HARDOUIN, JEAN. – French Jesuit scholar, born in Quimper on 22 December 1646, died in Paris on 3 September 1729.
He taught positive theology, but successfully devoted himself to many other branches of knowledge, so much so that he was regarded as the most learned member of the Society in his time. His doctrinal boldness brought him dissension and controversy, as well as a condemnation by his religious superiors, which he humbly subscribed to. Ten years after his death, a condemnation by the Index affected the Opera selecta and the Opera varia (decree of 2 July 1737), published arbitrarily in Amsterdam without the corrections that the author had made to them, and the Commentarius in Novum Testamentum (decree of 15 January 1742).
He treated subjects in history, philology, and archaeology; his memory, however, is particularly associated with his sacred studies: a dissertation on Sancti Iohannis Chrysostomi epistula ad Caesarium monachum (Paris 1689), followed by the Défense de la lettre de st Chrysostome à Césaire (ibid. 1690), another dissertation on De supremo
Domini nostri Paschate (ibid. 1695), a refutation of Anglican ordinations, La défense des Ordinations anglicanes refutée (ibid. 1727), and several monographs on biblical exegesis. His major work, however, which he undertook at the request of the Assembly of the French clergy in 1678, is: Acta Conciliorum et epistulae decretales ac constitutiones Summarum Pontificum from the year 34 to 1714 (11 folio volumes, ibid. 1715), which served as the basis for the other great collections.