Morin (Morinus), Jean

MORIN (Morinus), JEAN. - Theologian and scholar of biblical textual criticism, b. at Blois in 1591, d. at Paris on 28 February 1659. Born to Calvinist parents, he pursued his studies of philosophy, law, theology and Oriental languages in Holland, in a Protestant environment. Having returned to France, he converted to the Catholic Church (1617) and entered the Oratory (1618). At the invitation of Pope Urban VIII, he collaborated in Rome in 1639-40 on the project of reuniting the Greek Church with the Latin one, especially in the discussions on the validity of ordinations in the Eastern Church. Recalled afterwards to Paris by Cardinal Richelieu, he devoted himself entirely to the study of historical theology and sacred criticism.

Among his theological-historical publications are to be noted: De patriarcharum et primatum origine et antiqua censurarum in cleros praxi (Paris 1626); Commentarius historicus de disciplina in administratione Sacramenti Poenitentiae ... (ibid. 1651, and several times reissued); De sacris Ecclesiae Ordinationibus... (ibid. 1655). Posthumous: De catechumenorum expiatione, De Sacramento confirmationis, De contritione et attritione (ibid. 1703).

M.'s principal biblical works are: Exercitationes ecclesiasticae in utrumque Samaritanorum Pentateuchum (ibid. 1631); Exercitationes Biblicae de Hebraei Graecique textus sinceritate... (ibid. 1633; 2nd ed. ibid. 1669); Diatribe elenctica de sinceritate Hebraei Graecique textus dignoscenda... (ibid. 1639); Opuscula Hebraeo-Samaritica (ibid. 1657). He also collaborated on the Paris Polyglot (1645), editing there the edition of the Samaritan Pentateuch. M. defended repeatedly the superiority of the Samaritan text and indeed of the Septuagint over the Hebrew-Masoretic text, which earned him bitter opponents (e.g., J.-H. Hottinger, Exercitationes antimorianae, Zurich 1644).

Adalberto Metzinger