Cornelius Cornelii a Lapide was born in Belgium. He became a priest in 1595 and taught philosophy, and Hebrew, while also preaching and administering the Sacraments. In 1616 he was moved to Rome in the same capacity. Towards the end of his life, he devoted himself exclusively to completing and correcting his commentaries, which covered almost every part of the Bible. The commentaries show a mastery of Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Syriac and Arabic, in addition to a familiarity with the church fathers. His Latin commentaries stretched over 30 volumes and were the standard Catholic texts for understanding any part of scripture, until more modern times.