Eusèbe Renaudot (July 20, 1646 – September 7, 1720) was a French theologian and Orientalist.
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Born in Paris, he was brought up and educated for a career in the church; but after being educated by the Jesuits, and joining the Oratorians in 1666, he was in poor health, left his order, and never took more than minor orders.[1] Despite his interest in theology and his title of abbé, much of his life was spent at the French court, where he attracted the notice of Colbert and was often employed in confidential affairs.
He was a prominent supporter of Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, in the controversies with Richard Simon, François Fénelon and the Jesuits. In later life his attitudes became Gallican and Jansenist. He became a member of the French Academy (1689), the Academy of Inscriptions (1691), and the Accademia della Crusca of Florence.[1]
The learning in Eastern languages which he acquired in his youth and maintained amid the distractions of court life did not bear fruit until he was sixty-two.
His best-known books are Historia Patriarcharum Alexandrinorum (Paris, 1713) and Liturgiarum orientalium collectio (2 vols., 1715-16). The latter was designed to supply proofs of the perpetuity of the faith of the church on the subject of the sacraments, the topic on which most of his theological writings turned, and which was then, in consequence of the controversies attaching to Antoine Arnauld's Perpétuité de la foy de l’Église, a major matter of debate between French Catholics and Protestants.
Other works were Gennadii Patriarchae Constantinopolitani Homiliae de Eucharistia (Paris, 1709) and Anciennes relations des Indes et de la Chine (Paris, 1718).[1]
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed (1913). "Eusebius Renaudot". Catholic Encyclopedia. Robert Appleton Company.
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Preceded by Jean Doujat |
Seat 38 Académie française 1688-1720 |
Succeeded by Henri-Emmanuel de Roquette |