BOSSO, Matteo. — Theologian, sacred orator, humanist, of the Canons Regular of the Lateran, born into a noble Veronese family in 1427 or 1428, died in Padua in 1502. He studied in Milan under Pierleoni da Rimini. Around 1450, he entered the Lateran Congregation, which was then in full development. He devoted his prodigious activity first to teaching and training young Canons; then to the successive governance of various canonries (Badia of Fiesole, 1489–92), and as procurator general of the Congregation. Throughout his life, he cultivated sacred science and the study of ancient classics, as evidenced by his writings. He enjoyed the favor of ecclesiastical and lay dignitaries (especially the Medici of Florence), the esteem and affection of scholars, particularly Poliziano and Pico della Mirandola. He refused honors and bishoprics to live and die in his beloved Congregation.
Principal works: *De veris ac salutiferis animi gaudii* (Florence 1491 and 1492; Bologna 1495, Italian version by the Lateran Antonio Pallavicini, who prefaced it with B.’s biography, Lugano 1755); *Recuperationes Faesulanae* (collection of 133 Latin letters from the Abbey of Fiesole, 1492).
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BOSSUET, Jacques-Bénigne. — Bishop and celebrated French orator, born at Dijon on 27 Sept. 1627, died at Paris on 12 April 1704. He entered the Oratory in 1648, was ordained priest in 1652, and became bishop of Condom in 1670 and of Meaux in 1681. His activity may be divided into three periods. In the first, called the Metz period, up to 1658, his preaching drew on the innermost substance of dogma; the panegyric of St. Bernard, however, announced a broader style. In the second period, the Paris period (1659–1681), philosophical and moral concerns took a wider place: on Providence, death, ambition. In the third period, that of Meaux, the homiletic genre predominated. We possess 230 sermons (allocutions) by B., though not all are entirely written.
III. THE CONTROVERSIALIST
1) His work for the union of Protestants with the Catholic Church began at Metz, where B. came into contact with Protestants and first wrote a *Refutatio du catéchisme du sieur Paul Ferry, ministre de la religion prétendue réformée* (Metz 1655), followed by an *Exposition de la doctrine de l'Église catholique* (ibid. 1671), which Leibniz called “all gold,” widely circulated and instrumental in the conversion of Turenne. In 1682 he published the *Conférence avec M. Claude*, an account of a debate on the authority of the Church with a Protestant minister. But B.’s great work against the Reformation was the *Histoire des variations des Églises protestantes* (2 vols., Paris 1688), where he showed a sign of error in Protestantism in that it continually changed its doctrines; and when the minister Jurieu replied that change had always existed in Christianity, the bishop of Meaux published in 1692 a lengthy rejoinder entitled *Six avertissements aux protestants*, to demonstrate the immutability of doctrine through the centuries. From 1692 to 1701 he worked with the Lutheran theologian Molanus and the philosopher Leibniz toward the union of Protestants with the Catholic Church. It seems the main obstacle to union was the Council of Trent, which Leibniz always refused to accept. B.’s letters to Leibniz were published in the works of both correspondents. For Pope Clement XI, B. wrote a report on the problem of union: *De professoribus confessionis Augustanae ad repetendam unitatem catholicam disponendis*.2) A shorter but more heated controversy was that between B. and Bishop Fénelon of Cambrai (1697–99) over the Quietist affair. Already in 1694, B. had been one of the participants in the conferences at Issy, held to examine the mystical ideas of Mme. Guyon, and at the close of which Fénelon also signed 34 articles on states of prayer. To set forth his doctrine, B. wrote an *Instruction sur les états d'oraison* and sent the manuscript to Fénelon. The latter, seeing that it impugned Mme. Guyon’s doctrine, composed a book in her defense, the *Explication des maximes des Saints*, published early in 1697, shortly before B.’s work. While the bishop of Cambrai submitted his writing to the judgment of Rome, a tempestuous controversy flared between him and the “Eagle of Meaux.” B. published the famous *Relation sur le quietisme*, in which, with Moroccan moral elegance, he exposed the facts and censured the persons. Fénelon replied in the same tone. Writings and letters were exchanged furiously. On 12 March 1699, Innocent XII condemned Fénelon’s *Maximes*. B. had won. Yet it is hard to acquit him in this affair of all blame, both in the polemic against a bishop who had been his friend and in the doctrine itself, where he too narrowly restricted the field of pure love of God.
