Antoine Banier

Antoine Banier (born November 2, 1673 in Dallet , Auvergne , † November 2, 1741 in Paris ) was a French archaeologist, translator and clergyman. He tried to explain ancient Greek myths rationally.

life and work

The Abbé Antoine Banier studied at the Jesuit College in Clermont-Ferrand . Because of his talent, his poor parents sent him to Paris to continue his studies. Soon he had to become a teacher himself in order to earn a living. He found a sponsor of his studies in President Dumetz, and in his son, who was given to him for class, a talented pupil with whom he mainly did old literature. Since he now also stood out through his writings, he became a member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in 1713 and remained under scientific occupation in Paris until his death on November 2, 1741.

Banier's studies were mainly related to Greek and Roman mythology . In the sense of euhemerism , he researched the historical core of the poems and sought the actual historical basis of the myths of later poetic embellishments, but rather to illuminate the older ancient history in this way. In truth, the pagan gods were real people of ancient times and gradually became deified. In Banier's opinion the truth could only be revealed by carefully separating it from the miraculous accessories; in this way one can go back to the origin of the fables. This method was well received outside France for a long time during the Enlightenment , before more modern methods of research into mythology were used. From a Christian point of view, Banier saw ancient fables as worshiping idols .

Banier's main work, which first appeared under the title Explication historique des fables, où l'on découvre leur origine et leur conformité avec l'histoire ancienne (2 vols., Paris 1711) and was enthusiastically received, is based on the central theme of the interpretation of myths . In 1715 it was reworked in three Duodec volumes and came out for the third time, as it were as a completely new work, under the title La mythologie et les fables expliquées par l'histoire (3 vols., Paris 1738–1740). A five-volume German translation by Johann Adolf Schlegel with notes by Johann Matthias Schröckh was published in Leipzig under the title Explanation of the doctrine of gods and fables from history 1754–1766 . An English translation of Banier's work was also carried out in London .

Banier's fairly accurate but dry French translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses owes the great popularity it found in France, in part, to the beautiful coppers by Bernard Picart and others with which it is decorated. The first edition is entitled Les metamorphoses d'Ovide, en lat. Et en franç., Avec des remarques et des explications historiques par Banier (2 vols., Amsterdam 1732; 2nd edition 3 vols., Ibid. 1732; 3. Edition 2 volumes, Paris 1738; superb edition 4 volumes, Paris 1767–1771, with 140 sheets of copper). A German imitation was published under the title Ovid's Metamorphoses with 136 coppers made by the finest artists and accompanied by historical explanations (3 vols., Vienna 1791; new edition 4 vols., Ibid. 1804).

The last literary work in which Banier took part was a new edition of the Histoire générale des cérémonies, moeurs, et coutumes religieuses de tous les peuples du monde, répresentées en 243 figures dessinées de la main, arranged with the Abbé Jean-Baptiste Le Mascrier de Bernard Picart avec des explications (7 vols., Paris 1741). In this work, Banier and Le Mascrier wanted to describe all religions of the then known world including their origins and rites. In doing so, they revised and expanded an Amsterdam edition by the satirical Huguenot author Jean Frédéric Bernard ( Cérémonies et coûtumes religieuses de tous le peuples du monde , 1723ff.), Which is highly valued because of its excellent copper . Ultimately, the content is based on reports by Catholic missionaries about the religions prevalent in Africa, America and Asia. Banier and Le Mascrier made major changes, especially to those parts of Bernard's work that dealt with the Protestant, Catholic and Jewish faith; In doing so, they omitted passages that treated the Catholic Church as satirical, and added those that were intended to underline the primacy of Catholicism over all other religions.

Banier produced a third part for the Voyages de Paul Lucas ( Troisième Voyage du sieur Paul Lucas, fait en 1714, par ordre de Louis XIV dans la Turquie, l'Asie, la Sourie, la Palestine, la Haute et la Basse-Égypte , 3 vols., 1719), and he obtained new, very improved editions from des Bonaventure d'Argonne Mélanges d'histoire et de littérature (1725), from des Pierre Gautruche Histoire poétique (1738) and from the Voyages de Corneille Lebruyn (Paris 1725, 5 vols.). He added scholarly notes to the latter work, juxtaposing ancient and modern geographical names exactly. In the Mémoires de l'académie des inscriptions there are many treatises in which he tries to explain subjects of mythology more astutely than historically correctly.

literature

• Baur: Banier (Antoine) . In: Johann Samuelansch , Johann Gottfried Gruber (Ed.): General Encyclopedia of Sciences and Arts , 1st section, 7th part, Leipzig 1821, p. 307f. ( Digitized version )

Web links

• Literature by and about Antoine Banier in the SUDOC catalog (Association of French University Libraries)