title="Jurieu, Pierre" id="jurieu_pirerre"

JURIEU, zhü"rî-u', PIERRE: With the possible exception of Pierre Bayle (q.v.), the most important theologian and strongest controversialist of the French Calvinists at the close of the seventeenth century; b. at Mer (11 m. n.e. of Blois), where his father was pastor, Dec. 24, 1637; d. at Rotterdam Jan. 11, 1713. He studied philosophy at the Academy of Saumur and divinity at Sedan 1656-58, then traveled through the Netherlands and England. In 1671 he succeeded to his father's curacy at Mer, was ordained, and remained there till 1674, when the Academy of Sedan elected him lecturer in Hebrew and soon after preacher. He filled both offices with such ability that Bayle, who had obtained through him a lectureship in philosophy in 1675, designated him "one of the first men of this century, the first of our communion." During the ten years spent at Sedan, Jurieu zealously defended the Reformation against the attacks of Bossuet and others. In July, 1681, when the Academy of Sedan was dissolved by Louis XIV., as his stay in France had become dangerous, he went to Rotterdam, where, besides a pastorship, he received a lectureship founded specially for him. There he worked hard to promote the cause of the French Reformed Church by his writings, and caring for the exiled French pastors. Like Comenius and others he had to pass through sad experiences, having become too sanguine of the immediate restoration of the French Church through his interpretation of the prophecies in the Apocalypse, and later on by expecting too much from the fanatical prophets of Dauphiné. Meanwhile advancing age warned him to bring to completion a work on which he had long been busy, his Histoire critique des dogmes et des cultes, published in two parts at Amsterdam, 1704--05 (Eng. transl., 2 vols., London, 1705). Thenceforth ill health kept him from work.

Jurieu, like Calvin, held that the true Church is known by two signs: the preaching of the pure word of God and the right dispensation of the sacraments. It should be governed by the representatives of the Christian congregation, and has the right to exclude all those who do not accept the confession of faith. However, later on, to refute Bossuet and to satisfy new conceptions of his own mind, he came to a broader view'of the Church. In his Histoire du calvinisme et du papisme (2 vols., Rotterdam, 1683) he makes a distinction between the temporal and the spiritual power. In the name of the latter, he demands full liberty of conscience. But the church service must be approved by the majority of the nation because the sovereign is only the representative of the nation. When, in 1685, the Edict of Nantes was revoked by Louis XIV., many Protestants besides Jurieu began to doubt the divine right of kings and stood for the rights of the people. As in Bayle's writings many of Voltaire's ideas are to be found, so in Jurieu's works is the germ of Rousseau's Contrat social.

Since many of the controversial works of the time were published anonymously, it is not always possible to determine their authorship with certainty. The principal works undoubtedly by Jurieu are: on dogma and controversy, against the Roman Catholics, La Politique du clergé de France (Amsterdam, 1680); Reflexions sur la cruelle persécution que souffre l'église réformée en France (1685); Préjugés légitimes contre le papisme (1685); Le Vrai Système de l'église et la véritable analyse de la foi (Dort, 1686); Lettres pastorales addressées aux fidèles de France (Rotterdam, 1686; Eng. transl., London, 1689); concerning the Lutherans or the Reformed, Des droits des deux souverains en matière de religion (1687); Unité del'église et points fondamentaux (1688); on history and politics, Histoire du calvinisme et du papisme unis en parallèle (2 vols., 1683); edifying and apocalyptic, L'Accomplissement des prophéties ou la délivrance de l'église (2 vols., 1686; Eng. transl., London, 1687); Traité de l'amour divin (1700).

G. BONET-MAURY.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: The biographies by C. van Oordt, Geneva, 1879 (best); and C. E. Mégnin, Strasburg, 1854. Consult also: J. C, F, Hoefer Nouvelle biographie générals, xxxvii. 267 sqq., 46 vols., Paris, 1852-66. F Puaux, Les Précurseurs francais de la tolérance Dôle , 1880; J. B, Kan, in Bulletin de la commission de l'histoire des églises Wallones, Paris 1890; H. M. Baird, Huguenots and the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes 2 vols., New York, 1895; Lichtenberger, ESR, vi. 551-559.

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