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.
Early life and priesthood.
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).
Jacques Truchet
Ed.
