Auguste-François Maunoury (b. at

Champsecret Champsecret () is a commune in the Orne department in north-western France. Geography The commune is made up of the following collection of villages and hamlets, La Chesnaie, Les Fourchets, La Botellerie, Le Hamel, Le Tertre, Pont de Pierre, ...

, Orne, France, 30 October 1811; d. Séez, Orne, 17 November 1898) was a Catholic

Hellenist Classics, also classical studies or Ancient Greek and Roman studies, is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, ''classics'' traditionally refers to the study of Ancient Greek and Roman literature and their original languages, ...

and

exegete Exegesis ( ; from the Greek , from , "to lead out") is a critical explanation or interpretation of a text. The term is traditionally applied to the interpretation of Biblical works. In modern usage, exegesis can involve critical interpretation ...

Biography

Maunoury studied classics at the preparatory

seminary A seminary, school of theology, theological college, or divinity school is an educational institution for educating students (sometimes called seminarians) in scripture and theology, generally to prepare them for ordination to serve as cle ...

in Séez, to which institution he returned after his theological course, and where he spent the whole of his long priestly career. Until 1852, he taught the classics, and then became professor of

rhetoric Rhetoric is the art of persuasion. It is one of the three ancient arts of discourse ( trivium) along with grammar and logic/ dialectic. As an academic discipline within the humanities, rhetoric aims to study the techniques that speakers or w ...

, a position which he occupied for twenty-two years. During this period, keeping abreast of the progress of Hellenistic studies in France and Germany, he composed, published and revised those of his works (, etc.) which gained him a reputation as a Greek scholar. Towards 1866, Maunoury began his work as a biblical commentator, by treating some sections of the

Gospel Gospel originally meant the Christianity, Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the second century Anno domino, AD the term (, from which the English word originated as a calque) came to be used also for the books in which the message w ...

in the of his native diocese; but it was only after 1875, that he gave himself fully to the pursuit of biblical studies. In 1877, he became

canon Canon or Canons may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Canon (fiction), the material accepted as officially written by an author or an ascribed author * Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture ** Western canon, th ...

of the cathedral of Séez and, the following year, he began to publish his commentaries on all the

Epistle An epistle (; ) is a writing directed or sent to a person or group of people, usually an elegant and formal didactic letter. The epistle genre of letter-writing was common in ancient Egypt as part of the scribal-school writing curriculum. The ...

s of the

New Testament The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...

Works

Maunoury's commentaries appeared in five volumes, as follows: # (Paris, 1878) # (Paris, 1879) # (Paris, 1880) # (Paris, 1882) # (Paris, 1888) In explaining the biblical texts, Maunoury made use of his familiarity with Greek grammar and authors, availing himself chiefly of the commentaries of

John Chrysostom John Chrysostom (; ; – 14 September 407) was an important Church Father who served as archbishop of Constantinople. He is known for his preaching and public speaking, his denunciation of abuse of authority by both ecclesiastical and p ...

and

Theodoret Theodoret of Cyrus or Cyrrhus (; AD 393 – 458/466) was an influential theologian of the School of Antioch, biblical commentator, and Christian bishop of Cyrrhus (423–457). He played a pivotal role in several 5th-century Byzantine ...

. In 1894, he published his (''Commentary on the

Psalms The Book of Psalms ( , ; ; ; ; , in Islam also called Zabur, ), also known as the Psalter, is the first book of the third section of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) called ('Writings'), and a book of the Old Testament. The book is an anthology of B ...

;'' 2 vols., Paris), a Latin work, written almost exclusively on the basis of the

Vulgate The Vulgate () is a late-4th-century Bible translations into Latin, Latin translation of the Bible. It is largely the work of Saint Jerome who, in 382, had been commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Gospels used by the Diocese of ...

and the

Septuagint The Septuagint ( ), sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy (), and abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Biblical Hebrew. The full Greek ...

. His only contribution to

apologetics Apologetics (from Greek ) is the religious discipline of defending religious doctrines through systematic argumentation and discourse. Early Christian writers (c. 120–220) who defended their beliefs against critics and recommended their f ...

is a volume entitled (Paris, 1887).

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Maunoury, A 1811 births 1898 deaths People from Champsecret 19th-century French Catholic theologians