Karl Josef Rudolph Cornely (19 April 1830, at Breyell in Germany – 3 March 1908, at Treves), was a German Jesuit biblical scholar.
[1] The next years he devoted to special study of the Scriptural sciences in Germany, at Ghazir near Beirut, in Egypt and in Paris, and by dint of hard labour acquired an extensive knowledge of Syriac, Arabic, Samaritan, and Aramaic.
After the customary third year spent in making the exercises of St. Ignatius and other spiritual practices, he was appointed professor of scripture and Semitic languages at Maria-Laach.
With three or four of his brethren he took up his residence at Tervuren near Brussels, and although many of his collaborators and the rich library of Maria-Laach were scattered about in different places, he succeeded not only in maintaining the periodical on its former level but also strengthening and widening its influence on Catholic Germany.
Most of the men who contributed from that time on to the Stimmen were won and trained by the personality of Cornely, who frequently inspired and always carefully revised the papers, thus securing uniformity of tone and tendency.
Here he planned and wrote the first volumes of the Cursus Scripturæ Sacræ, a complete biblical encyclopedia, the largest publication of its kind in modern Catholic literature.