(:groupheader:)! Matthias Pasor 1599-1658
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(:cell valign='center':) Matthias Pasor (Herborn 1599 - Groningen 1658) was a professor at the University of Groningen from 1629 till 1658.
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[-[Jan A. van Maanen, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, from-[[http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/21503|Oxford Dictionary of National Biography]] 2004]-]
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%p text-align=justify% Matthias Pasor, mathematician, linguist,
philosopher and theologian, was born on 12 April 1599
at Herborn (county of Nassau, near Dillenburg, in the present Germany). He was
the first son of Apollonia Hendsch (d. 1614), daughter of
a Herborn senator, and of Georg Pasor (1570-1637), a philologist
and private teacher, who later became professor of Greek and Hebrew
at the university of Herborn and in 1626 professor of Greek at the university of Franeker
(Friesland, Netherlands). He had a younger brother Johann Jacob, who
survived him.
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%p text-align=justify% When, as a young child, he had recovered from a serious fall,
his parents made a vow that he should be
a minister. He received the respective education, which started with the
gymnasium at Herborn and later, because of the plague, at Siegen.
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%p text-align=justify% At the age of 13, so is reported in
the first biography that we have of him (''Effigies et Vitae'', 109-111),
he had good command of Latin, Greek and Hebrew, and was allowed to
attend public lectures.
He received his Masters Degree in Philosophy
in Heidelberg, 20 February 1617, where he matriculated 13 April 1616
after having studied at Herborn and Marburg (1614).
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%p text-align=justify% In the Heidelberg faculty of theology, where he matriculated
27 May 1616, he studied with Paraeus, Coppenius, Scultetus
and Alting. He combined his studies with giving private lectures
in philosophy.
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%p text-align=justify% His good reputation in these led, in 1619,
to his appointment as extraordinary professor of natural
philosophy. In April 1620 he was offered the chair of mathematics, which Jungnitius had given up for the chair of physics.
He acccepted,
and functioned from May 1620 until he left Heidelberg, on
6 September 1622, when
the town was sacked by the Bavarian army. Without any possessions
he arrived in October in his hometown Herborn, where he took up
again his private lectures in philosophy and theology.
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%p text-align=justify% In the early spring of 1624 the ongoing civil war made him fly abroad,
first for a month to
Leyden, where he heard lectures in theology, and discussed
with the arabist Erpenius and the mathematician Willebrord Snell.
Then he moved to Oxford, where he was incorporated as Master
of Arts 5 June 1624, because of his Heidelberg degree. Here too
he started to give private lectures, in Hebrew and mathematics. By the
end of the year he accompanied, as private teacher of mathematics,
a couple of Hamburg students on their tour to Paris. Paris
offered him the possibility of studying Arab and Syrian
with Sinonita, the Lebanese professor of oriental languages and Royal interpreter.
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%p text-align=justify% At the end of spring 1625 he returned to Oxford, which was by that
time haunted by the plague, and settled in Exeter College,
where he continued his studies and private teaching. In 1626 he
was offered the chair of oriental languages, which he accepted
on 25 October
with an ''Oratio pro Linguæ Arabicæ Professione'' ,
''publice ad Academicos habita in schola Theologica Universitatis Oxoniensis''
(publ. Oxford 1627), and which he later
combined with lectures in Hebrew at St. Mary's College.
The appointment enabled him to decline
the invitation of the Irish bisshop James Ussher
to come to Ireland. Pasor lectured in Oxford until he was
invited, 16 February 1629, for the chair
of moral philosophy at the university of Groningen (Netherlands,
founded 1614). He accepted and
stayed in Groningen when, later in 1629, the Athenaeum at Deventer
(Netherlands) offered him a position with profitable conditions.
On 16 February 1635 he signed an agreement to also teach
two weekly hours of
mathematics, next to his four hours of philosophy.
The chair of mathematics had become vacant with the death of the first Groningen professor
of mathematics Mulerius (1564-1630). Pasor also promised not to leave the
university for the next six years.
