Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet

Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet (born Sept. 25, 1627, Dijon, Fr.—died April 12, 1704, Paris) was a 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.

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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.