Jacques-Benigne Bossuet

A celebrated French bishop and pulpit orator, born at Dijon, 27 September, 1627,

died at Paris, 12 April, 1704. For more than a century his ancestors, both

paternal and maternal, had occupied judicial functions. He was the fifth son of

Beneigne Bossuet, a judge in theParliament of Dijon, and Madeleine Mouchet.

He began his classical studies in the Collège des Godrans, conducted by the

Jesuits, in Dijon, and, on his father's appointment to a seat in the Parliament of

Metz, he was left in his native town, under the care of his uncle, Claude Bossuet

d'Aiseray, a renowned scholar. His extraordinary ardour for study gave occasion

to the schoolboy joke, deriving his name from Bos suetus aratro. In a very short

time, he mastered the Greek and Latin classics. Homer and Virgil were his

favourite authors, while the Bible soon became his livre de chevet. Speaking of

the Scriptures, he used to say: "Certe, in his consenescere, in his immori,

summa votorum est." Early destined to the Church, he received the tonsure when

he was only eight years old, and at the age of thirteen he obtained a canonicate

in the cathedral of Metz. In 1642, he left Dijon and went to Paris to finish his

classical studies and to take up philosophy and theology in the College de

Navarre. A year later he was introduced by Arnauld at the Hotel de Rambouillet,

where, one evening at eleven o'clock, he delivered an extempore sermon, which

caused Voiture's remark: "I never heard anybody preach so early nor so late." A

Master of Arts in 1643, he held his first thesis (tentativa) in theology, 25

January,1648, in the presence of the Prince de Condé. He was ordained

sub-deacon the same year and deacon the following year, and preached his first

sermons at Metz. He held his second thesis (sorbonica) 9 November, 1650. For

two years, he lived in retirement, preparing himself for the priesthood under the

direction of St. Vincent de Paul, and was ordained 18 March, 1652. A few weeks

later, the degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred uponhim. Appointed

Archdeacon of Sarrebourg (January, 1652), he resided for seven years at Metz,

devoting himself to the study of the Bible and the Fathers, preaching sermons,

holdings controversies with Protestants, and yet finding time for the secular

affairs for which he was responsible, as a member of the Assembly of Three

Orders. In 1657 he was induced by St. Vincent de Paul to come to Paris and

give himself entirely to preaching.

Though living in Paris, Bossuet did not sever his connection with the cathedral of

Metz; he continued to hold his benefice, and was even appointed dean in 1664,

when his father, a widower, had just received the priesthood and become a canon

of the same cathedral. There are extant one hundred and thirty-seven sermons

which were delivered by Bossuet between 1659 and1669, and it is estimated that

more than one hundred have been lost. In 1669 he was appointed Bishop of

Condom, without being obliged to reside in his diocese was consecrated i21

September, 1670, but, obeying scruplesof conscience, resigned his bishopric a

year later, in which year, also,he was elected in the French Academy. Appointed

preceptor to the Dauphin, 13 September, 1670, he threw himself with defatigable

energy into his tutorial functions, composing all the books deemed necessary for

his instruction, models of handwriting as well as manuals of philosophy, and

himself giving all the lessons, three times a day. When his functions as

preceptor ended (168I), he was appointed to the bishopric of Meaux. He took a

prominent part in the Assembly of the French Clergy in 1682. Unlike the court

bishops, Boussuet constantly resided in his diocese and busied himself with the

details of its administration.. In that period he completed his long-interrupted

works of historical controversy, wrote innumerable spiritual letters, took care of

his religious communities (for whom he composed "Meditations on the Gospel"

and "Uplifting of the Soul on the Mysteries"), and entered on endless polemics

with Ellies du Pin, Caffaro, Fénelon, the Probabilists, Richard Simon and the

Jansenists. From 1700, his health began to fail, which, however, did not prevent

him from wrestling indefence of the Faith. Confined to his bed by illness, he

dictated letters and polemical essays to his secretary. As Saint-Simon says, "he

died fighting". A list and criticism of Bossuet's chief works will be found in the

following appreciation, by the late Ferdinand Brunetière. Out of one hundred and

thirty works composed by Bossuet from 1653 to 1704, eighty were edited by

himself, seven or eight by his nephew, the Abbé Bossuet, afterwards Bishop of

Troyes; the remainder, about forty-two, not including the "Letters" and

"Sermons", appeared from 1741 to I789. The principal complete editions are: the

Versailles edition 1815-19, 47 vols. in-8: Lachat (Vives), Paris, 1862-64, 31 vols.

