Casimir Oudin

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Casimir Oudin (born February 11, 1638 in Mézières , † September 1717 in Leiden ) was a French bibliographer and church writer.

Life

Casimir Oudin was the son of a weaver. He first attended the Charleville Jesuit College. According to his father's wish, he should also learn his trade. Against the wishes of his parents, however, he preferred to study and in 1656 joined the Premonstratensians . In November 1658 he later made profession in the Abbey of St. Paul in Verdun and on this occasion took the name Casimir instead of his baptismal name Remi. He now studied philosophy and theology in the Abbey of Bucilly and was particularly interested in church history . In 1669 he became professor of theology at Notre-Dame de Mureau Abbey, where he served as grand prior until 1670. Then in 1675 he received the parish of Epinay-sous-Gamaches. In 1677 he returned to Bucilly Abbey to continue his studies. It was here that in the absence of his superiors Louis XIV , who spoke there, he had to receive and astonished the king with a Latin poem of praise made on the spot. In 1681 he received the order from the Abbot General of the Premonstratensian, Michel II. De Colbert-Terron, to visit all the abbeys of his order in France and the Netherlands, and to excerpt what is important for history in their archives.

Thereupon Oudin settled in Paris in 1683 , where he lived on friendly terms with the learned Benedictines of the Congregation of St. Maur . They made their rich historical materials available to him so that he could write a historical account of their order, which task he did not undertake, however. As a result of his church history studies, he published Supplementum de scriptoribus vel scriptis ecclesiasticis a Bellarmino omissis ad annum 1460 in Paris in 1686 . This book was severely reprimanded by William Cave , who accused the writer of ignorance and plagiarism.

Oudin's connections with Pierre Jurieu and several other Reformed scholars were a thorn in the side of his superiors. Soon he was sent back from Paris to Bucilly and finally to the Abbey of Ressons near Beauvais , where he suffered severe treatment. So he developed an aversion to monastic life and he decided to leave the Catholic Church. He fled to Holland in 1690 and formally joined the Reformed Church, whereupon he initially received a year's salary through the Spanheims and some other mediation from the States General , but in 1694 received the post of sub-librarian at the University of Leiden , which he received until his old age in September 1717 of 79 years of death. He was buried in the Protestant Walloon Church in Leiden.

In 1692 Oudin published an Epistola de ratione studiorum suorum in Leiden , which is addressed to the Hamburg chief pastor Johann Friedrich Mayer . He had invited him to settle in Hamburg and promised a job there, which Oudin had not promised enough prospects. In this pamphlet he complains bitterly about the few study aids that he found in his order. Furthermore, Oudin Veterum published aliquot Galliae et Belgii scriptorum opuscula sacra nunquam edita (Leiden 1692). This compilation contains a poem by Hinkmar , Abbot of Saint Remi , with a letter from Audradus to this prelate, as well as works by Hermann, Abbot of Saint-Martin, Arnold, Abbot of Bonneval, Wilhelm, Abbot of Saint-Thierry and Gauthier, Probst from Tournai . Also in 1692 another work by Oudin came out, Le prémontré défroqué , in which he explained the reasons for his conversion. Finally he wrote the trias dissertationum criticarum (Leiden 1717). The first of the three discussions of this work refers to the Alexandrian manuscript of the Septuagint , which it claims could date from the 10th century at the earliest; the second deals with the treatise of Athanasius Quaestiones ad Antiochum principem , whereby Oudin seeks to prove that this work was in fact only written in the 14th century by a patriarch in Alexandria ; the third is directed against the Imperium Orientale by Anselmo Banduri .

After Oudin's death, his work on church writers, Commentarius de scriptoribus ecclesiae antiquis illorumque scriptis, tam impressis quam manuscriptis adhuc extandibus, appeared in celebrioribus Europae bibliothecis (3 volumes, Leipzig 1722). It was his declared intention to correct the errors and omissions of Robert Bellarmin , Antonio Possevino , Philipp Labbeo, William Cave and others in this work , but he did not understand enough Latin and Greek and made many mistakes himself. The work was placed on the index of forbidden books by decree of the Roman Catholic Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1729 .

Catholic writers have usually judged Oudin very severely and declared him to be a rude, impolite person who lacked all delicacy and education. Nicolas Lenglet Du Fresnoy judged him more favorably by stating that Oudin had no unworthy motives when he converted to the Reformed faith; while other converts took the opportunity to marry immediately after their conversion, Oudin was only found in the library, church, or home; also, in contrast to other proselytes, he had been held in general respect by his new co-religionists.

literature

Remarks

  1. ↑ Oudin (Casimir) , in: Louis Gabriel Michaud (Ed.): Biographie universelle ancienne et moderne , 2nd edition, 1843–65, vol. 31, p. 492.
  2. ↑ Oudin, Casimir. In: Jesús Martínez de Bujanda , Marcella Richter: Index des livres interdits: Index librorum prohibitorum 1600–1966. Médiaspaul, Montréal 2002, ISBN 2-89420-522-8 , pp. 674-675 (French, digitized ).
  3. ↑ Jean-Baptiste Michault, Mélanges historiques et philologiques , Vol. (1754), p. 34.
  4. ^ Nicolas Lenglet Du Fresnoy, Méthode pour étudier l'histoire , Vol. 14, p. 345.
personal data
SURNAME Oudin, Casimir
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French bibliographer and church writer
DATE OF BIRTH February 11, 1638
PLACE OF BIRTH Mezieres
DATE OF DEATH September 1717
Place of death Suffer