Isaac de Beausobre

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Portrait of Isaac de Beausobre as a preacher by Johann Martin Bernigeroth

Isaac de Beausobre (born March 8, 1659 in Niort , † June 5, 1738 in Berlin ) was a French theologian who is best known today for his history of Manichaeism .

After studying at the Protestant Académie de Saumur , he was ordained at the age of 22 and then pastor in Châtillon-sur-Indre . After revoking the Edict of Nantes , he fled to Rotterdam in the Netherlands in November 1685 . In 1686 he became the clergyman of Henriette Catharina von Oranien-Nassau in Dessau .

In 1693 he went to Berlin, where he finally became the royal court pastor, director of the “Maison français”, a hospice for the French colony, inspector of the French grammar school and superintendent of the Huguenot communities in Brandenburg.

Isaac de Beausobre has enduring importance primarily through his history of Manichaeism. He was the first to suspect that the Manichean “ Book of Giants ” goes back to the part of the Book of Enoch known as the Book of the Guardians . Still WB Henning , one of the authorities in the field, calls his work in 1943 with great respect, "one of the best books ever written on Manichaeism".

Of his other works, a history of the Reformation and a French translation of Luther's translation of the New Testament were published posthumously .

Isaac de Beausobre is the father of the writer Ludwig Beausobre (1690–1753).

Works

  • Histoire Critique de Manichée et du Manichéisme. 2 volumes, Amsterdam 1734 and 1739 (digital copies: I ; II ). Reprint: Zentralantiquariat der DDR, Leipzig 1970.
  • Histoire De La Réformation, Ou Origine Et Progrès Du Luthéranisme, Dans l'Empire & les États de la Confession d'Augsbourg, depuis 1517 jusqu'en 1530. 4 volumes, Garde, Berlin 1785 f.
  • Le Nouveau Testament De nôtre Seigneur Jesus Christ. Traduit en françois par Mrs. de Beausobre & Lenfant. Translated into German by D. Martin Luthern. Decker, Basel 1746.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ WB Henning: The Book of the Giants . In: Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies . Vol. 11, No. 1, 1943, p. 52.
personal data
SURNAME Beausobre, Isaac de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French theologian
DATE OF BIRTH March 8, 1659
PLACE OF BIRTH Niort
DATE OF DEATH June 5, 1738
Place of death Berlin