in-8; Guillame. Paris, 10 vols. in-4, No critical and chronological edition of

Bossuet's complete works has been made as yet, only the sermons having been

edited (in a most scientific manner) bythe Abbé Lebarcq: "&OElig;uvres

oratoires; édition critique complete, avec introduction grammaticale, préface,

notes, et choix de variantes", Paris, 1890, 6 vols. in-8.

LITERARY AND THEOLOGICAL APPRECIATION OF BOSSUET

The life of this great man, perfectly simple as it was, and all of one piece with

itself, may be divided into three epochs, to each of which as a matter of fact

there are found to correspond, if not a new aspect of his genius, at least

occupations or labours which are not altogether of the same nature and which

consequently show him to us in a somewhat different light. At first, one perceives

in him only the orator, the greatest, perhaps, who has ever appeared in the

Christian pulpit -greater than Chrysostom and greater than Augustine; the only

man whose name can he compared in eloquence with thoseof Cicero and of

Demosthenes (1617-70). Appointed preceptor to the Dauphin, son of Louis XIV,

he devoted himself for more than ten years entirely to this onerous task

(1670-81), appearedin the pulpit only at rare intervals, returned to the studies

which he had somewhat neglected, and composed for his pupil works of which

the "Discourse on Universal History" is still the most celebrated. Finally, in the

last period of his life (1681-l704), having become bishop of Meaux, though he still

preaches regularly to his own flock, and raises his eloquent voice on solemn

occasions -- to open the Assembly of the Clergy of France, in 1681, or to

pronounce the funeral oration of the Prince de Condé, in 1687 -- yet it is above all

the great controversialist that his contemporaries admire in him, the defender of

tradition against all the novelties which sought to weaken it, the unwearying

opponent of Jurieu, of Richard Simon, of Madame Guyon, and, incidentally, of

Fénelon himself; he is thetheologian of Providence, and -startling contrast -on the

eve of the Regency, he is "the last of the Fathers of the Church" FIRST PERIOD

(1627-70). -He made his first studies with the Jesuits of his native city.

completed them in Paris at the College of Navarre, and, ordained priest, entered

into possession of the archdeaconry of Sarrebourg, in the Diocese of Metz, no

matter in what part of the world, he would without doubt have been himself. In

literary history, environment commonlyshows its effects only in the formation of

mediocrities. But, as there existed at Metz a large Jewish community (and in

some respects, the only one in France that was recognized by the State), and

as the Protestants were numerous, and still fervent, in the neighboring province of

Alsace, one may believe that Bossuet's natural tendency to take religion on its

controversial side was encouraged or strengthened by these circumstances.

Proof of this if desired, may he found in the fact that the manuscript of one of his

first sermons. "On the Law of God", 1653, still bears this statement in his own

handwriting: "Preached at Metz against the Jews"; and inthis other facet, that the

first work he had printed was a "Refutation",in 1655. of the catechism of Paul

Ferry, a renowned Protestant pastor ofMetz. Be that as it may, as soon as the

young archdeacon began to preachhis reputation quickly spread, add very soon

the pulpits of Paris were vying with one another to secure him. It may therefore

be said that from 1656 to 1670 he gave himself entirely to the ministry of

preaching, and asa matter of fact, three-fourths of the two hundred, or more,

"Sermons" which have reached us, either complete or in fragments, date from

this period. They may be distinguished as "Sermons", properly so called

"Panegyrics of Saints"; and "Funeral Orations". These last number ten in all. In

some editions the "Sermons on Religious Professions" (Sermons de Virtue), of

which the most celebrated is that for the profession of Madame de la Valliere,

preached in 1674, and the "Sermons for the Feasts of the Virgin", are classed by

themselves.

