LIPSIUS, JUSTUS (1547-1606), the Latinized name of Joest (Juste or Josse) Lips, Belgian scholar, born on Oct. 18 (Nov. 15, according to Amiel), 1547, at Overyssche, a small vil lage in Brabant, near Brussels. He studied at the University of Louvain. In 1567 he published Variarum Lectionum Libri Tres, dedicated to Cardinal Granvella, who took him to Rome, where he stayed two years studying mss. and inscriptions. On his return he published Antiquarum Lectionum Libri Quinque (1575), which shows an advance forwards, a sounder system of emendation by collation. He wandered over Europe a good deal, taught at Jena, Cologne, Louvain and Antwerp and finally became professor of history of Leyden. These changes must have involved some elas ticity in the religions he professed, varying between Catholic at Cologne and Calvinist at Leyden. The II years at Leyden were his most productive period. It was then that he prepared his Seneca, perfected, in successive editions, his Tacitus and brought out a series of works, some of pure scholarship, others collections from classical authors, others again of general interest. Of this latter class was a treatise on politics (Politicorum Libri Sex, 1589), which caused trouble by his reactionary views on religious toleration, which was with difficulty smoothed down by the university authorities. In the spring of 1590 he went to Mainz, where he was reconciled to the Roman Catholic Church. The event deeply interested the Catholic world, and invitations poured in on Lipsius from the courts and universities of Italy, Austria and Spain. But he preferred to remain in his own country, and
finally settled at Louvain, as professor of Latin in the Collegium Buslidianum. He continued to publish dissertations as before, the chief being his De militia romans (Antwerp, 1595) and Lovanium (Antwerp, 1605; 4th ed., Wesel, 1671), intended as an introduc tion to a general history of Brabant. He died at Louvain on March 23 (some give April 24) 1606.
Lipsius's knowledge of classical antiquity was extremely limited. His greatest work was his edition of Tacitus. This first appeared in 1575, and was five times revised and corrected—the last time in i6o6, shortly before his death. His Opera Omnia appeared in 8 vols. at Antwerp (1585, 2nd ed., 1637).
A full list of his publications will be found in van der Aa, Bio graphisch Woordenboek der Nederlanden (1865), and in Bibliographie Lipsienne (Ghent, 1886-88). In addition to the biography by A. le Mire (Aubertus Miraeus) (1609), the only original account of his life, see M. E. C. Nisard, Le Triumvirat litteraire au XVIe siecle (1852) ; A. Kass, Die Convertiten seit der Reformation (1867) ; P.
Bergman's Autobiographie de J. Lipse (1889) ; L. Galesloot, Particu larites sur la vie de J. Lipse (1877) ; E. Amiel, Un Publiciste du siecle. Juste Lipse (1884) ; and L. Muller, Geschichte der klassischen Philologie in den Niederlanden. The articles by J. J. Thonissen of Louvain in the Nouvelle Biographie generale, and L. Roersch in Biographic nationale de Belgique, may also be consulted.