SABATIER, PAUL. – French Calvinist pastor, professor, and historian, born at Saint-Michel-de-Chabrillanoux (department of Ardèche) on 3 August 1858, died at Strasbourg on 4 March 1928.
Having completed his literary studies at Besançon and Lille, he studied medicine at Montpellier. In 1880 he enrolled in the Faculty of Protestant Theology in Paris, where A. SABATIER, PAUL (v.) taught, and attended Renan’s lectures at the Collège de France. He went to Germany in 1884 and completed his theological studies in Paris in 1885 with a baccalaureate thesis on the text of the Didaché, recently discovered. Vicar at S. Nicholas in Strasbourg from 1885 to 1889, then pastor at St. Cierge-la-Serre, in 1890 he began there to write the biography of S. Francis, a work to which, as he said, Renan had prompted him (Etudes inédites, Paris 1932, pp. 69-70). In delicate health, he had to interrupt his ministry several times until he abandoned it in 1894. From that moment S. devoted himself entirely to his historical studies, spending the following twenty years in Italy and especially at Assisi.
In 1894 he published in Paris the Vie de st François, whose 46 subsequent editions, up to the posthumous 1931 edition, described in the subtitle as “recast and definitive,” together with its numerous translations, demonstrate its merits, attributable to the narrator’s art, his perfect knowledge of the sources and of the historical setting, and his seductive manner of presenting the hero, defining his personality and his mission of renewal of the Church according to the “pure” Gospel. The work reveals the biographer’s liberal thought and his prejudices against Rome when it recounts the relations of Francis, legislator of his own Order, with the Curia, accused of having obstructed the Saint’s ideas and diverted the Franciscan movement from its original course; it was placed on the Index on 18 June 1894. Various theories concerning the origin and value of the sources have provoked discussion (v. QUESTIONE FRANCESCANA). S. always preferred the writings that he traced to Brother Leo and the first companions: the Speculum perfectionis, which he dated to 1227, and the Legenda trium sociorum, which he regarded as faithful witnesses to the facts and spirit of the founder, allegedly distorted by the official biographers, Thomas of Celano and S. Bonaventure. It is now admitted that the writings attributed to Brother Leo are late compilations.
S.’s contribution to Franciscan studies is outstanding: ancient texts were unearthed in the manuscript collections of libraries, such as the Speculum perfectionis, the Tractatus de Indulgentia S. M. de Portiunculo by Brother Bartoli of Assisi, the Regula antiqua of the Franciscan Third Order, the Attus b. Francisci, etc., all valuable documents that nourished the learned studies of the Collection d'études et de documents sur l'histoire religieuse et littéraire du moyen âge and the Opuscules de critique historique, founded respectively in 1898 and 1901. Under his impetus, the “International Society for Franciscan Studies” was established at Assisi in 1902, and the “British Society of Franciscan studies” in London in 1908. His theological formation, derived from the liberal Protestantism of Augusto Sabatier, and his familiarity with certain French, Italian, and English ecclesiastical circles explain his active participation in the modernist movement, which he hailed as “the spiritual springtime” of the Catholic Church. He became its propagator and supporter in word and writing (Les modernistes, Paris 1909), to such an extent that he was jokingly called the “pope of modernism.” His optimism concerning the outcome of the crisis was not diminished by the Roman sanctions against the innovators and their doctrines (L'orientation religieuse de la France actuelle, ibid. 1912). With equal energy he supported the French laws separating Church and State, which he judged capable of regenerating the Church (A propos de la séparation des Eglises et de l'Etat, ibid. 1906). His Lettres d'un français à un italien (1914-15) brought him new fame: they legitimized French and Allied intervention by seeking to clarify the spiritual character of the world conflict. The English press (The Times, 22 January 1915) and the Italian press (Giornale d'Italia and other daily newspapers) contributed greatly to their dissemination. During the war years, S. resumed his ministry in his native country; in 1919 he was appointed professor of ecclesiastical history at the Faculty of Protestant Theology in Strasbourg. He was buried in the cemetery of St-Michel-de-Chabrillanoux.