Jean Hardouin
Jean Hardouin (also Harduin, Latinized Harduinus, born December 23, 1646 Quimper, Brittany, France, † September 3, 1729 in Paris) was a Jesuit priest, scholar and theologian.
Vita
Born the son of a bookseller, publisher, he began early to deal with (among others) theological themes.
On September 25, 1660, he entered as a novice in the Order of the Jesuits. Father Charles Garnier made use of his help as a librarian at the Jesuit College of Louis XIV in Paris. After his death in 1683 his successor was Harduinus in this office. The following year, he published the biography Garnier. He also held teaching positions in theology, classical literature and rhetoric.
He worked in his scientific work with languages and antiquity, history, numismatics, philosophy and theology. Especially his expenditure of the classics of antiquity were estimated.
Works
Hardouin developed in his scientific works some unorthodox ideas. One of these was that only Cicero's writings, Pliny's Natural History, Virgil's Georgics and Horace's Satires ( which he still Homer, Herodotus and Plautus added temporarily) genuine works of classical antiquity were, while all the other supposedly ancient writers forgery fraudulent monks of 13. century were.
Likewise, he rejected almost all the old art, inscriptions and coins that match the information age historians, as works of a secret conspiracy against the pure, ie Catholic Christianity. He tried to prove that not only the Greek translation of the Old Testament ( the Septuagint ), but also the Greek original text of the New Testament is nothing more than the work of scholars of later times. The confidence with which he set up such assertions, caused a great sensation, and contemporaries suspected behind his work Jesuit actions to combat the Protestants and Jansenists, which could be any easier to prove an apostasy from the true religion than by discrediting the sources on which they were based.
With his thesis but he made up in the ranks of the Jesuits opponents - especially the editor of the Journal de Trévoux René- Joseph de Tournemine - so he had to write a 1709 withdrawal. Although he also knowledge of numismatics and chronology in a bizarre manner in question, his statements and declarations but have been of some value to science, because he recognized quite correct relationships correctly and recognized many old errors by persistent skepticism and corrected.
With its chronologically ordered Konziliensammlung Conciliorum collectio regia maxima or conciliorum Acta et Epistolae decretates ac constitutiones summorum Pontificum, which consists of twelve volumes and was financed from the royal funds, he met with resistance among other things the Sorbonne. It was therefore prohibited by decision of the Parliament, as it violates the rights of the Gallican Church to the Pope and by additions and omissions casts a distorted view of history. 1725, the plant was allowed again after the promise to attach a ribbon with corrective comments.
Works
- [ William Bowyer (ed. )]: Joannis Harduini Jesuitae ad censuram scriptorum veterum prolegomena. Iuxta autographum. P. Vaillant, London in 1766. (Online) English translation: The Prolegomena of Jean Hardouin. Translated by Edwin Johnson. Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1909. ( Reprint ed. Hermann Detering, BoD, Norderstedt 2010, ISBN 978-3-8391-8381-6. )