LE FÈVRE D'ETAPLES, JACQUES. — Born at Etaples around 1455, died at Nérac in January 1536. A writer and exegete, he began to shape his thought along the lines of the renewed humanism following a stay in Italy (1492).
In 1498 he published the Theologia civilificans, with the subtitle Cibus solidus, a Latin edition of three works by Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite: Caelestis Hierarchia, Ecclesiastica Hierarchia, Divina nomina. During the following decade he printed, «pro piorum recreatione», many Greek and Latin treatises, such as the Theologia Damascei [*De fide orthodoxa], St Basil’s Adversus Eunomium and Exumeron, Lull’s Contemplationes, Richard of St Victor’s De Trinitate, etc. In 1507 he went to live at Saint-Germaindes-Près, of which his disciple Guillaume Briçonnet had become abbot. Through contact with the monks, the final development of his thought matured, returning to the primary source of Christian knowledge, Holy Scripture. In 1509 he published the Psalterium quintuplex, enriched with sober exegetical and spiritual notes. This work was known and annotated by Luther. In the celebrated work Sancti Pauli epistolae XIV ex vulgata editione* (1512), he sought to reconcile faith and works. According to some exegetes, he did not accept the dogma of original sin and believed in complete human freedom. Le F.’s strong desire to «return» to the Scriptures runs parallel to, but does not coincide with, Lutheranism. His contact with Protestantism was nevertheless considerable: in 1514 he defended Reuchlin against the Sorbonne; he was esteemed by Luther; according to some Protestant interpreters, he was close to the theories of the Reformation in believing
that the Mass is merely an act of commemoration and in opposing the cult of the Saints and of the Virgin. By centering his teaching on Scripture (his translation has remained a classic) and directing his devotio toward an imprecisely defined dogmatic position, he was among the initiators of the so-called evangelism. The underestimation of the hierarchical element, the tendency to render the Bible in the vernacular, and the evident infiltration of certain Lutheran ideas among the members of the Meaux group (Farel was among them) exposed him to attacks by the Sorbonne, to avoid which he fled to Strasbourg toward the end of 1525. According to some Catholic interpreters, he did not depart from orthodoxy precisely because his thought, so rich in nuances, must be interpreted according to the forms of evangelism. Le F. died as a guest of Marguerite of Navarre, by whom he had been appointed librarian at Blois.