HABERT, ISAAC. — French bishop and theologian, born in Paris c. 1600, died at Pont-de-Salars near Rhodez on 15 Sept. 1668. He took his degree in theology at the Sorbonne in 1626 and shortly afterwards became a canon of the cathedral of Paris. Appointed preacher to the King, he vigorously opposed Jansenism, which he attacked in his sermons at Notre-Dame from 1641 onwards. Antoine Arnauld replied with a polemical work, to which Habert responded with *La défense de la foy de l'Eglise et de l'ancienne doctrine de Sorbonne, touchant les principaux points de la Grâce* (Paris 1644). Named bishop of Vabres in 1645, his pastoral duties slowed his literary activity. He was the author of the letter that 85 French bishops sent in 1651 to Innocent X, requesting the condemnation of Jansenist doctrines on grace.
Works: *De consensu hierarchiae et monarchiae, adversus paracenticum Optati Galli schismatum fectoris* (Paris 1640), written against C. Hersent’s *Optatus Gallus* and translated into French by L. Giry as *De l'union de l'Eglise avec l'Etat* (ibid. 1641); the Latin translation of the *Archieraticon, Liber pontificalis Ecclesiae Graecae* (ibid. 1643), an excellent source for Greek liturgy; *Theologiae graecorum Patrum vindicatae circa universam materiam gratiae libri III* (ibid. 1646); *In b. Pauli epistolas tres episcopales ad Timotheum et Titulum et unam ad Philemonem expositio perpetua* (ibid. 1656).