What are the essential characteristics of Bossuet's eloquence? In the first place,

the force, or, to put it, perhaps, better, the energy, of speech, or of the word, and

by this I mean, inclusively, exactitude and precision, the fitness of phrase, the

neatness of turn, the impressiveness of the gesture implied in his words, and,

generally all the qualities of thatFrench writer who, entertaining, with Pascal, a

great horror of the artifices of rhetoric, for that very reason best understood the

resources of French prose. There is nothing, in French, which surpasses a fine

page of Bossuet.

The second characteristic of his eloquence is what Alexandre Vinet, though a

Protestant, has not feared to call, in an essay on Bourdaloue, the depth and

reach of its philosophy. He meant that while the illustrious Jesuit in his

"Sermons" is always strictly and evidently Catholic, Bossuet, surely no less so,

excels, besides, in demonstrating, even apart from Catholicism, the peremptory

reasons in the depths of our nature and in the sequence of history why one

should feel and think like a Catholic even if one were not a Catholic. Those who

care to verify this opinion of Vinet may read Bossuet's sermons on "Death",

"Ambition", "Providence", "The Honour of the World", "Our Dispositions in Regard

to the Necessities of Life", "The Eminent Dignity of the Poor"', "Submission to

the Law of God", andalso the sermons for the Feasts Of the Blessed Virgin. The

"Sermon for the Profession of Madame de la Valliere" is another beautiful

example of this philosophic character of Bossuet's eloquence. Lastly, its third

characteristic is its movement and lyric power. Bossuet-the Bossuet of the

"Sermons" and of the "Funeral Orations" -is a poet, a great poet; and he is lyrical

in his blending of personal and interior emotions with the expression of the truths

which he unfolds. "The Uplifting of the Soul by the Divine Mysteries" and

"Meditations on the Gospel" are titles of two of his most beautiful works, in which

in his old age he,as it were, condensed the substance of his "Sermons" But it

may be trulysaid that there is no sermon of his which is not either a "Meditation"

or an "Uplifting of the Soul". And is it, not strange that at the beginning of the

nineteenth century these titles, "Uplifting of the Soul" and Meditations", were

applied by Lamartine and Vigny to their own public works? Such are the

essential characteristics of Bossuets eloquence, to which might easily be added

a great many others, perhaps more slowly, but whichmay be found in other

preachers, while those we have mentioned belong tohim alone. Meanwhile, the

reputation of the preacher was growing every day. Above all, his Lenten

conferences before the Court in 1662 and in 1666 had brought him into

prominence. particularly the second series, which had includedsome of his finest

"Sermons". The Protestants, on the other hand, although they had no adversary

more moderate than he, had none formidable; and when some startling

conversion, like that of Turenne, took place, the honour or the blame of it was laid

upon the Abbé Bossuet. His little book, circulated in manuscript under the title of

"Exposition of the Doctrine ofthe Catholic Church on Subjects of Controversy",

worried the Protestant divines more than had any folio in fifty years. The public

voice marked him out for a bishopric. We know, too, that, though doubtless

without his being aware of it, his name figured, after 1667, among the candidates

forthe office of preceptor to the Dauphin, those names having been selected, by

the king's command, under the direction of Colbert. It is true that Louis XIV did

not favour Bossuet's appointment; he preferred the President De Périgny. In

1669, however, Bossuet was appointed Bishop of Condom. It was as Bishop of

Condom that in September of that same year he pronounced the "Funeral

Oration on Henerietta of France", and was summoned to preach the Advent of

1669 at Court. When, soon after this, the daughter followed her mother to the

grave, he was again summoned, in 1670, to pronounce the "Funeral Oration of

the Duchess of Orleans" In the meanwhile, the President De Perigny died

unexpectedly and this time the choice of Louis XIV went straight to Bossuet. He

was named preceptor to the Dauphin, September, 1670, and a new period began

in the history of his life. SECOND PERIOD (1670-81). -In order to devote himself

solely to his task, he gave up his Bishopric of Condom, which he never saw, and

returned to the profane studies which he had been obliged to abandon. He

himself laid down in his letter to Pope Innocent XI, the programme he made his

royal pupil follow, a programme the intelligent liberality of which it is impossible

not to admire. But, while giving the closest personal attention to the Dauphin's

education, his own genius completed, in a way, its process of ripening by

contact with antiquity; his ideas collected themselves and gained in precision; he

took conscious possession of what may be called his originality as a thinker,

and made for himself his private domain, as it were, in the vast field of

apologetics. And, as the other Fathers of the Church have been, in the history of