In 1645 Pasor used an invitation by the
university of Harderwijk (Netherlands)
for the chair of theology and Hebrew to
change in Groningen from mathematics, for which a separate chair
was established, to theology. Three days after he had received,
on 24 October 1645, his doctorate in theology, he started his teaching,
still in combination with moral philosophy, although on
14 september 1647
he requested to be relieved from these.
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%p text-align=justify% Pasor was reluctant to publish. An older biography (Ersch and Gruber,
Section 3, vol. 13, ''i.v.'')
quotes him from a source that could not be retraced,
that he did not publish himself, since he
did not want to keep the youth from
reading better books than his. His testament reveals that the
notes were written under time pressure in a tumultuous state. They
should be kept by the Groningen Rector Magnificus and Professors of
Theology. If his heirs (his family in Germany, i.e. his younger brother
and the two children of the latter, Anna Margaretha and Matthias) should be
unable to administer his rich estate, which included a large
house in Groningen
and possessions at Herborn, it should be used to establish three new
chairs (''Professiones Pasorianae'') at the university of Herborn.
The respective professors, one in theology, one in theology combined
with Hebrew and
one in ethics combined with Greek, were then expected to edit and
publish his notes in theology, ethics and mathematics.
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%p text-align=justify% Although Pasor did not publish work of his own, he
he gave considerable efforts
to postumously publish linguistic work by his father. There also
exists a long series of printed disputations which were defended under his
presidency (31 in Groningen University Library, 1 different from
these in the British Library, a list and global discussion is in
Dibon 1950) in the years 1646-1652.
They deal with theology (a.o. about eternal life, free will, heretics,
Jews, Mosaic law) and ethics. No traces of mathematical work have been
found.
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%p text-align=justify% At Groningen he took part in the general duties. So, in 1644 he was
secretary of
the senate, and one of the few complete lists of registered students
is of his hand. In the discussions about Cartesianism he
took a position which was moderately supportive of Descartes, who
had complained to the senate about one of Pasor's colleagues, the
philosopher Schoock. On 26 May 1645
Descartes wrote to Pasor, thanking
him for his help related to the favourable
judicium of the senate of 10 april
(correspondence in '' Œuvres de Descartes'' vol. 4).
Furthermore he contributed with some biographies to the collection
of biographies and portraits of Groningen professors
''Effigies et Vitae'' (1654).
Very probably he supplied
his own biography, which is the main source of all later biographies,
this one included,
and which accurately fits with all data that could be verified independently.
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%p text-align=justify% The ''Programma Funèbre'', in which his death (28 January 1658)
and burial are
announced, depicts Pasor as a strong, independent man, who never married,
incorruptible, pious and peaceful, a good colleague, a faithful friend
and well-liked by all. On 4 February his body was carried from his house
in the
[[http://www.cs.rug.nl/jbi/History/Pasor_house|Oude Boteringestraat (presently Nr. 65)]]
to the nearby Academy Church, where he was buried. His family inherited
his estate, so there were no Pasorian professors to publish his works.\
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!!References
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* ''Effigies et vitae professorum Academiae Groningae & Omlandiae'' (Groningen, 1654); repr. (1968)
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* testament, Jan 1658, Rijksarchief Groningen, Archief Rijksuniversiteit, no. 89
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* ''Programma funebre'', Rector Academiae L. S., 4 Feb 1658, Groningen University, department of precious works
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* handwritten agreement, 16 Feb 1635, Rijksarchief Groningen, Resoluties van gedeputeerde staten, 125.11
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* W. J. A. Jonckbloet, Gedenkboek der Hoogeschool te Groningen (1864)
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* Œuvres de Descartes, ed. C. Adam and P. Tannery, new edn, 11 vols. in 13 pts (Paris, 1974–89), vol. 4
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* Anthony à Wood, Athenæ Oxonienses
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* P. A. G. Dibon, ''L'Enseignement philosophique dans les universités Néerlandaises à l'époque pré-Cartesienne, 1575–1650'', PhD diss., Leiden, 1954
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* G. Toepke, ed., Die Matrikel der Universität Heidelberg, 2 (Heidelberg, 1884); repr. (Nendeln, Liechtenstein, 1976)
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* J. S. Ersch and J. G. Gruber, Gelehrten lexikon (1840), section 3, vol. 13, i.v. Pasor(:groupfooter:)
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