HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY GIFT OF
CHARLES HALL GRAMDGENf JANUARY 14, 1933
By D. C. Heath & Co.
INTRODUCTION
Jacques-B6nigne Bossuet was bom at Dijon on September 27, 1627. His father and uncle were magistrates, yet they agreed in preparing the boy for the priesthood. He was sent to a Jesuit school at Dijon, and when fifteen years of age went from there to the College of Navarre at Paris. Here he took his first degree, in 1648, defending his thesis, Sur la nature de Dieu triple et un et sur les A nges, before the Prince of Cond£, governor of Bossuet’s home province of Burgundy. Some additional years were passed in attaining his doctorate in the University. In 1652 this diploma was won, and with the title of archdeacon of Sarrebourg Bossuet was sent to Metz, to which his family had moved long before. The new priest was now in his twenty-fifth year. He had exercised his powers in occasional sermons in the college chapel. Prolonged study of the Scriptures, and extensive reading of the Church Fathers, particularly Tertullian and St. Augustine, had deepened his faith and broadened his learning. He was well fitted for the post to which he had been appointed.
Metz was but partly Catholic. Both Calvinists and Lutherans were to be found there in considerable numbers, and they were led by pastors of unusual ability. Metz was also noted for its Hebrew colony, which, though oppressed and isolated, still enjoyed, alone of all the congregations in France, certain rights which had been confirmed to it by law. For an ardent defender of the Christian tradition, a zealous advocate of the unity of true religion, here was work enough ready and waiting. Bossuet welcomed the opportunity and gave himself entirely
iv INTRODUCTION
to the promptings of his missionary instincts. Arguments, pleas, controversies in pamphlet and sermon, marked the progress of his curacy. Success rewarded his efforts. Not a few Protestants seem to have listened to his persuasive voice and abjured their errors. As for the Jews he was probably forced to content himself with his repeated expositions of the oneness of Judaism and Christianity, the former the forerunner of the letter, and the latter developed and defined by the successive councils of the Catholic Church. While the immediate consequences of these constant arguments escape us, their later results are discernible in the remarkable use of Scriptural phrases and similes, for which Bossuet’s sermons and funeral orations are distinguished. They also, without much doubt, contributed in fixing on Bossuet’s mind the fundamental conception that the birth of Christ is the central event of the world’s history.
After seven years of polemics with unbelievers, and pastoral guidance of the faithful, Bossuet was called to Paris as a preacher. This was in 1659. Released from parish duties he could wholly devote himself to expounding and exhorting. His experience at Metz had formed his thought and style, and the series of great sermons for Lent and Advent, which begin in 1660, show how complete was his religious and intellectual equipment. Interspersed with the sermons are occasional eulogies of departed colleagues. In 1667 these eulogies, or funeral orations, acquire greater prominence because of the rank of the persons whom they eulogize, Anne of Austria, Henrietta of France and Henrietta of England. The oration on Henrietta of England marks the culmination of Bossuet’s development as a religious orator.
In 1669 Bossuet was appointed bishop of the obscure diocese of Condom. He held this post but two years, for in 1670 he was made preceptor to the Dauphin, and retired from church work in order to perfect himself as a tutor. During the next decade he rarely appeared in the pulpit, but his pen was busy in preparing pious and historical treatises for the edification of
INTRODUCTION
his pupil. The Discours sur VHistoire universe lie, in 1681, signalizes the limit of this pedagogical digression and marks the return of Bossuet to the pastorate. For in this same year he was nominated to the bishopric of Meaux, and began anew his activity as a preacher and a polemist. The question of the extent of the Pope’s authority in the affairs of the Church in France had been raised. A council of the French clergy was called to deliberate on the matter. Bossuet could not remain indifferent, and his sermon, Sur VUnitd de VRglise , preached early in 1682, foretold the declaration in favor of the liberty of the Gallican Church which this council adopted a few months later. He also responded again to the demand for funeral orations. Yet he was never convinced of the usefulness of such preaching, and in the eulogy of his patron and friend, the Prince of Condd, in 1687, he took occasion to announce his retirement from a field, which in his eyes lay outside the calling of a priest.
