Firmin Abauzit

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Firmin Abauzit

Firmin Abauzit (born November 12, 1679 in Uzès , France , † March 20, 1767 in Geneva ) was a French scholar who dealt with the natural sciences , history , theology and philosophy . He was a librarian in Geneva for four decades . Abauzit is also known as a corrector of the writings of Isaac Newton and other scholars.

Life

Firmin Abauzit was born in 1679 to Protestant parents in Uzès in Languedoc . His father Jean Abauzit died when he was only two years old. Following the repeal of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, the spiritual authorities took steps to bring him up in the Roman Catholic faith. For this purpose, he and his younger brother Bonaventura were forcibly torn away from his mother Anne Deville and forcibly sent to a Catholic college in Uzès. But his mother made it possible for him and his brother to escape.

Firmin Abauzit and his brother lived as refugees in the mountains of the Cévennes for two years and finally reached Geneva in 1689, where a grandfather on his father's side lived. Her mother also came to Geneva when she was released from custody in Sommières Castle , where she had been held for managing the escape of her children. However, because of this, she had to forego part of her not inconsiderable fortune.

Abauzit had an excellent memory, studied at the Geneva Academy and acquired considerable knowledge of ancient languages, physics and theology at an early age. In 1698 he went on a journey and first visited Germany and the Netherlands . In the latter country he made the acquaintance of Pierre Bayle , Pierre Jurieu and Samuel and Jacques Basnage . Then he went to England and was introduced to Charles de Saint-Évremond and Sir Isaac Newton . In Abauzit, Newton found one of the first defenders of his discoveries and in the second edition of his "Principia" corrected a mistake that Abauzit had discovered. He also recognized him as a judge between himself and Leibniz in a dispute . Abauzit had a lively scientific correspondence with Bayle and Newton.

Abauzit's reputation moved William III. to ask him if he would like to move to England. Abauzit did not respond to this, but returned to Geneva. From 1715 he supported a pastor's college with a translation of the New Testament into French, which was published in 1726. He received thanks from the Preacher Society for his collaboration on this project. In 1723 he turned down an offer from the Geneva Academy for the chair of philosophy. He had a tendency towards independence and self-chosen pursuits in quiet life. In 1727 he only accepted the honorary position of a third librarian in the Geneva library and rendered significant services in this position. In 1727 Geneva also awarded him the honor of being a citizen granted free of charge.

Abauzit, who lost his mother in 1726 and never married, continued to study a wide variety of subjects. As a universally educated scholar, he was well versed both in the field of exact sciences (mathematics, physics, astronomy) and in that of history, archeology, geography, philosophy and theology. Not only did Newton, for example, recognize his authority, but Richard Pococke , for example, after a lecture by Abauzit about countries in the Orient, could hardly believe that he did not know these regions from his own experience, as he did.

Abauzit maintained a simple lifestyle and always appeared very modest and philosophically relaxed. A housemaid assured that she had never seen him angry in the 30 years she was employed by him; and when she, instigated by the prospect of financial reward, put his patience to the test by not making his bed several times, he accepted this calmly. He had no grudges against dissenters and scientific opponents. He was accused of heresy by some, such as Charles Bonnet , because of his relatively liberal religious attitude . He died on March 20, 1767 in Geneva at the age of 87.

The judgment about the importance of Abauzit is extremely mixed. The Protestant theologian Wilhelm David Fuhrmann judged because of his free-spirited attitude towards religious matters:

“Abauzit tries with all his might to overthrow the essential doctrines of Christianity; the deity of the Son, the deity of the Holy Spirit, the Trinity, and so many other mysteries of the revealed religion are horribly abused by him, and we must warn against this man. "

- Wilhelm David Fuhrmann : The enlightenments of the modern scholars of God. 1807

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, on the other hand, saw in him the only "true world wise man" known to him, which "this philosophical century" had produced. It is reported of Voltaire that when a strange visitor told him that he had come to see a great man, he replied that he had seen Abauzit.