Christian thought, one the theologian of the Incarnation, another, the theologian

of Grace, so did Bossuet then become the theologian of Providence. Here we

may take a excellent example of what is today called the development, or

evolution, of a dogmatic truth. The idea of Providence surely constituted the basis

of Christian belief in all that touches the relations of man with God, and in this

respect it may be said that the "Discourse on Universal History" is completely

anticipated in the "City of God" of St. Augustine, or in the "The Gubernatione

Dei" of Salvianus. We are perfectly willing to add that in this wide, and even

slightly vague, sense it is found also in the Old Testament, and notably in the

Book of Daniel.But that does not alter the fact that Bossuet in his turn

appropriated this idea of Providence to himself, made it profoundly his own, and

without any innovation -for every innovation in this field inspired him with horror

-formed from it deductions which up to this time had never been perceived. The

idea of Providence, in Bossuets theology, appears to us as at once (a) the

sanction of the moral law (b) the very law of history, and (c) thefoundations of

apologetics. (a) It is under the sanction of the moral law, in the first place,

inasmuch as, being able to act only under the eyes of God, no act of ours is

indifferent, since there is not one but is for us an occasion of, or, to put it better,

a manner of acquiring, merit or demerit. It is under this aspect that the idea of

Providence seems to have presented itself primarilyto Bossuet, and that it is

found in some sort scattered or diffused in his earliest "Sermons". But, since,

moreover, nothing happens to us which is not an effect of Gods Will, therefore we

ought always to see in whatever happiness or unhappiness -according to the

worlds judgment -may befallus only a chastisement, a trial, or a temptation,

which it is for us to make a means either of salvation or of damnation. Here is the

mystery of pain and the solution of the problem of evil. If we did not place

entireconfidence in Providence, the existence of evil and the prosperity of the

wicked would be for the human mind nothing but an occasion of scandal; and if

he did not accept our sufferings as a design of God in our regard,we should fall

into despair. A source of resignation, our trust in Providence is also a source of

strength, and it governs, so to speak, the entire domain of moral action. If our

actions are moral, it is by reason of their conformity with, or at least of their

analogy to, the views of Providence, and thus the life of the Christian is only a

perpetual realizationof the Will of God. We merit, according to our endeavours to

know it in order to carry it into effect; and, on the contrary, to demerit consists

exactly in not taking account of God's Will or warnings, whether the omission be

through negligence, pride, or stubbornness. (b) This is why the idea of

Providence is at the same time the law of history. If the crash of empires "falling

one upon another" does not in truth express some purpose of God regarding

humanity, then history, or what is called by that name, is indeed no longer

anything but a chaotic chronology, the meaning of which we should strive in vain

to disentangle. In that case, Fortune, or rather Chance, would be the mistress of

human affairs; the existence of humanity would be only a bad dream, or

phantasmagoria, whose changing face would be inadequate to mask a void of

nothingness. We should be fretting ourselves in that void without reason and

almost without cause, our very actions would be but phantoms, and the only

result of so many efforts accumulated through so many thousands of years

would be the conviction, every day more clear, of their uselessness, which

wouldbe another void of nothingness. And why, after all, were there Greeks and

Romans? Of what use was Salamis? -Actium? -Poitiers? -Lepando? Why was

there a Caesar, and a Charlemagne? "Let us frankly own, then, that

unlesssomething Divine circulates in history, there is no history. Nations like

individuals, live only by maintaining uninterrupted communication with God, and it

is precisely this condition of their existence which is called by the name of

Providence. The hypothesis of Providence is the condition or the possibility of

history, as the hypothesis of the stability of the laws of nature is the condition of

the possibility of science. (C) Having made Providence the sanction of morality,

we are now led to make it the basis of apologetics. For if there be indeed more

than one way which leads to God, or, in other words, many means of

establishing the truth of the Christian religion, there is, in Bossuet's view, none

more convincing than that which is at once the highest expression and the

summing-up of the history of humanity, that is to say, "the very sequence of

religion", or "the relation of the two Testaments", and, in a more objectivemanner,

the visible manifestation of Providence in the establishment of Christianity. It was

