Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples

Lefèvre d'Étaples

Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples (also Jacobus Faber Stapulensis ; * 1450 or 1455 in Étaples , Picardy ; † 1536 in Nérac ) was a French theologian and humanist . His name is primarily associated with the Bible de Lefèvre d'Étaples (1523-30), the first complete French translation of the Bible .

Life and work

After studying theology and being ordained a priest in Paris, Lefèvre became a lecturer in philosophy at a college of the Sorbonne . He also began to learn ancient Greek , making him one of the first French Graecists . Perhaps before 1486, but in any case in 1491 and 1499, he undertook educational trips to Padua and Pavia as centers of humanistic learning, which was already in full bloom . Afterwards he himself became active as a humanist scholar with text-critical editions of central writings of the Greek philosopher Aristotle , which he also commented on, turning away from the medieval interpretative traditions. Back in Paris by 1505 at the latest, he became the focus of a small group of nobles, theologians and lawyers interested in humanism, including Guillaume Budé , who later (1530) founded the Collège des trois langues with the support of King Francis I , the first to be established outside the university University of France.

Another faithful was Guillaume Briçonnet , Bishop of Lodève in southern France , but who mostly stayed in Paris to be present at court. When Briçonnet also received the benefice of the abbot of the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés at the gates of the city in 1507 , Lefèvre settled there and helped him introduce a religious life more closely related to the Gospel. Like many humanists, he too had become increasingly aware that many of the dogmas and rules of the Church did not correspond to the Bible. At the same time, he developed and published text-critical editions of various parts of the Bible (for example the Psalms in 1509 and the Epistles of Paul in 1512 ).

In 1521 Briçonnet, who had the favor of Francis I and was confessor to his sister Margarete, was promoted to Bishop of Meaux . When he consistently decided to reside locally and to evangelize his diocese , Lefèvre followed him as a member of the circle of reform-minded theologians and scholars around the bishop . In addition, he was appointed vicar general.

At the same time he was working on a translation of the Bible, initially the New Testament , based on the quasi-official Latin version, the Vulgate , which the church father Jerome had made around 400 based on the Greek and Hebrew texts. With his translation, he pursued, just like Martin Luther, who was active almost at the same time (who, however, based on the original Greek and Hebrew texts), the typical Reformation intention of giving normal believers the opportunity to read the Bible themselves or to have them read to them and theirs To interpret the wording without the mediation of the Catholic clergy and their conventions of interpretation. When he had his New Testament printed in 1523 without permission (which he would hardly have received), he was declared a heretic by the Sorbonne, which in the meantime aggressively defended its interpretative sovereignty .

His patron Briçonnet was also increasingly hostile, among other things because he banished the Franciscans from his diocese and had supporters of the recently excommunicated Luther preach. When in 1525 he temporarily lacked the backing of the king, who was captured by Emperor Charles V at the battle of Pavia , and he had to make concessions to his conservative opponents, Lefèvre felt unprotected and fled to the free imperial city of Strasbourg , a stronghold of German humanism.

After the king's return in 1526, Lefèvre was able to return to France and was given the post of librarian at the Blois Royal Library . In 1529 he accepted the invitation of Margaret, the king's sister, who had become queen of the rest of the Kingdom of Navarre in 1527 , and went to her in Nérac in southwestern France, to the small court that she maintained there. With her, who sympathized with the "Luthéranisme", he also finished his translation of the Old Testament (again after the Vulgate) and spent his last years, incidentally, without breaking specifically with the Catholic Church.

His complete Bible was published in 1530 in the then cosmopolitan, rich and still pro-Reformation city of Antwerp as La Sainte Bible en français, translatée selon la pure et entière traduction de Saint-Hierosme . It was immediately banned by the Paris Parliament .

Although it was reprinted several times, Lefèvre's Bible did not achieve the same significance in the French-speaking world as Luther's in German . One important reason was certainly that the reformer Calvin and with him the Francophone Protestants preferred the somewhat later (rather wooden) translation of the Geneva Bible by Pierre-Robert Olivétan (1535 ff.), Who, like Luther, had started from the Hebrew and Greek texts .

literature

• Guy Bedouelle:  Faber Stapulensis . In: Theologische Realenzyklopädie (TRE). Volume 10, de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1982, ISBN 3-11-008575-5 , pp. 781-783.
• Siegfried Raeder:  Faber, Jacobus Stapulensis . In: Religion Past and Present (RGG). 4th edition. Volume 3, Mohr-Siebeck, Tübingen 2000, Sp. 1-2.
• Christoph Schönau: Jacques Lefècre d'Etaples and the Reformation (= sources and research on the history of the Reformation . Volume 91). Gütersloh publishing house, Gütersloh 2017.

Web links

Wikisource: Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples  - Sources and full texts

• Literature by and about Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples in the catalog of the German National Library
• Gert Pinkernell: Articles in the Names, Titles and Dates of French Literature (main source).