3) As to B.’s position on Jansenism, one point is certain: he condemned the five propositions and always maintained that they are the essence of Jansenius’s *Augustinus*. Already in 1665, he tried—though in vain—to overcome the obstinacy of the nuns of Port-Royal; and in his later years he intervened in the celebrated “case of conscience” to uphold the necessity of an internal adhesion to the truth of the dogmatic fact, namely that the five propositions are from Jansenius. On the other hand, he strove to find the *Réflexions morales* of Quesnel orthodox; it should be noted, however, that he did so before the book’s condemnation, with the intention of defending Cardinal Noailles, who had approved Quesnel’s book, and that in the end he demanded a good number of corrections. Unlike his nephew, the future bishop of Troyes, he was therefore not a Jansenist, despite showing a certain doctrinal rigidity in questions of the distribution of grace and a somewhat excessive severity in certain points of morality, as appears, for example, in his *Traité de la concupiscence*.
4) In the matter of Gallicanism, however, he was unable to master his environment and his time. True, his Gallicanism was quite moderate; in the assembly of 1682 he drafted the four famous articles to prevent more radical stances, and moreover, both in the first draft—which the assembly modified—and in the explanations he gave, he reduced the powers of councils over papal decisions to very little. He spoke magnificently at the opening of the assembly on the unity of the Church; yet he never admitted the pure and simple, i.e., personal, infallibility of the Roman Pontiff.
5) When Richard Simon published in 1693 his *Histoire critique des principaux commentateurs du Nouveau Testament*, B. found in it little deference toward the Fathers of the Church and especially toward St. Augustine, and took up his pen to refute the work. He left the task unfinished, however; it was published only in 1763 by Le Roy, and indeed the final, thirteenth chapter did not appear in print until 1862, through the efforts of Lachat. The book, entitled *Défense de la tradition et des saints Pères*, is full of excellent theology and always useful to consult, especially for understanding St. Augustine. Perhaps the author was at times too severe toward criticism, limiting its rights too much; but the Modernists have greatly exaggerated this defect and, against B., have exalted Simon almost as the father of biblical criticism, as if Maldonato, Arias Montano, and Sixtus of Siena had lacked critical sense.
IV. THE APOLOGIST
B. felt deeply the need to defend the faith, not only against heretics but already against unbelievers. This concern is often very vivid in his sermons; he strives especially to highlight the work of Divine Providence, as if foreseeing the deism of the following century. The same idea appears in the philosophical works written during his retreat: *De la connaissance de Dieu et de soi-même*, *Traité du libre arbitre*, in which he follows mainly St. Augustine. In his *Discours sur l'histoire universelle*, the work he also wrote for the Dauphin and which he preferred above all others, the second part is an apologetic against Spinoza and against those who deny Revelation; the third is a philosophy of history, in the light of the idea of Providence. Again for his royal pupil, he composed a political work, *Politique tirée d’après les propres paroles de l’Ecriture Sainte*, where he sets forth the duties of princes, and at the same time the greatness of their mission as instruments of Providence; he insists on the distinction between temporal and spiritual power and pronounces in favor of absolute monarchy.
V. THE SPIRITUAL AUTHOR
From his reflections on Sacred Scripture there resulted (though published only after his death) the fine works entitled: *Méditations sur l’Evangile*, *Élévations sur les mystères*. B. wrote many letters of spiritual direction, a good number of which have been preserved. Four splendid letters on Jesus Christ and the Church were addressed in 1659 to Alix Clerginet and are titled in the editions: *Lettres à une demoiselle de Metz*; among his pamphlets we may mention the *Discours sur l’acte d’abandon*, *L’oraison de simplicité*, *La vie cachée en Dieu*, *De la meilleure manière de faire oraison*. He proposes a solid, moderate, traditional doctrine, truly inspired by the reading of Sacred Scripture.