Providence that made of the Jewish people a people apart, a unique people, the

chosen people, charged with maintaining and defending the worship of the true

God throughout the pagan centuries, against the prestige of an idolatry which

essentially consisted in the deification of the energies of nature. It was

Providence that, by means of Romanunity and of its extension throughout the

known universe, rendered not only possible but easy and almost necessary, the

conversion of the world to Christianity. It was Providence, again, that developed

the features of the modern world out of the disorder of barbarous invasions and

reconciled the two antiquities under the law of Christ. The full importance of these

views of Bossuet -for we are only summarizing here the "Discourse on Universal

History" -will be understood if we observe that, in our day, when the Strausses

and Renans have sought to give us their own version of the origins of Christianity,

they have found nothing more than this and nothing else; and all their ingenuity

has issued in the conclusion that things have happened in the reality of history

as if some mysterious will had from all eternity proportioned effects and causes.

But the real truth isthat Christianity, in propagating itself, has proved itself. If the

action of Providence is manifest anywhere, it is in the sequence of the history of

Christianity. And what is more natural under the circumstances than to make of

its history the demonstration of its truth?

It was appropriate to insist here upon this idea of Providence, which is, in a

manner. the masterpiece of Bossuet's theology. Besides the "Discourse on

Universal History", he wrote other works for the education of the Dauphin; notably

the "Treatise on the Knowledge of God and of Oneself" andthe "Art of Governing,

Drawn from the Words of Holy Scripture", which appeared only after his death;

the "Art of Governing", in 1709, and the "Treatise on the Knowledge of God", in

1722. To the "Treatise on Free Will" and the "Treatise on Concupiscence", also

posthumous, a like origin has been assigned; but this is certainly a mistake;

these two works, which contain some of Bossuet's most beautiful pages, were

not written for his royal pupil, who certainly would not have understood them at

all. Did he even understand the "Discourse on Universal History"? In this

connection it has been questioned whether Bossuet in his quality of preceptor,

did not fail in his first obligation, which was, as his critics assert, to adapt himself

to his pupil's intelligence. Here we can only reply, without goingto the bottom of

the question, that the end which Bossuet intended was no ordinary education,

but the education of a future King of France, the first obligation incumbent upon

whose preceptor was to treat him as a King. Thus, for that matter, professors in

our universities never seem to subordinate their teaching to the capacity of their

pupils, but only to the exigencies of the science taught. And we will add,

moreover, that as the Dauphin never reigned, no one can really say how much he

did, or did not, profit by a preceptor such as Bossuet was. The education of a

prince ordinarily, and naturally, ended with his marriage. The functions of

Bossuet as preceptor ceased, therefore, in 1681. Hehad not been appointed

Bishop of Meaux; he was made Almoner to the Dauphin, quite in accordance

with usage, and the King honoured him with the title of General Councillor

(Conseiller en tous les conseils). We may be permitted to call attention to the

fact that this was only an honorary title, and one need not therefore conclude, as

seems to have been done sometimes, that Bossuet took his seat, or voted, in,

for instance, the Conseil des dépêches, which was the Council of Foreign Affairs

or in the Conseil du Roi, which busied itself with the internal affairs of the

kingdom. Butduring his preceptorship, and independancy of of any participation

in the councils, his authority had nevertheless become of considerable

importance at Court, with Louis XIV personally. No member of the French clergy

was thenceforth more in evidence than he; no preacher, no bishop. He had no

reason, then, to fear that, having accomplished the education of the Dauphin, his

activity would fail to find employment. In truth, the last epoch of his life was to be

