Jacques Le Fèvre (b. at

Lisieux Lisieux () is a Communes of France, commune in the Calvados (department), Calvados Departments of France, department in the Normandy (administrative region), Normandy Regions of France, region in northwestern France. It is the capital of the Pa ...

towards the middle of the seventeenth century; d. 1 July 1716, at Paris) was a French

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

theologian and controversialist.

Life

He became

archdeacon An archdeacon is a senior clergy position in the Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic Church, Syriac Orthodox Church, Anglican Communion, St Thomas Christians, Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodox churches and some other Christian denomina ...

of Lisieux and

vicar-general A vicar general (previously, archdeacon) is the principal deputy of the bishop or archbishop of a diocese or an archdiocese for the exercise of administrative authority and possesses the title of local ordinary. As vicar of the bishop, the vicar ...

of the Archbishopric of Bourges. In 1674 he received a doctorate in theology from the Sorbonne.

Works

His works are the following: * (Paris, 1674). The first of these dialogues was condemned and burned. * (Paris, 1682), in which Le Fèvre endeavours to show that there is fundamental agreement between Catholic and Protestant teachings, the differences being of slight importance and mostly verbal. These conciliatory views were attacked by

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

, and, in answer, Le Fèvre wrote (1685). Amongst Le Fèvre's other works are * (Paris, 1685) * (Paris, 1686) * (Paris, 1686) * (Cologne, 1700). These letters were published anonymously when the work of the Jesuit Father

Louis le Comte Louis le Comte (1655–1728), also Louis-Daniel Lecomte, was a French Jesuit and mathematician who participated in the 1687 French Jesuit mission to China under Jean de Fontaney. He arrived in China on 7 February 1688. He returned to France in 1 ...

, "Mémoires sur la Chine", was referred to the faculty of theology. To Father

Jacques-Philippe Lallemant Jacques-Philippe Lallemant ( c. 1660, Saint-Valery-sur-Somme – 1748) was a French Jesuit, of whom little is known beyond his writings. He took part in the discussion on the Chinese rites, and wrote the (Paris, 1700), a defense of his confr ...

, who had defended his confrère in the , Le Fèvre replied in his ; and he also produced , the first volume of which was printed at Rouen without date about 1680; it was seized and destroyed, and the other volumes were not published.

References

;Attribution * The entry cites: **

Hugo von Hurter The von Hurter family belonged to the Swiss nobility; in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries three of them were known for their conversions to Roman Catholicism, their ecclesiastical careers in Austria and their theological writings. Friedric ...

, ''Nomenclator''; **''Nouvelle biographie générale'', XXX (Paris, 1858), 344. {{DEFAULTSORT:Le Fevre, Jacques 1716 deaths 17th-century French Catholic theologians University of Paris alumni Year of birth unknown