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Jacques Bossuet Biography

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BOSSUET, JACQUES BÉNIGNE (1627-1704). A distinguished French preacher. He was born Sept. 27, 1627, in Dijon; received his earlier education in the Jesuit College there; and then went to Paris to the College of Navarre, where he studied the Sacred Scriptures, the works of classical antiquity, and the Cartesian philosophy. In 1652 he was made a priest, and a doctor of theology, and canon in Metz. Here he was called by the bishop to reply to the catechism of the Protestant minister, Paul Ferri, and this he did (1655) in a way that commanded the admiration even of Protestants. He soon attained great distinction as a pulpit orator, and in 1661 he was made preacher to the court. His discourse on the occasion of Marshal Turrenne's conversion to the Catholic church obtained for him the bishopric of Condom (1669). Louis XIV having in 1670 intrusted to him the education of the Dauphin, he resigned his bishopric in 1671, because he believed that he would be unfaithful to his duty if he retained it during a continued absence from his diocese. He was now made a member of the Academy. The care with which he attended to the education of the Dauphin was rewarded, in 1680, by his nomination as first almoner of the Dauphin, and in 1681 by his appointment to the bishopric of Meaux. He was the author of the four articles which secured the freedom of the Gallician church, and the privileges claimed by the King against the prerogatives of the Pope; and his eloquence in the famous assembly of the French clergy in the year 1682 secured the adoption of these articles. In 1697 he became member of the Council of State, and in the following year first almoner to the Duchess of Burgundy. He spent the last year of his life in his diocese, but died in Paris, April 12, 1704. He was alike strict in morals and in religious doctrine; his strictness in the latter he showed particularly in his controversy with Fénelon, whom he accused of heresy for his defense of the Quietists, although at least in early life he had dreamed of a reconciliation of Catholics and Protestants. Bossuet is considered the greatest ecclesiastical orator known in history. His orations at the funerals of the Duchess of Orleans and the great Condé are particularly famous as masterpieces of this kind of eloquence. All his writings attracted much attention. For the defense of those dogmas of the Catholic church which are rejected by the Protestants he wrote his Exposition de la doctrine de l'église catholique sur les matières de controverse (Paris, 1671).

His greatest controversial work is his celebrated Histoire des variations des églises protestantes (2 vols., 1688), in which he founds his arguments chiefly upon the doctrinal diversities of the churches of the Reformation. To the defense of the four articles of the Gallican church he devoted his Defensio Declarationis Celeberrimæ, quam de Potestate Ecclesiæ Sanxit Clerus Gallicus a. [1682] (2 vols., 1730). With a view to the instruction of the Dauphin, he wrote his Discours sur l'histoire universelle jusqu'à l'empire de Charlemagne (1681), a work particularly deserving of notice, as the first attempt at a philosophical treatment of history. The continuation of it to the year 1661 (1805) is entirely derived from materials which he left behind him but to which the last touch of his own hand was wanting. Another fruit of his political and historical studies was the Politique tirée de l'Ecriture Sainte (1709) . There are modern English translations of the following: Select Sermons and Funeral Orations (3d ed., London, 1801); A Conference on the Authority of the Church [1679] (1841); A Survey of Universal History (1819); Elevations to God (1850); An Exposition of the Catholic Faith (new ed., 1841); The History of the Variations of the Protestant Churches (2d ed., 2 vols., Dublin, 1836); Sermon on the Mount (New York, 1900); Meditations (London, 1901). His works appeared in Paris (31 vols., 1862-66) , appendix OEuvres inédits (2 vols.,. 1881-83) . For his life, consult: A. Rèaume (3 vols., Paris, 1869-70) ; G. Lanson (Paris, 1891); Rebellion, Bossuet, histoirien du protestantisme, Etude sur l'"Histoire des variations" (Paris, 1592, new ed., 1905); Ledieu (Bossuet's secretary), Mémoires et journal sur la vie et les ouvrages de Bossuet (4 vols., Paris, 1855-57): Mrs. H. L. Sidney Lear (London, 1880); Currier, Nine Great Preachers (Boston, 1912). His nephew, JACQUES BOSSUET, died Bishop of Troyes, July 12, 1743. His very extensive correspondence, chiefly devoted to the elucidation and investigation of the views of Fénelon, is included in the abovementioned edition of the works of his uncle.