its fullest. THIRD PERIOD (1681-1704). -This period was the most laborious,

indeed themost painful; and the impassioned struggles in which he becomes

engaged will now end only with his life. But why so many struggles at the time

oflife when most men seek for rest? What circumstances occasioned them? And

if we recall that up to this time his existence had not been disturbed by any

agitation that could be called deep, whence this sudden combative ardour? It

cannot be explained without a preliminary remark. The reconciliation of

Protestantism and Catholicism had been an early dream of Bossuet; and, on the

other hand, France in the seventeenth century had, in general, ill chosen her side

in a division which she regarded as not only regrettable from the standpoint of

religion, but destructive, and even dangerous to her political unity. This is why

Bossuet was to work all his lifeand with all his strength for the reunion of the

Churches, and to force himself to exert every effort for the attainment of those

conditions which he believed necessary to that end. Abundant and instructive

details on this point are to be found in M.A. Rébelliau's charming work, "Bossuet,

historien du Prostestantisme". Being, moreover, too reasonable and too

well-informed not to recognize the legitimate element which the

Reformationmovement had had in its time, Bossuet was convinced that it was of

the greatest moment not indeed to -- in the phrase of our own day -- "minimize"

the demands of the Catholic verity, but at all events not to exaggerate those

demands; and, therefore,

to make to Protestant opinion every concession which a rigorous

orthodoxy would permit; and

not to add anything, on the other hand, to a creed more than one difficulty

of which was already repelling the Protestants.

Thus may we explain his part in the Assembly of the French Clergy in 1682; the

plan of his "History of the Variations of the Protestant Churches", as well as the

character of his polemics against the Protestants; his fundamental motive in the

matter of Quietism and the true reason for his fierce animosity against Fénelon;

his writings against Richard Simon, such as his "Defence of Tradition and of the

Holy Fathers"; such steps as those which he took against the mystic reveries of

Maria d'Agreda; and lastly, the approbation which, in 1682 and 1702, he so

loudly expressed for the renewed censures of the Assemblies of the Clergy upon

the relaxed morals of the day. However, it is little to our purpose to ascertain

whether Bossuet, in the course of all these controversies, more than once

allowed himself to be drawn on beyond the point which he intended, especially,

as he has been reproached, in the questions of Gallicanism and Quietism. The

celebrated Declaration of 1682 seems to have altogether exceeded the measure

of what it was useful or necessary to say in order to defend the temporal power of

the prince or the independence of nations against the Roman Curia. Quietism,

too, was perhaps not so great a danger as he believed it to be; nor, above all, a

danger of the kind to repel Protestants from Catholicism, since, after all, it is in a

Protestant country that the works of Madame Guyon are still read in our day. But

to properly explain these points we should have to write volumes; it suffices here

to throw some light on Bossuet's controversial work with this general remark: his

essential purpose was to get rid of the reasons for resistance which Protestants

drew from the substance or the form of Catholicism, in opposition to the reasons

for reunion.

In this remark, also, is to be found the decisive answer to the question, often

raised, and amply discussed for some years, of the Jansenism of Bossuet.

Jansenism, indeed, involves two things: the "Five Propositions" -- a doctrine, or a

heresy, formally and solemnly condemned; and a general tendency, very much

like that of Calvin, to rationalize Christian morality and even dogma. So far as

Jansenism is a heresy, Bossuet was never a Jansenist,; but so far as it is a

mere tendency, an intellectual disposition and a tendency to effect a mutual

drawing together of reason and faith, it is scarcely possible to deny that he

leaned towards Jansenism. Quite apart from the satisfaction which his own

genius, naturally attracted to order and to clarity, found in this conciliation of

reason and faith, he judged this the most propitious ground of all for the

reconciliation of Protestantism with Catholicism. But to this it should be added at

once that Bossuet, while not adding to the difficulties of faith, made it a condition

that care must be taken not to trench upon faith, and this trait it is which

completes the picture of Bossuet's character. Tradition has never had a more

eloquent or a more vigorous defender. Quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab

