Malvenda, THOMAS, exegete and historical critic, b. at Jativa, Valencia, 1566; d. May 7, 1628. He entered the Dominicans in his youth; at the age of thirty-five he seems to have already taught philosophy and theology. His criticisms on the “Annales’ of Baronius, embodied in a letter to the author (1600), discovered so much ability that Baronius used his influence to have Malvenda summoned to Rome. Here he was of material assistance as a critical adviser to the cardinal, while also employed in revising the Dominican Breviary, annotating Brasichelli’s “Index Expurgatorius”, and writing certain annals of the order. These last were published against his wishes and without his revision. To this period also belong his “De Antichristo libri XI” (Rome, 1604), and “De paradiso voluptatis” (Rome, 1605).
Returning to Spain in 1608, Malvenda undertook a new version of the Old Testament in Latin, with commentaries. This he had carried as far as Ezech., xvi, 16, when he died. It gives the closest possible rendering into Latin of every word in the original; but many of the Latin words employed are intelligible only through equivalents supplied in the margin. The work was published at Lyons in 1650 as “Commentaria in S. Scripturam, una cum nova de verbo in verbum ex hebraeo translation” etc.
E. MACPHERSON