RENAUDOT, Eusèbe. — Born in Paris on 22 July 1648, died there on 1 September 1720; Orientalist, liturgist, journalist. R. entered the Oratory on 17 June 1665, received the four minor orders the following year (12 June), left it on 1 April 1672 due to illness, but remained always known as Abbé R. From his youth he devoted himself to the study of Oriental languages; besides Greek and Hebrew, he had a good knowledge of Arabic and Syriac.
Because of this expertise he was invited by Arnauld to collaborate on vol. III of the apologetic work Perpétuité de la foi de l'Église catholique touchant l'Eucharistie (1674); he later published vol. IV (1711) on the Eucharist itself and vol. V (1713) on the other Sacraments. The aim was to prove to Calvinists that the faith in the Eucharist of Eastern Christians of every rite was identical to that of Catholics. He also prepared the complete version of the attached texts; he published Gennadii patriarchae Constantinopolitani Homiliae de Sacramento Eucharistiae... (1709) and Liturgiarum orientalium collectio, in 2 vols. (1715–16), reprinted in Frankfurt (1847), a work still indispensable today which contains the Mass of all Eastern rites except the Greek and Armenian, with notes and learned studies. His unpublished versions of the Sacraments among the Easterners were widely used by H. Denzinger, Ritus Orientalium... (1715–16), Würzburg 1863–64. R.’s version is good, but he did not always choose the best manuscript for his translation. He knew the East well; his Historia patriarcharum alexandrinorum... (1713) is still consulted; S. Salaville published Eusebii R. disertatio de liturgi orientali, in Ephem. liturg., 51 (1937), pp. 319–320.
349. For 40 years he directed the Gazette de France, founded by his grandfather, and thus took an interest in politics, especially that of England and the Papal States. He was a friend of Bossuet, of the Port-Royal circle and of the Jansenists, and a member of the Académie française, the Académie des Inscriptions, and an associate of the Accademia della Crusca.