David Blondel (1591 – 6 April 1655) was a French

Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

clergyman, historian and classical scholar.

Life

He was born at

Châlons-en-Champagne Châlons-en-Champagne () is a city in the Grand Est region of France. It is the capital of the department of Marne, despite being only a quarter the size of the city of Reims. Formerly called Châlons-sur-Marne, the city was officially renam ...

. Ordained in 1614, he had positions as parish priest at Houdan and

Roucy Roucy () is a small commune in the Aisne department in Hauts-de-France in northern France. Notable features of this town include the wide central plaza on which village fetes occur every summer. Population See also * Communes of the Aisne d ...

. After 1644, he was relieved of duties, and supported free to study full-time. In 1650 he succeeded GJ Vossius in the professorship of history at the

university of Amsterdam The University of Amsterdam (abbreviated as UvA, nl, Universiteit van Amsterdam) is a public research university located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The UvA is one of two large, publicly funded research universities in the city, the other being ...

. His students included

Francis Turretin Francis Turretin (17 October 1623 – 28 September 1687; also known as François Turrettini) was a Genevan-Italian Reformed scholastic theologian.Johann Georg Graevius.

Works

His works were very numerous. In some of them he took a strong critical line with mythological and counterfeit material current as fact in the early modern period. This brought him the admiration of major Enlightenment intellectuals.

Jonathan Israel Jonathan Irvine Israel (born 26 January 1946) is a British writer and academic specialising in Dutch history, the Age of Enlightenment and European Jews. Israel was appointed as Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the School of Historical Studies a ...

writes:

...the real work of discrediting and disposing of the '' Oracula Sibyllina'', Chaldean chronicles, and
Orphic hymns Orpheus (; Ancient Greek: Ὀρφεύς, classical pronunciation: ; french: Orphée) is a Thracian bard, legendary musician and prophet in ancient Greek religion. He was also a renowned poet and, according to the legend, travelled with J ...
, ... seemingly only began, as
Diderot Denis Diderot (; ; 5 October 171331 July 1784) was a French philosopher, art critic, and writer, best known for serving as co-founder, chief editor, and contributor to the '' Encyclopédie'' along with Jean le Rond d'Alembert. He was a promi ...
noted in 1751, in the 1650s when the Huguenot scholar David Blondel ... published his treatise on the ''Oracula'' in Amsterdam.

In his dissertation on

Pope Joan Pope Joan (''Ioannes Anglicus'', 855–857) was, according to legend, a woman who reigned as pope for two years during the Middle Ages. Her story first appeared in chronicles in the 13th century and subsequently spread throughout Europe. The s ...

(1647), he came to the conclusion, now generally accepted, that the story is a myth.

Edward Gibbon Edward Gibbon (; 8 May 173716 January 1794) was an English historian, writer, and member of parliament. His most important work, '' The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'', published in six volumes between 1776 and 1788, i ...

wrote this in ''

The History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire ''The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'' is a six-volume work by the English historian Edward Gibbon. It traces Western civilization (as well as the Islamic and Mongolian conquests) from the height of the Roman Empire to th ...

'':

She was annihilated by two learned protestants, Blondel and Bayle ../blockquote> Indignation against him on account of this book came from Protestant polemicists. His 1628 book against Francisco Torres conclusively demonstrated that the ''Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals'' were a very learned forgery. This work was praised by
Voltaire François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778) was a French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher. Known by his '' nom de plume'' M. de Voltaire (; also ; ), he was famous for his wit, and his criticism of Christianity—e ...
, writing in his '' Dictionnaire Philosophique''. Blondel tracked down sources actually used by the
Pseudo-Isidore Pseudo-Isidore is the conventional name for the unknown Carolingian-era author (or authors) behind an extensive corpus of influential forgeries. Pseudo-Isidore's main object was to provide accused bishops with an array of legal protections amount ...
. Later scholarship has sustained his conclusions. In a work written as he was going blind, he struck back against
Jean-Jacques Chifflet Jean-Jacques Chifflet (Chiflet) (Besançon, 1588–1660) was a physician, jurist, antiquarian and archaeologist originally from the County of Burgundy (now in France). Life He visited Paris and Montpellier, and travelled in Italy and Germany. ...
, who had written in favour of the Spanish royal family's genealogical claims, over those of the French kings. In 1655 he produced an anthology of extracts arguing for Protestant
eirenicism Irenicism in Christian theology refers to attempts to unify Christian apologetical systems by using reason as an essential attribute. The word is derived from the Greek word ''ειρήνη (eirene)'' meaning peace. It is a concept related to a comm ...
''Actes authentiques des eglises reformées de France, Germanie, Grande Bretaigne, Pologne,Hongrie, Païs Bas, &c. touchant la paix & charité fraternelle, Amsterdam 1655''

References

Sources
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External links
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Schaff article
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Blondel, David 1591 births 1655 deaths People from Châlons-en-Champagne French Calvinist and Reformed ministers French Calvinist and Reformed theologians Huguenots French historiographers 17th-century Calvinist and Reformed theologians 17th-century French theologians