Louis-Isaac Lemaistre de Sacy

Portrait of Louis-Isaac Lemaistre de Sacy (painting by Philippe de Champaigne )

Louis-Isaac Lemaistre de Sacy , also Louis-Isaac Lemaître de Sacy (born March 29, 1613 in Paris , † January 4, 1684 at Pomponne Palace near Paris, France) was a French theologian, Bible translator and humanist. He is best known for his French translation of the Bible, the Port-Royal Bible .

biography

The New Testament (“Bible of Mons”) 1667

Louis-Isaac Lemaistre de Sacy came from the mother's side of the Arnauld family, who played an important role in the Jansenist movement in France in the 17th century. His mother Catherine Arnauld († 1651) was a sister of Angélique Arnauld , the abbess of the Port-Royal monastery . His father Isaac Le Maistre († 1640) was a lawyer in Paris and of the Calvinist denomination, but was imprisoned early in the Bastille on religious and political allegations, so that the upbringing of the five children was entirely up to the mother. The children grew up in an environment characterized by religious discourse and all pursued a theological career. Louis-Isaac received his training from private tutors and then devoted himself to theological studies as a private scholar in the vicinity of the Port-Royal monastery. In 1646 the first of his publications was a French translation of De Ingratis des Prosper of Aquitaine , a pupil of Augustine . In the following years further translations by authors from late antiquity appeared. Among them were some non-theological works, as were Fables (Fables) of the Phaedrus and three comedies of Terence . In 1649 Sacy was ordained a priest .

In the midst of the Fronde troubles , he assumed the leading role in Port-Royal's theological circle. His publication and free translation of some hymns on salvation and grace in the Augustinian tradition in 1650 met with approval from Corneille , Racine and La Fontaine , but also earned him the enmity of the Jesuits . At the instigation of the same, the work was placed on the index by decree of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of June 18, 1651 . In 1654 Sacy answered this with a pamphlet against the "Jesusists" with the ironic-satirical title Les enluminures du fameux almanach des PP. Jésuistes intitulé "La déroute et confusion des Jansénistes" ou Triomphe de Molina Jésuiste sur S. Augustin ("The illuminations of the famous almanac of the Jesuists 'The deviations and confusions of the Jansenists', or: Triumph of the Jesusist Molina over St. Augustine"), which was promptly indexed in the same year.

Blaise Pascal and Sacy met for the first time in 1652 , the former being strongly influenced by Sacy's ideas. In the following years, Sacy's activities concentrated on the dispute over Augustine , the main work of Cornelius Jansen , which was condemned in 1642 by the bull of Pope Urban VIII. In eminenti and then placed on the index. While other Port-Royal theologians such as Pierre Nicole advised indulgence on this issue to avoid church division, Sacy remained adamant in defense of the work. Finally, the opponents Jansen gained the upper hand, and in 1661 all Catholic dignitaries of France were by decree King Louis XIV. Forced a formula ( Formulaire ), the 1656 in the bull Ad Sacram Pope Alexander VII. Had been published to sign in which the Teachings of Cornelius Jansen were condemned. The dispute over Jansenism escalated, and from 1666 to October 1667 Sacy was imprisoned in the Bastille. During this time he devoted himself to his later main work, the translation of the Bible into French, which his brother Antoine († 1658) had begun in 1657. Sacy worked on this translation and the accompanying Bible commentaries until the end of his life in 1684. The Catholic translation of the Bible was also made in response to the Bible translations by the Reformers. The basis of the translation was the Vulgate , whereby writings of the Church Fathers and Greek and Hebrew sources were also used for textual criticism.

The translation of the Bible was not only the work of one person, but many theologians and friends in the Port-Royal area contributed to it. The New Testament was published by Daniel Elzevier in Mons in 1667 and is also known as the Nouveau Testament de Mons or "Bible of Mons". The Old Testament gradually appeared in parts from 1672 to 1696. The later so-called “Port-Royal Bible” was for centuries one of the most influential and widespread translations of the Bible into French.

Sacy himself was not uncritical about his translations and Bible commentaries. He feared that the supposed clarity of his translation had lost some of the mysticism and darkness of the original biblical passages and that he had "edited" the content too much in his endeavor to achieve the most faithful translation possible.

Selection of works

• Poeme de S. Prosper contre les ingrats. Ou la doctrine catholique de la Grace est excellemment expliquée, & soustenuë contre les ereurs des Pelagiens & des Semipelagiens. Traduit en François en vers et en prose. Avec les vers Latins mis a costé des François, & reveus exactement sur les Editions les plus correctes. Published by Veuve Martin Durand, Paris 1647. Digitized by BNF Gallica
• The Office de l 'Eglise et de la Vierge en latin et en français, avec les hymnes traduites en vers. (also published under the title Heures de Port-Royal ), published by Camusat and Le Petit, Paris, 1650.
• Les enluminures du fameux almanac of the PP. Jésuistes intitulé "La déroute et confusion des Jansénistes" ou Triomphe de Molina Jésuiste sur S. Augustin 1654. Digitized by BNF Gallica
• Vie de Dom Barthelemy des Martyrs religieux de l'ordre de S. Dominique, archevesque de Brague en Portugal. Tirée de son histoire écrite en espagnol et en portugais par cinq auteurs, dont le premier est le Père Louis de Grenade, avec son esprit et les sent (together with Pierre Thomas Du Fossé, Luis de Granada), printed by Pierre Le Petit, Paris , 1679.
• Le Nouveau Testament de Nostre Seigneur Jesus Christ, traduit en françois selon l'edition vulgate, avec les differences du grec. published by Gaspard Migeot in Mons. 1667, printed by Daniel Elzevier, Amsterdam. Digitized at BNF Gallica

Web links

Commons : Louis-Isaac Lemaistre de Sacy  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ General German Real Encyclopedia for the educated classes (Konversations-Lexikon) . 8th edition. Brockhaus, Leipzig, p. 410 .
2. ↑ ^{a b c d} Flament Pierre, G. Delassault: Le Maistre de Sacy et son temps . In: Revue de l'histoire des religions . tape 154 , no. 1 , 1958, p. 113–114 (French, online at persee.fr ).
3. ^ ^{A b} Le Maistre de Sacy, Louis-Isaac. In: Jesús Martínez de Bujanda , Marcella Richter: Index des livres interdits: Index librorum prohibitorum 1600–1966. Médiaspaul, Montréal 2002, ISBN 2-89420-522-8 , p. 528 (French, digitized ).
4. ^ ^{A b} Hermann Reuchlin : History of Port-Royal: The struggle of Reformed and Jesuit Catholicism under Louis XIII. and XIV. Volume 2 (from the death of the reformer Maria Angelica Arnauld in 1661 to the destruction of the monastery in 1713). Friedrich and Andreas Perthes, Hamburg and Gotha 1844, p. 268-277 .