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Abauzit's work testifies to its extraordinary versatility. However, some heirs are said to have burned the part of his oeuvre, which was only available in handwriting after his death, out of religious zeal in Uzès. At least his correspondence with his uncle, a Reformed preacher, on theological and scientific subjects survived, and some theological, archaeological, and astronomical articles of his appeared in the Journal Helvétique and elsewhere. He contributed some articles on music in antiquity for Rousseau's Dictionnaire de musique (1767). The new edition of Jacob Spons Histoire de la republique de Geneve , published in 1730, contains important studies and additions from his hand. He also participated in the constitution of Bernard de Montfaucon's Antiquité expliquée (1724). He contributed to the Encyclopédie edited by Denis Diderot and d'Alembert as the author of the article Apocalypse .

A collection of some of Abauzit's works, including his treatise on Paul's letters to the Romans and Galatians, was published after his death by Manoël de Végobre under the title Œuvres de feu M. Abauzit with a short biography of the author in Geneva in 1770. At almost the same time, P. Moultou published a competing and more complete edition as œuvres diverses de M. Abauzit . Her first volume was published in London in 1770, begins with an homage to Abauzit by Jean Pierre Bérenger and includes exegetical and theological treatises of Abauzit. The second volume of this edition, published in Amsterdam in 1773, contains historical, antiquarian, philological and natural history writings by Abauzit, including whether Virgil made changes to his Aeneid at the end of his life , as well as about the northern lights , a silver plate found near Geneva in 1721, the ruins of Paestum , the Galba camp , the ancient monuments of Aix-les-Bains , a supposedly golden taler of the Prince of Condé, the Julian calendar and Hannibal's crossing of the Alps .

In the religious field, Abauzit took the view that Christian teaching must also be rationally understandable. His best-known theological work is his Discours historique sur l'Apocalypse , which expresses doubts about the canonical authority of the Apocalypse . This elicited a response from his English translator, Leonard Twells . Even Nicolas-Sylvestre Bergier grabbed Abauzits writing on about the apocalypse. The Essai sur l'Apocalypse is another of Abauzit's works on this topic. As an exegete, the scholar also sought to find allusions to Jewish history in the epoch of Antiochus IV and the Hasmoneans in the 11th chapter of the book of Daniel . Abauzits Lettre à une dame de Dijon touchant les dogmes de l'Église romaine was published in 1723 in Jacques Lenfant's work Préservatif contre la réunion avec le siège de Rome .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wilhelm David Fuhrmann: The illuminations of the modern scholars of God in the Christian doctrine of the faith, from 1760 to 1805. First volume. In der Weygandschen Buchhandlung, Leipzig 1807, p. 330. Digitized version (accessed on: April 13, 2012).
  2. ↑ Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Julie or the New Heloise . Second volume, Berlin [1923], p. 199.
  3. ↑ Firmin Abauzit: Discours historique sur l'Apocalypse , in: P. Moultou (Ed.): Œuvres diverses de M. Abauzit , London 1770, vol. 1, pp. 247–326.
  4. ↑ Nicolas-Sylvestre Bergier: Traité historique et dogmatique de la vraie religion , Paris 1784, Vol. 8, pp. 151-188.
  5. ↑ Firmin Abauzit: Essai sur l'Apocalypse , in: P. Moultou (ed.): Œuvres diverses de M. Abauzit , London 1770, vol. 1, pp. 327–342.
  6. ↑ P. Moultou (Ed.): Œuvres diverses de M. Abauzit , London 1770, Vol. 1, pp. 216–246 and pp. 343–350.
personal data
SURNAME Abauzit, Firmin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French philosopher, physicist and Protestant theologian
DATE OF BIRTH November 12, 1679
PLACE OF BIRTH Uzes
DATE OF DEATH March 20, 1767
Place of death Geneva