Ange de Saint Joseph

• French missionary friar of the Order of Discalced Carmelites (1636-1697)

    Ange de Saint Joseph

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    French missionary friar of the Order of Discalced Carmelites, b. at Toulouse, 1636; d. at Perpignon, 1697. He wrote works on Oriental pharmaceutics. His family name was Joseph de la Brosse. In 1662 he took up the study of Arabic in the convent of San Pancrazio in Rome, under Celestino à San-Liduvina, brother of the great Orientalist Golius; in 1664 he was sent to the East as missionary, and while visiting Smyrna and Ispahan was instructed in Persion by Balthazar, a Portuguese Carmelite. He passed ten years in Persia and Arabia, acting as prior at Ispahan and, later, at Basrah. On the capture of the latter place by the Turks, he went to Constantinople and succeeded in gaining for his mission the protection of the Sultan, through the mediation of the French ambassador. He was recalled to Rome in 1679, and in 1680 was made superior of missions in Holland, England, and Ireland, where he spent many years. He was Provincial in his order at the time of his death. His writings are: "Pharmacop ia Persica, ex idiomate persico in latinum conversa" (Paris, 1681). Hyde (Biographia Britannica, cited by Langlès, Biographie universelle) asserts that the credit for this work really belongs to Père Matthieu. Another work by Père Ange de Saint Joseph, which is praised by Bernier, Pétis de la Croix, and Chardin is "Gazophylacium linguæ Persarum" (Amsterdam, 1684), a grammar with a dictionary in Latin, Italian, and French.

    MARTALIS A SCO. JOANNE-BAPTISTA, Bibl. Script. Carmel. excalceatorum; NICÉRON, Mémoires, XXIX, 26.

    THOMAS WALSH Transcribed by an anonymous volunteer, in thanksgiving for his conversion to the Catholic faith.

    Transcribed by Brian Carson