Lemaistre de Sacy Champaigne Port-Royal PRP031

The ''Bible de Port-Royal'' (or ''Bible de Sacy'') is a French translation of the

Catholic Bible The term ''Catholic Bible'' often refers to a Christian Bible that includes the whole 73-book canon recognized by the Catholic Church, including some of the deuterocanonical books (and parts of books): those of the Old Testament which are in the ...

, first published in installments between 1667 and 1696. Though praised for the purity of its classical form, the work attracted the suspicion of the

Jesuits The Society of Jesus ( la, Societas Iesu; abbreviation: SJ), also known as the Jesuits (; la, Iesuitæ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

, who discovered in it a latent

Protestantism Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...

, and was criticized by Richard Simon, a former Oratorian, on text-critical grounds. For over three centuries it has been among the most popular of French Bible translations.

History

Several

Solitaires of Port-Royal During the 17th century, the Solitaires were Frenchmen who chose to live a humble and ascetic life in retreat at Port-Royal-des-Champs. One of the most typical movements of 17th century France, it was closely linked to Jansenism. Often from nob ...

, an early

Jansenist Jansenism was an early modern theological movement within Catholicism, primarily active in the Kingdom of France, that emphasized original sin, human depravity, the necessity of divine grace, and predestination. It was declared a heresy by th ...

monastery, had met to consider the viability of a

New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christ ...

translation from 1657 to 1660. One of them,

Antoine Le Maistre Antoine Le Maistre (2 May 1608 – 4 November 1658) was a French Jansenist lawyer, author and translator. His name has also been written as Lemaistre and Le Maître, and he sometimes used the pseudonym of Lamy. Background and early life Le ...

, began the task of translation in 1657, and his brother, Louis-Isaac Lemaistre de Sacy, continued the work after the former's death in 1658. The ''Nouveau Testament de Mons'' (or ''Version de Mons''), their translation of the New Testament, was published in 1667 by Daniel Elzevier. The

Old Testament The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...

appeared in several parts between 1672 and 1696. In 1688,

Antoine Arnauld Antoine Arnauld (6 February 16128 August 1694) was a French Catholic theologian, philosopher and mathematician. He was one of the leading intellectuals of the Jansenist group of Port-Royal and had a very thorough knowledge of patristics. Contem ...

published a defence of the

translation project A translation project is a project that deals with the activity of translating. From a technical point of view, a translation project is closely related to the project management of the translation process. But, from an intercultural point of vi ...

against charges of latent Protestantism, the ''Défense des versions de langue vulgaire de l'Écriture Sainte'', in which he argued that, just as the Vulgate had been a translation of the Scriptures into the vernacular of the day, so a translation into French, which had undergone significant reforms at the end of the sixteenth century, was necessary to ensure the intelligibility of the Bible to the common man. The translation was a "masterpiece of French literary classicism", but was censured by

Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet Jacques-Bénigne Lignel Bossuet (; 27 September 1627 – 12 April 1704) was a French bishop and theologian, renowned for his sermons and other addresses. He has been considered by many to be one of the most brilliant orators of all time and a m ...

for its "politeness". The Jansenist

Martin de Barcos Martin de Barcos (1600–1678), was a French people, French Catholic priest and theologian of the Jansenist School. Life Barcos was born at Bayonne, a nephew of Jean du Vergier de Hauranne, the commendatory abbot of the Abbey of Saint-Cyran-en-B ...

objected that the translators had demystified the Scriptures. Richard Simon, a textual critic and former Oratorian, complained that the work was more interpretative paraphrase than translation, and noted with disapproval the use of the Vulgate, "''avec les différences du Grec''" (with corrections from the original Greek), as the basis of the ''Nouveau Testament''. Nonetheless, the translation was an immediate success. The philosopher

Blaise Pascal Blaise Pascal ( , , ; ; 19 June 1623 – 19 August 1662) was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, philosopher, and Catholic Church, Catholic writer. He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a tax collector in Rouen. Pa ...

, who had seen an early draft of the translation, quoted from the ''Nouveau Testament'' in his

Pensées The ''Pensées'' ("Thoughts") is a collection of fragments written by the French 17th-century philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal. Pascal's religious conversion led him into a life of asceticism, and the ''Pensées'' was in many ways his ...

History

See also

Notes

References

Further reading