Jean-Pierre Camus

Philippe de Champaigne : Portrait of the Bishop Jean-Pierre Camus (1643)

Jean-Pierre Camus (born November 3, 1584 in Paris , † April 25, 1652 ibid) was a French Roman Catholic bishop and writer of the Baroque era .

life and work

Camus studied law and was a lawyer in Paris from 1602 to 1606. He then studied theology for two years, was ordained a priest in 1608 and installed as Bishop of Belley a year later . He took his office seriously and won the friendship of Francis de Sales , who also donated him episcopal ordination on August 30, 1609 . In 1628 he was called up as too ultramontane and retired to the Aulnay Cistercian monastery in Aunay-sur-Odon , but was soon appointed vicar general in the Archdiocese of Rouen . In 1649 he went back to Paris and looked after the sick in the Hospice des Incurables (today Hôpital Laennec ). In 1650 he was called by the French to be Bishop of Arras , but died before taking up his office. Opposing him was Ladislas Jonnart as Bishop of Arras from the Spanish side .

Bishop Camus was one of the most prolific authors of the French language. In the service of the Catholic counter-reform , he wrote around two hundred edifying novels in which he wanted to have a deterrent effect with the drastic portrayal of sinful behavior and thus became the forerunner of roman noir . His greatest achievement are the ten volumes with the title Diversités (1608–1618), which are based on the model of the essays by Montaigne with great humanistic erudition and were examined in detail by Jean Descrains in the second half of the 20th century . The long forgotten author, despised by Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve , was rediscovered by Henri Bremond , who called him the Walter Scott of Christian humanism. Jean Calvet spoke of the Alexandre Dumas of piety. Camus has recently been the subject of numerous literary works.

Other works (selection)

• Homélies des États généraux, 1614-1615 , ed. by Jean Descrains, Geneva, Droz, 1970.
• L'Esprit de saint François de Sales , 6 vols., Paris, 1641 (several editions).
  • The spirit of St. Francis de Sales , Prince-Bishop of Geneva, Regensburg, Manz, 1913.
  • The wisdom of Francis de Sales , ed. by Jacques Caryl, Olten, Walter, 1949.
  • From the spirit of holiness. From the memories of St. Francis de Sales , Mainz, Matthias Grünewald, 1956.
• Divertissement historique , ed. by Constant Venesoen, Tübingen, G. Narr, 2002 (with biography, French).

Literature (selection)

• Raoul Heurtevent, "Jean-Pierre Camus", in: Dictionnaire de spiritualité ascétique et mystique , Vol. 2, Paris, Beauchesne, 1953, sv
• Jean Descrains, Bibliography des œuvres de Jean-Pierre Camus, évêque de Belley, 1584-1652 , Paris, Société d'étude du XVIIe siècle, 1971.
• Jean Descrains, Jean-Pierre Camus, 1584-1652, et ses "Diversités" 1609-1618, ou la culture d'un évêque humaniste , 2 vols., Paris, Nizet, 1985 (originally Thèse 1979).
• Jean Descrains, Essais sur Jean-Pierre Camus , Paris, Klincksieck, 1992.
• Georges Forestier, "Camus, Jean-Pierre", in: Laffont-Bompiani. Le nouveau dictionnaire des auteurs de tous les temps et de tous les pays, Paris 1994, p. 547 (Bouquins series).
• Thomas Worcester, Seventeenth century cultural discourse. France and the preaching of Bishop Camus , Berlin, Mouton De Gruyter, 1997.
• Sylvie Robic, Le salut par l'excès. Jean-Pierre Camus (1584-1652). La poétique d'un évêque romancier , Paris, Champion, 1999.
• Alain Viala, "Jean-Pierre Camus", in: Dictionnaire des écrivains de langue française , ed. by Jean-Pierre Beaumarchais, Daniel Couty and Alain Rey, Paris, Larousse, 2001, pp. 286–287.

Web links

Commons : Jean-Pierre Camus  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Jean-Pierre Camus in the SUDOC catalog (Association of French University Libraries)
• Entry on Jean-Pierre Camus on catholic-hierarchy.org