Guillaume Villefroy

Guillaume Villefroy (born March 5, 1690 in Paris , † April 4, 1777 ibid) was a French orientalist , especially a connoisseur of the Armenian language and literature .

Life

Guillaume Villefroy came from a noble family and, after completing his studies at Tiron Abbey, turned to perfecting his knowledge of Hebrew and other languages ​​useful for understanding the Bible . Therefore, he entered the famous seminary in Besançon , where he obtained a doctorate in theology and was also ordained a priest. Because of his skills, he came into contact with Chancellor Aguesseau , on whose recommendation he became secretary to the Duke of Orléans and Abbot of Blasimont.

The manuscripts that the Abbé Sevin brought from Constantinople to Paris in 1736 also included 128 manuscripts that were written in Armenian and critically examined, described and cataloged by Villefroy. His conclusions and remarks were translated into Latin and included in the catalog of manuscripts in the royal library, but only published by Bernard de Montfaucon ( Bibliotheca bibliothecarum manuscriptorum , Paris 1739, vol. 2, pp. 1015-1027). Villefroy also translated some old Armenian church chants on the feasts of the birth of John the Baptist and the presentation of Christ in the temple into French (printed in: Mémoires de Trévoux , August 1735, pp. 1542–1584), which he attributed to Moses von Choren ; but he also considered Anania Schirakatsi as a possible creator of the church chants for the feast of John the Baptist. An enkomium on Gregory the Illuminator, translated by Villefroy from Armenian ( B. Jo.Chrysostomi encomium sancti Gregorii Illuminatoris ex armena lingua in latinam versum ) can be found behind the edition of the works of John Chrysostomos of Montfaucon (vol. 12, p. 822) . Other occupations prevented him from publishing further Armenian works planned by him.

In order to promote oriental studies, Villefroy taught young people interested in this subject, which he found in particular in the Capuchin monastery in Paris' Rue Saint-Honoré . That is why he founded the Société des Capucins hébraïsants there in 1744 , of which Louis de Poix was the most outstanding. Villefroy also wrote 16 letters to these Capuchins, in which he encouraged them to face the hostility of their system of Bible translation and set out his principles of the explanation of the Scriptures ( Lettres pour servir d'introduction à l'intelligence des divines Écritures, et principalement des livres prophétiques, relativement à la langue originale , 2 vols., Paris 1751–54). But the grammatical rules that he established and the double literal system of prophecy, which could so easily lead to abuse, have been severely attacked. The Abbé Besoigné ( Réflexions théologiques sur les écrits de M. l'abbé de V. ... et de ses élèves les jeunes pères capucins , Paris 1752) and Louis Dupuy from the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres ( Réflexions critiques sur la méthode de l'abbé de Villefroy , Paris 1755), on the other hand, as well as Abbé Ladvocat and the learned oratorian Charles-François Houbigant , who was an authority in the field of Hebrew. Villefroy did not want to interfere in this dispute and left the defense to his students.

In 1752 Villefroy became a professor of Hebrew at the Collège de France. The Lettres de l'abbé de…, ex-professeur en hébreu, au sieur Kennicott, Anglais (Paris 1771) are ascribed to him. He died in Paris in 1777 at the age of 87.

literature

• Villefroy (Guillaume de) . In: Biographie universelle , 2nd ed., Vol. 43, pp. 444f.