Jacques Basnage De Beauval (8 August 165322 December 1723) was a celebrated French Protestant divine, preacher, linguist, writer and man of affairs. He wrote a ''History of the Reformed Churches'' and on ''Jewish Antiquities''.

Biography

Jacques Basnage was born at

Rouen Rouen (, ; or ) is a city on the River Seine in northern France. It is the prefecture of the Regions of France, region of Normandy (administrative region), Normandy and the Departments of France, department of Seine-Maritime. Formerly one of ...

in Normandy, the eldest son of the eminent lawyer

Henri Basnage de Franquesnay Henri is an Estonian, Finnish, French, German and Luxembourgish form of the masculine given name Henry. People with this given name ; French noblemen :'' See the ' List of rulers named Henry' for Kings of France named Henri.'' * Henri I de Mo ...

. He studied classical languages at

Saumur Saumur () is a commune in the Maine-et-Loire department in western France. The town is located between the Loire and Thouet rivers, and is surrounded by the vineyards of Saumur itself, Chinon, Bourgueil, Coteaux du Layon, etc.. Saumur statio ...

and afterwards theology at Geneva. He was pastor at Rouen from 1676 till 1685, when, on the revocation of the edict of Nantes, he obtained leave of the king to retire to Holland. He settled at Rotterdam as a minister pensionary till 1691, when he was chosen pastor of the Walloon church. In 1709 the grand pensionary Anthonie Heinsius (1641–1720) secured his election as one of the pastors of the Walloon church at The Hague, intending to employ him mainly in civil affairs. Accordingly, he was engaged in a secret negotiation with Marshal d'Uxelles, plenipotentiary of France at the congress of Utrecht. He was then entrusted with several further important commissions. In 1716 Dubois, who was at the Hague at the instance of the regent Orleans, for the purpose of negotiating the Triple Alliance between France, Great Britain and Holland, sought the advice of Basnage, who, in spite of the fact that he had failed to receive permission to return to France on a short visit the year before, did his best to further the negotiations. The French government also turned to him for help in view of the threatened rising in the Cevennes. Basnage had welcomed the revival of the Protestant church by the zeal of

Antoine Court Antoine Court (27 March 1696 – 13 June 1760) was a French reformer called the "Restorer of Protestantism in France." He was born in Villeneuve-de-Berg, in Languedoc, on 27 March 1696 (although at least one writer lists a different date). ...

. He assured the regent that no danger of active resistance was to be feared from it. True to the principles of

Calvin Calvin may refer to: Names * Calvin (given name) ** Particularly Calvin Coolidge, 30th President of the United States * Calvin (surname) ** Particularly John Calvin, theologian Places In the United States * Calvin, Arkansas, a hamlet * Calvin T ...

, he denounced the rebellion of the Camisards in his ''Instructions pastorales aux Réformés de France sur l'obéissance due aux souverains'' (1720), which was printed by order of the court and scattered broadcast in the south of France.

Works

His works include several dogmatic and polemical treatises, but the most important are the historical. Of these may be mentioned ''Histoire de la religion des églises reformées'' (Rotterdam, 1690), the ''Histoire de l'église depuis Jésus-Christ jusqu'à présent'' (ib. 1699)—both of them written from the point of view of Protestant polemics—and, of greater scientific value, the ''Histoire des Juifs'' (Rotterdam, 1706, Eng. trans. 1708) and the ''Antiquités judaiques ou remarques critiques sur la république des Hébreux'' (1713). He also wrote short explanatory introductions and notes to a collection of copper-plate engravings, much valued by connoisseurs, called ''Histoires du Vieux et du Nouveau Testament, représentées par des figures gravées en taille-douce par R. de Hooge'' (Amsterdam, 1704). He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1697.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Basnage, Jacques 1653 births 1723 deaths Basagnes, Jacques Basagnes, Jacques Fellows of the Royal Society French historians of religion 17th-century Calvinist and Reformed theologians 18th-century Calvinist and Reformed theologians Writers from Rouen