omnibus creditum est; this was for Bossuet, in a manner, the absolute criterion

of Catholic truth. He had not difficulty in deducing from it "the immutability of

morality or of dogma"; and in this precisely, as is well known, consists his great

argument against the Protestants. The "History of the Variations of the

Protestant churches" is nothing more than a history of the alterations, if one may

say so, to which the Protestant Churches have subjected dogma, and the

adjustments or adaptations of dogma which they have pretended to make to

circumstances that had nothing but what was transitory and contingent. But "the

truth which comes from God possesses from the first its complete perfection",

and from that it follows that as many "variations" as there are, so many "errors"

are there in faith, since they are so many contradictions or omissions of tradition.

This point has been reserved for the last in the present article, because no other

trait of Bossuet's genius seems to have gone further towards establishing the

common conception of it. It is easy to see that that conception is not altogether

false; but neither is it altogether true, nor, above all, fair when, as is often done, it

is extended from the genius of the controversialist or theologian to the character

of the man himself. Tradition, we repeat, has had no more eloquent or more

implacable chamption; it has had none more sincere; but tradition such as he

comprehended it is not all of the past, for so understood it would include even

heresy and schism. Tradition, for Bossuet as for the Catholic Church, is only

what has survived of the past. If Nestorian Christianities still exist today -- and

some do exist -- they are as if they were not, and Nestorianism does not on that

account constitute a part of the tradition of Free Thought. But for the Church,

tradition is only what she has thought herself obliged to preserve out of those

doctrines which have succeeded one another in the course of her development,

among which she has made her choice in virtue of her magisterium, retaining

some, rejecting others, without even being always obliged to condemn the latter.

It can be proved, on the other hand, that, thus understood, tradition in the

writings of Bossuet, and on his lips when he invokes it, does not exclude

religious progress, even if, perhaps, the former does not postulate the latter as a

condition. And already, doubtless, it is beginning to be half seen that the true

Bossuet, even in theology, even in his long combats with the heretics, was not

the unbending, irreconcilable man he is commonly painted.

This will be still better seen if we reflect that a great writer is not always the man

of his style. In his sermons as in his writings, it would be impossible to deny that

Bossuet has an imperious and authoritative style. He counsels nothing which he

does not command, or which he does not impose; and to everything which he

advances he communicates the character and force of a demonstration by his

manner of expressing it. Not that many pages of a different tenor might not be

cited from him, and some such will be found notably in his "Uplifting of the Soul",

his "Meditations", or his "Sermons for Festivals of the Virgin". But the habitual

quality of his style, for all that, remains, as we have said, imperious and

authoritative, because it is in harmony with the nature of his mind, which

demands first and foremost clearness, certainty, and order. It may be said of him

that, seeing all things in their relation to Providence, he expresses nothing

except under the aspect of eternity. A great poet in later times has said:

"Qu'est-ce que tout cela qui n'est pas éternel", and, looked at in this light, there

is a perfect agreement between the style and the thought of Bossuet. But as to

his character the same thing cannot be said; here every testimony alike shows

us in this writer, whose accent seems to brrok no contradiction, the most gentle,

the most affable, and sometimes the most hesitating of men.

Such was the true Bossuet. In his life we cannot always find the daring of his

eloquence, nor in his conduct the audacity of his reasoning. This great dominator

of the ideas -- one might even say of the intelligences -- of his time suffered

himself to be dominated more than once by the thoroughly human dread of being

disagreeable and, above all, of giving offence. "He has no joints", he himself said

of one of the gentlemen of Port Royal who was somewhat lacking flexibility; to

which the individual in question retorted: "And as for hi, you may tell him that he

has no bones!" The strong, concise mot sums up all the reproaches that can be

made against this great memory. Had his strength of character and his apostolic

vigour equalled the force of his genius, he would have been a St. Augustine.

Falling short of St. Augustine, a Catholic and a Frenchman may be permitted to

believe that it is still something rare, something exalted among men to have been

merely Jacques Bénigne Bossuet.

Louis N. Delamarre

F. Brunettere

Transcribed by Matthew Dean

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume II

Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York

The Catholic Encyclopedia: NewAdvent.org