', is the first of the three major works of the Latin poet Virgil. Background Taking as his generic model the Greek bucolic poetry of Theocritus, Virgil created a Roman version partly by o ...

'' of

Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro (; 15 October 70 BC21 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Rome, ancient Roman poet of the Augustan literature (ancient Rome), Augustan period. He composed three of the most fa ...

, and authored a ''Greek Grammar''. It is said that he translated the ''Commentaries'' of

Julius Caesar Gaius Julius Caesar (12 or 13 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC) was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in Caesar's civil wa ...

, but this work was published under the name of José Goya y Muniain (Madrid, 1798). A similar controversy surrounds his Bible translation, which was published under the name of

Félix Torres Amat Félix Torres Amat or Félix Torres i Amat de Palou (6 August 1772 – 29 December 1849) was a Spanish Bishop. He translated the Bible into vernacular Spanish and published a record of leading authors in Catalan. Life Torres Amat, born in ...

. Scholars such as Antonio Astorgano Abajo have demonstrated that Torres Amat's Bible is substantially based on Petisco's work. The limited recognition given to Petisco's contributions has been attributed to rivalry between orders and Torres Amat's

Jansenist Jansenism was a 17th- and 18th-century theological movement within Roman Catholicism, primarily active in France, which arose as an attempt to reconcile the theological concepts of free will and divine grace in response to certain development ...

leanings. According to Francisco Lafarga, Petisco also translated ''Esther'' by

Jean Racine Jean-Baptiste Racine ( , ; ; 22 December 1639 – 21 April 1699) was a French dramatist, one of the three great playwrights of 17th-century France, along with Molière and Corneille, as well as an important literary figure in the Western tr ...

under the title ''La inocencia triunfante''.

References

{{reflist 18th-century Spanish Jesuits 18th-century Spanish Roman Catholic priests Bible translators Translators of the Bible into Spanish 18th-century biblical scholars 1724 births 1800 deaths