Barbeyrac, Jean

BARBEYRAC, bɑ̄r´´bê´´rɑ̄c´, JEAN: French writer on law; b. at Béziers (44 m. s.w. of Montpellier), Languedoc, Mar. 15, 1674; d. at Groningen Mar. 3, 1744. He fled with his parents into Switzerland after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, 1685; studied at Lausanne, Geneva, and Frankfort-on-the-Oder; became teacher in the College of the Reformed Congregation at Berlin, 1697; and, in 1710, was appointed professor of law and history in the Academy of Lausanne, and in 1716 in the University of Groningen. He translated Puffendorf’s De jure naturæ et gentium into French (2 vols., Amsterdam, 1706), and added a valuable preface and notes; he also translated other works of Puffendorf and Grotius, wrote a Traité du jeu (2 vols., 1709), maintaining that games of chance are not immoral, and a Traité de la morale des Pères de l’Église (1728). He was a moderate Calvinist, and refused to sign the Helvetic Formula Concensus, which disapproved of the doctrines of Amyraut and the other Saumur theologians.

Bibliography: Gerdes, Oratio funebris in obitum J. Barbeyrac, Groningen, 1744 (by his colleague); G. Laissac, Notice biographique sur Barbeyrac, Montpellier, 1838.