Jean Morin (

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

: ''Joannes Morinus'') (1591 – 28 February 1659) was a French theologian and

biblical The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...

scholar.

Life

He was born in

Blois Blois ( ; ) is a commune and the capital city of Loir-et-Cher department, in Centre-Val de Loire, France, on the banks of the lower Loire river between Orléans and Tours. With 45,898 inhabitants by 2019, Blois is the most populated city of the ...

, to Calvinist parents. He learned

and

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

La Rochelle La Rochelle (, , ; Poitevin-Saintongeais: ''La Rochéle''; oc, La Rochèla ) is a city on the west coast of France and a seaport on the Bay of Biscay, a part of the Atlantic Ocean. It is the capital of the Charente-Maritime department. With ...

, and continued his studies in

Leiden Leiden (; in English and archaic Dutch also Leyden) is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. The municipality of Leiden has a population of 119,713, but the city forms one densely connected agglomeration wit ...

, subsequently moving to Paris. His conversion to the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

is ascribed to

Cardinal du Perron Jacques Davy Duperron (15 November 1556 – 6 December 1618) was a French politician and Roman Catholic cardinal. Family and Education Jacques Davy du Perron was born in Saint-Lô in Normandy, into the Davy family, of the Norman minor nobility, ...

. In 1618 he joined the congregation of the Oratory, and in due course took priest's orders. In 1625 he visited England in the train of

Henrietta Maria Henrietta Maria (french: link=no, Henriette Marie; 25 November 1609 – 10 September 1669) was Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland from her marriage to King Charles I on 13 June 1625 until Charles was executed on 30 January 1649. She wa ...

; in 1640 he was at Rome, on the invitation of

Pope Urban VIII Pope Urban VIII ( la, Urbanus VIII; it, Urbano VIII; baptised 5 April 1568 – 29 July 1644), born Maffeo Vincenzo Barberini, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 6 August 1623 to his death in July 1644. As po ...

,Edward Grey, ''The Travels of Pietro Della Valle in India'' (Hakluyt Society, 1892), p. xlii. who received him with special favor. He was, however, soon recalled to Paris by Richelieu, and the rest of his life was spent in incessant literary labor.

Works

Genesis 5 18 as published by Jean Morin in 1631 in the first publication of the Samaritan Pentateuch

The ''Histoire de la délivrance de l'Église chrétienne par l'empereur Constantin, et de la grandeur et souveraineté temporelle donnée a l'Église romaine par les rois de France'' (1630) gave great offence at Rome, and a ''Declaration'' (1654), directed against faults in the administration of the Oratory, was strictly suppressed. Morin is best known for his biblical and critical work. By his editing of the

Samaritan Pentateuch The Samaritan Torah ( Samaritan Hebrew: , ''Tōrāʾ''), also called the Samaritan Pentateuch, is a text of the Torah written in the Samaritan script and used as sacred scripture by the Samaritans. It dates back to one of the ancient version ...

and

Targum A targum ( arc, תרגום 'interpretation, translation, version') was an originally spoken translation of the Hebrew Bible (also called the ''Tanakh'') that a professional translator ( ''mǝturgǝmān'') would give in the common language of the ...

, in the Paris Polyglott, he gave the first impulse in Europe to the study of this dialect, which he acquired without a teacher (framing a grammar for himself) by the study of manuscripts newly brought to Europe. Not unnaturally, he formed a very exaggerated view of the value of the Samaritan tradition of the text (''Exercitationes ecclesiasticae in utrumque Samaritanorum Pentateuchum'', 1631). A similar tone of extreme depreciation of the Masoretic

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

text, colored by polemical bias against Protestantism, affects his major work, the posthumous ''Exercitationes biblicae de hebraeici graecique textus sinceritate'' (1660), in which, following in the footsteps of

Cappellus Louis Cappel (15 October 1585 – 18 June 1658) was a French Protestant churchman and scholar. A Huguenot, he was born at St Elier, near Sedan. He studied theology at the Academy of Sedan and the Academy of Saumur, and Arabic at the University ...

, he brought arguments against the then current theory of the absolute integrity of the Hebrew text and the antiquity of the vowel points.

Publications

* Histoire de la délivrance de l'Église par l'empereur Constantin, et de la grandeur et souveraineté temporelle donnée à l'Église romaine par les rois de France, Paris, 1630. * Commentarius historicus de disciplina in administratione sacramenti Poenitentiae tredecim primis seculis in ecclesia occidentali, et huc usque in orientali observata, in decem libros distinctus, Henri Fricx, Bruxelles, 1685. (1re éd. à Paris en 1651). * Antiquitates Ecclesiae Orientalis, Clarissimorum Virorum... Dissertationibus Epistolicis enucleatae; Nunc ex Ipsis Autographis Editae., Geo. Wells, Londres 1682. Publié par Richard Simon. * Commentarius de sacris Ecclesiae ordinationibus secundum antiquos et recentiores Latinos, Graecos, Syros et Babylonios in tres partes distinctus, 1reéd. en 1655, 2e éd. à Amsterdam en 1695.
Exercitationes ecclesiastiae in utrumque Samaritorium Pentateuchum
(Parigi, 1631), in cui egli sosteneva che il testo samaritano e la Septuaginta dovevano essere preferiti al testo ebraico, una posizione che ha di nuovo nei seguenti lavori: "Exercitationes biblicae de Hebraei Graecique textus sinceritate . . ." (Parigi, 1663,1669, 1686); * "Commentarius historicus de disciplina in administratione sacramenti Poenitentiae XIII primus saeculis" (Paris, 1651); *"Commentarius sacris Ecclesiae ordinationibus" (Parigi, 1655, Anversa, 1695; Roma, 1751).

References

Sources

External links