This withdrawal, however, gave Bossuet all the more leisure for controversy. He renewed his attack on the Protestants with his Histoire des variations des Dglises protestantes (1688). His distrust of the influences of the stage was expressed in the Maximes et Rdflexions sur la ConUdie ( 1 693). In the absorbing affair of the Quietists (1696-1698) he admonished the erratic Fdnelon in the name of good sense, moderation and sound doctrine. Meanwhile he was laboring with unflagging ardor among his parishes. Only in 1 700 did the inroads of a lasting malady place any check on his physical exertions. Yet though hindered in the personal superintendence of his diocese, he still bore himself as a staunch defender of the faith. The attitude of the Protestants toward Church tradition had been among his first concerns. It was also among his last, and his militant spirit again found occasion to reproach the dissenters for their denial of ecclesiastical authority and their rejection of the opinions of the Fathers. And so he debated and argued to the very end, until death relieved him at his post on April 12, 1704.
Vi INTRODUCTION
The foundation of Bossuet’s character is reverence for order, for what is regular, accepted, for ideas confirmed by the wisdom of generations. In these particulars he is an excellent representative of his age and nation. He stands as a supporter of the tenets formulated by the Church, as a partisan of absolute rule in the state. Bossuet is the reverse of an individualist. He opposed the Protestants because they were separatists, antagonists of established dogmas in religion, enemies of the theory of the divine right of kings in politics. His belief that the world is best served by unity of creed and uniformity of government was based on his temperament and buttressed by his experience. This belief furnishes the explanation of Bossuet, missionary and sermonizer. Judaism having evolved into Christianity, the Jewish religion of modem times is contrary to nature, an anachronism. The Christianity of the first century, having been developed and expounded by the deliberations of the elect for many centuries, all efforts looking towards a return to this primitive faith necessarily result in factional strife, where each man interprets as he may desire and becomes a law to himself. Furthermore, since the growth of the monarchical idea had been contemporaneous with the growth of the idea of the Church, and because these two social phenomena had been closely connected, the enemies of kings were the foes of the Church. And it must be admitted that the history of Europe down to Bossuet’s time had borne witness to the correctness of this reasoning. Hence Bossuet’s failure to judge Charles I, Louis XIV, Charles II and the Duke of Orleans (seepages 19, 21, 40, 138 etc.) as they are now judged. With him their personal interests were inextricably interwoven with the interests of the Church, and a blow which would reach them would fall on the Church also. Political liberty and religious anarchy were one and the same to Bossuet. We need not wonder, therefore, at his whole-hearted espousal of the cause of princes against their subjects.
Yet it would be quite unjust to stress this characteristic of
INTRODUCTION
Bossuet overmuch. Our attention is naturally drawn to it because the man lives for us mainly in his writings, and in them, whether hortatory, controversial or historical in essence, he loses no opportunity to enjoin respect for tradition in both Church and state. But another side appears even here, and shows the real heart of the theologian, the animating impulse of a career the daily activity of which escapes the eye of posterity. It is Bossuet the evangelist, the seeker after souls, the shepherd of the sheep. In many of his sermons, as those Sur V Honneur du Monde and Sur la Mort , in some funeral orations, particularly the eulogy of Henrietta of England, it is remarkable how the simplicity of Bossuet’s heart and the purity of his faith cause him to lose sight of his interest in dogma and his zeal for the supremacy of the Church. These works, and others also, convince us that Bossuet’s view of his duty as a citizen, his intercourse with the court, his personal esteem for Louis XIV and the English princes, never once obscured to his vision the fundamental truth that without God’s grace man is vanity, that high and low, rulers and ruled, those burdened with the affairs of an empire or pressed down by the cares of a struggling existence, are alike in the presence of the Creator and are equally dependent on his mercy.
Should we cite a specific instance where these two sides of Bossuet’s nature are fairly blended, where the pastor and the champion of the Church join, we would take the Discours sur PHistoire universelle. For we read there how the progress of the world, from the earliest ages, had been conditioned by the evolution of the Jewish and Christian religion. The proclamation of the Gospel had been prepared by God’s dealings with the Hebrews and preluded by all the events which had taken place even among the heathen. The real reason for the creation of man is to be found in his redemption through Christ. The rise and fall of empires are but illustrations of this great fact. It is God’s providence, therefore, and not the working out of blind forces, which leads humanity along its earthly way,
INTRODUCTION
and this same providence sanctifies all individual trials and triumphs to the common end of universal salvation.
