Jurieu, Pierre

JURIEU, PIERRE. - Protestant controversialist, b. 24 Dec. 1637 at Mer (diocese of Blois), d. at Rotterdam on 11 Jan. 1713. He studied at the Calvinist Academy of Saumur, in Holland and in England, where he received Anglican Orders. Having returned to his homeland, he succeeded his father as minister and was reordained according to the Calvinist rite. Having become professor of theology and Hebrew at the Academy of Sedan, he remained there until it was closed by royal order (1682). Having taken refuge in Holland, he was immediately appointed professor at the University of Amsterdam and minister of the Walloon Church. After the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685), he exerted himself on behalf of his exiled coreligionists and rekindled, by a secret and constant action, all the hatreds that the French monarchy had drawn upon itself for its religious policy.

A man of talent, a convinced Calvinist, at times a fanatic, he was for many decades the most redoubtable adversary of Catholic doctrine, which he combated in numerous works: Examen du livre de la réunion du christianisme (Paris 1671); in it he refutes the anonymous work of certain Calvinists, who advocated the reunion of all Christians on the basis of the articles of the Apostles' Creed alone; already there peeps out the theory of fundamental articles (v.), later defended with bluster; Apologie pour la morale des réformés (ibid. 1675); he rebuts the accusations of Arnauld; Traité de la puissance de l'Église (ibid. 1677); it is an attempt to soften the antinomies of Calvinism, which in theory accepted only the authority of the Bible and in practice submitted to synodal decisions; Préservatif contre le changement de religion (ibid. 1677); in it he refutes Bossuet's work, L'exposition de la doctrine de l'Église catholique sur les matières de controverse; whereas the latter had emphasized the points of contact between the two confessions in order to facilitate the return of the Calvinists, J. aims to magnify the opposition; the work did not succeed in halting the swift pace of conversions, which, begun with that of Turenne (1668), led eminent personalities back to the Church. Mortified by these successes of Catholicism, he published, anonymously, a series of pamphlets, in which he attempted to explain everything by legal coercion. He also wrote: Examen de l'Eucharistie de l'Église romaine (Amsterdam 1682); it is the reply to the 2nd ed. of the classic work of Arnauld and Nicole, Perpetuité de la foi touchant l'Eucharistie. Shortly afterwards he wrote two defamatory libels against Arnauld, in which his religious intolerance overstepped every limit. In 1683 he published 4 volumes on the history of Calvinism, Lutheranism and papism, in reply to the attacks of Maimbourg. Other writings: Vray système de l'Église (ibid. 1686); Traité de l'unité de l'Église et des points fondamentaux (ibid. 1688); he rebuts Nicole, going back to the principles set forth in the analogous work of 1677. After 1688 he was engaged in the confutation of Bossuet's celebrated work, Histoire des variations; his Lettres pastorales, which he wrote for that purpose, had extraordinary success in France, but did not neutralize the beneficial effect of the work he combated. In his last writings he meddled in the Quietist controversy and sought to make himself heard once more in his homeland, but his hour was fixed and he died, as a contemporary attests, in dejection.

Antonio Piolanti