25 September 1627 A.D.
Jacques B. Bossuet Born—Jesuit-Trained French Bishop,
Anti-Huguenot, Anti-Jansenist, Anti-Ultramontanist, & Supporter of the
Revocation of Nantes (1685)
Truchet, Jacques. “Jacques-Benigne Bossuet.” Encyclopedia
Britannica. N.d. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/74828/Jacques-Benigne-Bossuet/762/The-Gallican-controversy. Accessed 24 May 2014.
Jacques-Bénigne
Bossuet, (born
Sept. 25, 1627, Dijon, Fr.—died April 12, 1704, Paris), bishop who was the most eloquent and
influential spokesman for the rights of the French church against papal authority. He is now chiefly remembered for his literary works, including funeral
panegyrics for great personages.
Bossuet was born of
a family of magistrates. He spent his first 15 years in Dijon and was educated
at the Jesuit college there. Intended early for an ecclesiastical career, he was
tonsured at the age of 10. In 1642 he went to study in Paris, where he remained
for 10 years, receiving a sound theological education at the Collège de
Navarre. In 1652 he was ordained priest and received his doctorate of divinity. Refusing a high appointment
offered him at the Collège de Navarre, he chose instead to settle in Metz, where his father had obtained a canonry for him.
Though Bossuet
belonged to the Metz clergy until 1669, he divided his time between Metz and
Paris from 1656 to 1659, and after 1660 he left Paris hardly at all. When in
Metz, he zealously performed his duties as canon. His main concerns, however,
were preaching and controversy with the Protestants, and it was at Metz that he began to
master these skills. His first book, the Réfutation
du catéchisme du sieur Paul Ferry (“Refutation of the
Catechism of Paul Ferry”), was the result of his discussions with Paul Ferry, the minister of the Protestant Reformed church
at Metz. Bossuet’s reputation as a preacher spread to Paris, where his
“Panégyrique de l’apôtre saint Paul” (1657; “Panegyric of the Apostle Saint Paul”) and his “Sermon sur l’eminente dignité des pauvres dans
l’église” (1659; “Sermon on the Sublime Dignity of the Poor in the Church”)
were particularly admired.
Lenten sermons and funeral orations.
Bossuet’s career as
a great popular preacher unfolded during the next 10 years in Paris. He
preached the Lenten sermons of 1660 and 1661 in two famous convents there—the
Minims’ and the Carmelites’—and in 1662 was called to preach them before King Louis XIV. The Lenten sermons, abundant with biblical
citations and paraphrases, epitomize Baroque eloquence; yet, while they exhibit
the majesty and the pathos of the Baroque ideal, the exaggeration and mannerism
are conspicuously absent. He was summoned in 1669 to deliver the funeral
orations that were customary after the death of an important national figure.
These first “Oraisons funèbres” (“Funeral Orations”)
include panegyrics on Henrietta Maria of France, queen of England (1669), and on her daughter Henrietta Anne of England,
Louis XIV’s sister-in-law (1670). Masterpieces of French classical prose, these
orations display dignity, balance, and slow thematic development; they contain
emotionally charged passages but are organized according to logical
argumentation. From the life of the departed subject, Bossuet selected
qualities and episodes from which he could draw a moral. He convinced his
listeners by the passion of his religious feelings, which he expressed in
clear, simple rhetoric.
Apart from his work
as a preacher, Bossuet, as a doctor of divinity, felt compelled to intervene in
the controversy over Jansenism, a movement in the Roman Catholic church emphasizing
a heightened sense of original sin and the role of God’s grace in salvation. Bossuet tried to steer a middle course in the quarrel caused by the
movement, devoting himself to his controversy with the Protestants.
In 1669 Bossuet was
designated bishop of Condom, a diocese in southwest France, but had to resign
the see in 1670 after his appointment as tutor to the dauphin, the king’s
eldest son. This post brought about his election to the Académie Française.