The funeral orations of Bossuet are the works by which he is most widely known, and which, perhaps, best constitute his title to fame. Funeral orations, before his day, were eulogies, panegyrics for the most part, in which there was but little substance or regard for style. Bossuet’s idea of his priestly mission did not allow him to be satisfied with such productions. In taking up the funeral oration, he remodelled it, gave it the general outline and plan of a sermon, made it part of the church service, not only praised the dead, but drew lessons from thendeparted greatness for the admonition of the living. And he vitalized it with his own earnest spirit. His aggressive temperament was well suited to the display of oratoiy. It supplied the chief characteristics of his style, such as force, directness, flow, eloquence, sublimity even. The results of his study of the Scriptures are revealed in his language, which reproduces on many occasions the picturesqueness, grandeur and pathos of the Old Testament. He exhorts openly, like a prophet of Israel, strengthening his appeals with an abundance of rhetoric which was natural to him. But the form he keeps subservient to the thought. His constant affirmation of the vanity of earthly greatness implies the necessity of finding true nobility in God. The highest type of eloquence which the classical period of French literature could create is a direct agent in urging man to seek the way of salvation.
In the preparation of this edition the funeral orations on Madame and the Prince of Condd have been reprinted from the editor’s French Prose of the XVII Century , and have retained their original pagination. Prefixed to them are the exordiums of two of Bossuet’s sermons of the first grade — from which the orations have drawn much of their thought and language — and the funeral oration on Henrietta of France.
EXORDIUMS OF BOSSUET’S SERMONS SUR L’HONNEUR DU MONDE (1660) AND SUR LA HORT (1662).
SUR L’hONNEUR DU MONDE.
Dicite filiae Sion : Ecce rex tuus venittibi mansuetus.
«Dites k la fille de Sion: Voici ton Roi, qui fait son entree plein de bont^ et de douceur . » — Paroles du proph&te Zacharie, rapport&s dans Pevangile de ce jour, en saint Matthieu, chap, xxi, 5.
Parmi toutes les grandeurs du monde, il n’y a rien de sidclatant qu’un jour de triomphe: et j’ai appris de TertuIIien, 1 que ces illustres triomphateurs de Pancienne Rome marchaient au Capitole avec tant de gloire, que de peur qu^tant dblouis d’une telle magnificence, ils ne 5 s’dlevassent enfin au-dessus de la condition humaine, un esclave qui les suivait avait charge de les avertir qu’ils dtaient hommes: Respice post te, hotninem te memento .
Ils ne se fachaient pas de ce reproche: «C’dtait lk, dit TertuIIien, le plus grand sujet de leur joie, de se voir 10 environn^s de tant de gloire, que Pon avait sujet de craindre pour eux qu’ils n’oubliassent qu’ils dtaient mortels.t Hoc magis gaudet tanta se gloria corns care, ut illi admonitio conditionis suae sit necessaria .
Le triomphe de mon Sauveur est bien dloign^ de cette 15 pompe; et quand je vois le malheureux dquipage avec lequel il entre dans Jerusalem, au lieu de Pavertir qu’il est homme, je trouverais bien plus k propos, chr^tiens, de le faire souvenir qu’il est Dieu: il semble en effet qu’il Pa oublid. Le prophkte et Pdvangdliste 2 concourent 20 k nous montrer ce roi d’lsrael «montd, disent-ils, sur une
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knesse : i Sedens super asinam. Ah ! chrdtiens, qui n’en rougirait ? Est-ce lk une entree royale ? est-ce lk un appareil de triomphe? est-ce ainsi, 6 Fils de David, que vous montez au tr6ne de vos ancktres et prenez posses- 5 sion de leur couronne ?
Toutefois arrStons, mes frferes, et ne prdcipitons pas notre jugement. Ce Roi, que tout le peuple honore aujourd’hui par ces cris de r^jouissance, ne vient pas pour s’&ever au-dessus des hommes par l’eclat d’une vaine io pompe, mais plutot pour fouler aux pieds les grandeurs humaines: et les sceptres rejet^s, l’honneur m^pris^, toute la gloire du monde andantie, font le plus grand ornement de son triomphe. Done, pour admirer cette entree, accoutumons-nous avant toutes choses k la iS modestie et aux abaissements glorieux de Phumilit£ chr^tienne, et tachons de prendre ces sentiments aux pieds de la plus humble des creatures, en disant: Ave * Aujourd’hui que notre monarque fait son entree dans Jerusalem, au milieu des applaudissements de tout le 20 peuple, et que, parmi cette pompe de peu de dur£e, Pfiglise commence k s’occuper dans la pens^e de sa passion ignominieuse, je me sens fortement pressd, chr^tiens, de mettre aux pieds de notre Sauveur quelqu’un de ses ennemis capitaux, pour honorer tout en- 25 semble et son triomphe et sa croix. Je n’ai pas de peine k choisir celui qui doit servir k ce spectacle : et le mystkre d’ignominie que nous commengons de c^tebrer, et cette magnificence d’un jour que nous verrons tout d’un coup
' *The language of the exordium to this point is, with the omission of lines 9-14 on page 1 («Ils — necessarian), practically the same as the words of the exordium of the sermon Sur les Devoirs des Rois , preached two years later. From now on the sermons differ.
