Jean Goulu

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Jean Goulu (born August 25, 1576 in Paris , † January 5, 1629 ibid) was a French Graecist , Cistercian monk and general of the Feuillanten .

life and work

The Cistercian

Jean Goulu's father, Nicolas Goulu, was the son-in-law and successor of Jean Dorat , royal teacher of Greek, a post for which Jean was also intended, but in 1604 at the age of 28 he followed an appointment and entered the Cistercian Reform Order of Feuillanten. He took the name of the order Jean de Saint-François , was elected sub prior three years later and in 1624 was promoted to Abbot General of the Feuillanten. As such, he was valued by Pope Urban VIII in Rome . In France, his godfather César de Bourbon, duc de Vendôme, was one of his patrons. Goulu was friends with the philologist Nicolas Le Fèvre (1544-1612), to whom he gave the funeral oration, and with Cardinal Jacques-Davy Duperron . Even Francis liked him.

The Homme de Lettres

As a writer, Goulu emerged with translations from ancient Greek ( Epictetus and Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita ), as well as with a biography of his friend Franz von Sales, and in 1627 with a polemic directed against Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac in which he (under the pseudonym Phyllarque ) Balzac (to whom he gave the name Narcisse ) accused of not being loyal enough to the king in his letters, which have now become famous, of copying from the classical authors and of writing a bad style. The resulting disagreement gave the impetus for Balzac's withdrawal from Paris.

Goulu's political view

Goulu had a conception of the absoluteness of monarchical authority within the framework of a heavenly-earthly hierarchy based on Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita. He and the feuillants were the representatives of God on earth, an idea that they implemented architecturally when building their Fontaine-lès-Dijon monastery .

Burial place

Goulu was buried in the Bernhardskirche of the Feuillantenkloster on Rue Saint-Honoré (No. 229–225) in Paris, of which almost no remains are left.

Works (selection)

  • Les Oeuvres du divin St Denys Aréopagite, traduites du grec en françois, par Frère Jean de St François . Paris 1608.
  • Les Propos d'Epictète, recueillis par Arrian, auteur grec, son disciple, translatez du grec au françois par Frère Jean de St François . Paris 1609.
  • Discours funèbre sur le trépas de M. Nicolas Le Febvre, conseiller et précepteur du très-chrétien Louys XIII. Par un religieux Fueillentin son ami . Paris 1612, 1616.
  • Uvres spirituelles du père Augustin Manna, oratorios . Paris 1613 (from the Italian).
  • Homelies sur l'Hexameron de S. Basile . Paris 1616 ( Basil the Great )
  • La vie du bien-heureus Mre Francois de Sales evesque et prince de Geneve, instituteur de l'Ordre des religieuses de la Visitation de Sainte Marie . Paris 1624.
  • Letres de Phyllarque à Ariste, où il est traité de la vraye et de la bonne éloquence, contre la fausse et la mauvaise du sieur de Balsac . Paris 1627.

literature

Manual literature

  • Louis Ellies Dupin (1657–1719): Table universelle des auteurs ecclésiastiques . Pralard, Paris 1704, pp. 1655, 2901-2903.
  • Jean François (1722–1791): Bibliothèque générale des écrivains de l'Ordre de Saint Benoit . 1777, pp. 408-409.
  • Louis Moréri : Le grand dictionaire historique sv
  • Emile Brouette, Anselme Dimier and Eugène Manning : Dictionnaire des auteurs cisterciens . Abbaye Notre-Dame de Saint-Rémy de Rochefort, Rochefort, Belgium, 1975-1978, p. 305.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Goulu, Jean
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Goulu, Jean de Saint-François
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French Cistercian, writer and translator
DATE OF BIRTH August 25, 1576
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris
DATE OF DEATH January 5, 1629
Place of death Paris