Thoroughly absorbed in the duties of his new office, Bossuet found time to
publish a work against Protestantism, Exposition de la doctrine de l’église catholique sur les
matières de controverse (1671; “Exposition on the
Doctrine of the Catholic Church on the Matters of Controversy”). He preached
only occasionally thereafter. Though primarily concerned with the dauphin’s
religious and moral instruction, he also taught Latin, history, philosophy, and
politics. His major political work, the Politique
tirée des propres paroles de l’Écriture sainte
(“Statecraft Drawn from the Very Words of the Holy Scriptures”)—which uses the
Bible as evidence of divine authority for the power of kings—earned Bossuet his
reputation as a great theoretician of royal absolutism. In the Politique he developed the doctrine of divine right, the theory that any government legally formed expresses the will of God, that its authority is sacred,
and that any rebellion against it is criminal. But he also emphasized the
dreadful responsibility of the sovereign, who was to behave as God’s image,
govern his subjects as a good father, and yet remain unaffected by his power.
In 1681 Bossuet
became bishop of Meaux, a post he held until his death. In this period
he delivered his second series of great funeral orations, including those of
Princess Anne de Gonzague (1685), the chancellor Michel Le Tellier (1686), and the Great Condé (1687). Though he kept in close touch with the
dauphin and the king, he was not primarily a court prelate; he was, rather, a
devoted bishop, living mostly among his diocesans, preaching, busying himself
with charitable organizations, and directing his clergy. His excursions outside
the diocese were in relation to the theological controversies of his time: Gallicanism, Protestantism, and Quietism.
The Gallican controversy.
In the Gallican
controversy, Louis XIV maintained that the French monarch could limit papal authority in
collecting the revenues of vacant sees and in certain other matters, while the Ultramontanists held that the pope was supreme. An extraordinary general assembly of the French clergy was
held to consider this question in 1681–82. Bossuet delivered the inaugural
sermon to this body and also drew up its final statement, the Déclaration des quatre articles (“Declaration of Four Articles”), which was delivered, along with his
famous inaugural sermon on the unity of the church, to the assembly of the
French clergy in 1682. The articles asserted the king’s independence from Rome
in secular matters and proclaimed that, in matters of faith, the pope’s
judgment is not to be regarded as infallible without the assent of the total
church. They were accepted by all parties of the assembly, and his role in this
controversy remained perhaps the most significant of Bossuet’s life.
Concurrently he was
engaged in the controversy with the Protestants. Though he opposed persecution and
endeavoured to convert the Protestants by intellectual argument, Bossuet
supported the king’s revocation in 1685 of the Edict of Nantes, an action that in effect prohibited
French Protestantism. In 1688 he published a history of variations in the
Protestant churches, Histoire
des variations des églises protestantes, which
was followed by information and advice to Protestants, Avertissement aux protestans
(1689–91).
Although Bossuet
had displayed moderation in the Gallican quarrel and in the controversy with
the Protestants, he showed himself less tolerant in other cases, condemning the
theatre as immoral, for example. Above all, he led an attack on the form of
religious mysticism known as Quietism, which was being practiced by the archbishop of Cambrai, François Fénelon. Bossuet was by nature very
intellectual and had been nourished on theology, and thus he was unable to understand a form of mysticism that consisted
of passive devotional contemplation and total abandonment to the divine
presence of God. He wrote such harsh works against the “new mystics” as his
statement on Quietism, Instruction sur les
états d’ oraison (1697; “Instructions on the Calling of
Oration”) and the Relation sur le quiétisme (1698; “Report on Quietism”). After a duel of pamphlets and some unpleasant
intrigue, he obtained Fénelon’s condemnation in Rome in 1699.
Reputation.
In the centuries
since his death, Bossuet’s reputation has been the subject of much controversy.
The only point of agreement is the excellence of his style and eloquence. From
a political point of view, he was praised by nationalists and monarchists, but
spurned by the liberal tradition. From a religious point of view, he was often
quoted as a master of French Roman Catholic thought, but he has been opposed by
the Ultramontanists, Catholic progressives and modernists, and many of
Fénelon’s numerous admirers. His emphasis on immutability of doctrine and the
perfection of the church made him seem old-fashioned in the atmosphere of
Catholicism after the second Vatican Council (1962–65).
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