Auger, Emond

AUGER, EMOND. - One of the most distinguished of the early French Jesuits. Born in Aleman (Champagne) in 1539, he was admitted into the Society in Rome (1550) and formed by St. Ignatius himself. A professor at the Roman College, in Perugia and in Padua, he returned to France in 1559. He began teaching at Pamiers and at Tournon, but soon devoted himself, with incredible zeal and equal success, to preaching and to the struggle against heresy in southern France, then troubled by Calvinism. In 1562, captured at Valence by the Huguenots, he narrowly escaped martyrdom. First provincial of Aquitaine (1564), preacher to King Charles IX, chaplain of the army of the Duke of Anjou, he was later confessor and preacher to the same duke, who had become Henry III, and he used for the good of the Catholic Church the great trust that the king showed him. Authorized only in 1587 to withdraw from the court, he had shortly afterwards to leave France because of his hostility toward the League; he died at Como on 19 January 1591.

Besides his action for the development of the Society in France (with the founding of important colleges) and his influence on religious policy, A. distinguished himself by his extraordinary activity as a preacher and controversialist, in comparison with which his literary output, though considerable, may be called secondary. This includes humanistic works (a school edition of Martial, Rome 1558), controversial treatises against the Calvinists, especially on the doctrine of the Sacraments, occasional ascetical writings (Le Pédagogne d'armes pour un prince chrétien, Paris 1568; consolatory letters for Catholics), various translations (the first three books of the Imitation of Christ, Maffei's History of the Missions of India).

Of great importance is his catechetical work, which earned him the title of "Canisius of France." The two catechisms, the large one (Sommaire de la doctrine chrétienne, 1563) and the small one (before 1568), published by A. in French and then in Latin (and the small one also in Greek for the colleges), quickly enjoyed very wide diffusion, many reprints and translations. The Portuguese Jesuit Francesco Antonio produced at Madrid (1592) a Latin edition of it, enriched with the texts of the sources (as Busco had done for Canisius). Following the same division as the Tridentine catechism (creed, commandments and prayer, Sacraments), A.'s catechism is less erudite than that of Canisius, but, in dialogue form, it comes closer to modern catechisms; without entering into polemics, it fully refutes the Calvinist heresy. Despite its qualities, A.'s catechism was replaced, after a few decades, even in the colleges of the French Jesuits, by Canisius and by other later catechisms.

Edmondo Lamalle