LAGRANGE, MARIE-JOSEPH. - Dominican exegete, in the world Albert, b. at Bourg-en-Bresse on 7 March 1855, d. at St-Maximin (Provence) on 10 March 1938. He is the most prolific, most universal and most influential exegete of the first half of the 20th century. Having entered the Dominicans in 1879, he was charged in 1890 with organizing a biblical and theological school in Jerusalem, where he resided for 45 years. In 1892 he founded the Revue biblique and in 1900 he began the collection of commentaries and studies entitled Etudes bibliques. To his "Ecole biblique" (v.) the French government entrusted the Ecole archéologique française.
L. touched on almost all the important subjects of the Old and New Testaments. At the beginning, his attention was directed mainly to the Old Testament, from which he never entirely detached himself, although he left to younger collaborators the task of specializing in it. Devoting himself to the New Testament, he published (in the series of Etudes bibliques): St Marc (1911, 4th ed. revised 1929), Epître aux Romains (1916), Epître aux Galates (1918), St Luc (1921), St Matthieu (1923), St Jean (1925), Le canon du Nouveau Testament (1933), Critique textuelle (1935); the Synopsis Evangeliorum (1926) and the synthesis book L'Evangile de Jésus-Christ (1928) integrated this imposing series of works.
The history of religions was the third field of study in which he went deeply. Connected with it are: Le judaïsme avant Jésus-Christ (1931), Les mystères d'Orphisme (1937), and many articles in the Revue biblique. To this must be added the interminable list of communications, notices and reviews, in which L. revealed himself as a promoter of biblical studies and a guardian of the true scientific method that must direct them; they constitute one of the most important contributions to the history of contemporary exegesis.
For the extent of his scientific work, for the breadth of his influence, for the creation of institutions such as the Ecole biblique and the Revue biblique, L. surpasses his friend can. A. Van Hoonacker (v.). But perhaps his work does not always have the solidity and originality of that of his colleague of Louvain. Moreover, in his commentaries on the Gospels and on the Pauline letters L. did not draw inspiration from the recent methods of history and of the criticism of literary forms (Formgeschichte), in a more or less deliberate manner. The name of L. is written in letters of gold in the history of Catholic exegesis. It is to be hoped that his Ecole biblique may one day obtain the rank and status that he dreamed of and aspired to for it.
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Giuseppe Coppens