Jean Morin

Jean Morin

A French priest of the Oratory, b. at Blois, in 1591, d. at Paris, 28 Feb., 1659. According to Dupin whose judgment posterity has confirmed, he was the most learned Catholic author of the seventeenth century. Born a Calvinist he was converted by Cardinal Duperron, and in 1618 joined the Oratory at Paris. At first he was superior in houses of his congregation at Orléans and Angers; in 1625 he was in attendance on Queen Henrietta of France in England; in 1628 he returned to Paris, where he remained until his death, with the exception of a sojourn of a few months in Rome, whither he had been called by Urban VIII in 1640 to aid in bringing about the union of the Greeks and Latins. An order from Richelieu recalled him to Paris, where he continued the publishing of his learned works, at the same time labouring to convert heretics and Jews, many of whom he brought to the true Faith. The General Assemblies of the French clergy often appealed to his great erudition, and entrusted him with various tasks. He kept up a correspondence and was often in controversy with the noted savants of the day, such as Muis, Buxtorf, etc.

His chief works are: "Histoire de la déliverance de l'Eglise chrétienne par l'empereur Constantin et de la grandeur et souveraineté temporelle donnée à l'Eglise romaine par les rois de France" (Paris, 1630), "Exercitationes ecclesiastiae in utrumque Samaritorium Pentateuchum" (Paris, 1631), in which he maintained that the Samaritan text and the Septuagint should be preferred to the Hebrew text, a position he again in the following work: "Exercitationes biblicae de Hebraei Graecique textus sinceritate . . ." (Paris, 1663,1669, 1686); "Commentarius historicus de disciplina in administratione sacramenti Poenitentiae XIII primus saeculis" (Paris, 1651); "Commentarius sacris Ecclesiae ordinationibus" (Paris, 1655, Antwerp, 1695; Rome, 1751). The two preceding works are very important for history of the sacraments. Morin also published "Biblia graecae sive Vetus testamentum secundum Septuaginta" (Paris, 1628); and in Lejay's "Polyglotte", vol. V (1645), "Pentateuchus hebraeo-samaritanus" and "Pentateuchus samaritanus". He left several manuscript works.

CONSTANTIN, Sciagraphia vitae J. Morini (Paris, 1660); NICERON, Memoires, IX, 90; SIMON, Vita Morini taken from Antiquitates ecclesiae . . .dissertationibus epistolicis enucleatae (London, 1642): a satire rather than a life; BATTELL, Memoires domestiques, II, 435; GODIN, Notice sur Morin (Blois, 1840); RAESS, Die Convertiten, IV, 447; INGOLD, Essai de bibliographie oratorienne, 112.

A.M.P. INGOLD