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changde en un mdpris si outrageux, me persuadent facilement que ce doit £tre Phonneur du monde.
L’honneur du monde, mes frkres, c’est cette grande statue que Nabuchodonosor veut que Ton adore. 1 Elle est d’une hauteur prodigieuse, altitudine cubitorum sexa- 5 ginta , parce que rien ne parait plus 6 \ ev 6 que Phonneur du monde. tElle est toute d’or,» dit Pficriture, Fecit statuam auream , parce que rien ne semble ni plus riche ni plus prdcieux. t Toutes les langues et tous les peuples adorent cette statue: » Otnnes tribus et linguae adoraverunt 10 statuam auream; tout le monde sacrifie k Phonneur: et ces fifres, et ces trompettes, et ces hautbois, et ces tambours qui rdsonnent autour de la statue, n’est-ce pas le bruit de la renomm^e? ne sont-ce pas lk les applaudissements et les cris de joie qui composent ce que les hommes 15 appellent la gloire ? CPest done, messieurs, cette grande et superbe idole que je veux abattre aujourd’hui aux pieds du Sauveur. Je ne me contente pas, chrdtiens, de lui refuser de Pencens avec les trois enfants de Babylone, ni de lui denier Padoration que tous les peuples lui rendent : 20 je veux faire tomber sur cette idole le foudre 2 de la v^ritd dvangdlique; je veux Pabattre tout de son long devant la croix de mon Sauveur; je veux la briser et la mettre en pikees, et en faire un sacrifice k J^sus-Christ crucifid, avec le secours de sa grkce. 25
Parais done ici, 6 honneur du monde, vain fantome des ambitieux et chimkre des esprits superbes; je t’appelle k un tribunal oil ta condamnation est inevitable. Ce n’est pas devant les C^sars et les princes, ce n’est pas devant les hdros et les capitaines que je t’oblige de com- 30 paraitre; comme ils ont tous 6 t 6 tes adorateurs, ils prononceraient k ton a vantage. Je Pappelle k un juge-
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ment oh preside un Roi couronnd d^pines, que Ton a revStu de pourpre pour le tourner en ridicule, que Ton a attach^ k une croix pour en faire un spectacle d’ignominie : c’est k ce tribunal que je te d^ffere; c’est devant ce Roi 5 que je t’accuse. De quels crimes Paccuserai-je, chr&iens? je vous le vais dire. 1 Voici trois crimes capitaux dont j’accuse Phonneur du monde; je vous prie de les bien entendre.
Je Paccuse premibrement de flatter la vertu et de la io corrompre; secondement, de d^guiser le vice et de lui donner du credit; enfin, pour comble de ses attentats, d’attribuer aux hommes ce qui appartient k Dieu, et de les enrichir, s’il pouvait, de ses ddpouilles: voilk les trois chefs principaux sur lesquels je pretends, messieurs, qu’on 15 fasse le procks k Phonneur du monde. Dieu me veuille aider par sa grice k poursuivre vivement une accusation si importante, et k soutenir les opprobres et Pignominie de la croix contre Porgueil des hommes mondains!*
♦The argument of the sermon Sur les Devoirs des Rots is twice stated by Bossuet in its exordium: «I 1 [God] r&gne en effet par sa puissance dans toute l’etendue de Tunivers ; mais il a etabli les rois chretiens pour etre les principaux instruments de cette puissance: c’est & eux qu’appartient la gloire de faire regner Jesus-Christ; ils doivent le faire regner sur eux-memes, ils doivent le faire regner
sur leurs peuples Et par 1 k (the ceremony of the coronation of
Joash, as given in 2 Chronicles xxm, 11) Votre Majeste voit assez, premi&rement que Jesus-Christ veut regner sur vous; c’est ce que je montrerai dans mon premier point: et que par vous il veut regner sur vos peuples ; mon second point le fera connaitre, et c’est tout le sujet de ce discours.*
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