Massillon, Jean Baptiste

MASSILLON, mds"si"lyon', JEAN BAPTISTE: French prelate and famous preacher; b. at Hy&es (12 m. e. of Toulon) June 24, 1663; d. at Clermont Sept. 18, 1742. He was the son of a notary. In 1681 he entered the Congregation of the Oratory. At first he believed himself fitted rather for the life of a student and teacher than for the pulpit, and taught for some time at P6zenas and then in 1689 at Montbrison. But his superiors divined his talent for preaching, and commissioned him to deliver the funeral orations for Villars, archbishop of Vienne, and Villeroy, archbishop of Lyons (1693); and his Lenten sermons at Montpellier in 1698 attracted general attention. His success drew ill will upon him, and he was obliged for a time to go into retirement; but the dignity and purity of his life silenced those who were envious of him. In 1696 he was called to Paris as superior of the seminary of Saint-Magloire. The Lenten sermons which he preached in 1699 in the church of Saint-Honor made a deep impression. In the following Advent he was summoned to preach before the king at Versailles, and delivered the Lenten sermons there also in 1701 and 1704. Bourdaloue (q.v.), whose reputation as a preacher then stood highest, is said to have remarked on hearing him, in the words of John the Baptist, " He must increase and I must decrease." Louis XIV. showed him the greatest respect, saying to him, " I have heard more than one great orator in my chapel, and was very well satisfied with them; but whenever I hear you, I am always dissatisfied with myself." Among his funeral orations, besides those mentioned above, special note should be made of those on the Prince de Conti in 1709, on the Dauphin in 1711, and on Louis himself. The simple and impressive beginning of the last is celebrated. Looking over the vast audience in silence, then down at the coffin which held all that was left of the mightiest monarch of his day, he broke the solemn stillness with the words Dieu seul est grand, mss fr~res ("God alone is great, my brethren! "). In 1717 he was named bishop of Clermont, and preached in the following year before the young Louis XV. a course of ten sermons in Lent (commonly known as Le petit Car&me, and considered as his most finished work), in which he urged upon the youthful monarch and his court the obligations of morality and just government. He became a member of the French Academy in 1719, but from 1720 confined himself to the duties of his episcopate, leaving his diocese only once, to deliver the funeral sermon over Charlotte-Elisabeth, the duchess of Orléans.

Among his contemporaries he was as much regarded as Bossuet (q.v.), whose equal in the pulpit, however, he was not; and his funeral orations mark the point at which this branch of sacred eloquence began to decline. His name was highly honored in the last half of the eighteenth century, thanks to the eulogies of Voltaire and the Encyclopedists, who approved of him because he was more of a moralist than a theologian. In more recent times it has been less prominent, partly owing to the influence of the Jesuits, to whom he was never friendly. His style is not so lofty as that of the brilliant and courtly Bossuet, whom, however, he must be admitted to surpass in sympathy and unction. According to the usage of his time, he takes a text as a matter of form, only to depart from it as freely as he chooses. His structure is lacking in logic and strict order; he loses himself in moral digressions, and has at command an inexhaustible fund of applications to set forth the thoughtlessness of the courtiers, the vices of the great, or the horrors of war. Yet his sermons are

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characterized by a depth of Christian experience and vital piety which are sometimes absent from the more showy efforts of Bossuet and Bourdaloue. He himself published none of his discourses except that on the Prince de Conti, and the collections which appeared in 1705, 1706, and 1714 were un authorized and not always correct reports by others. After his death his nephew brought out an edition of his works in 15 vols., Paris, 1745. The most recent collected edition is that of Blam pignon, 4 vols., Bar-le-Due, 1886. English trans lations of sermons are by Dodd, Sermons on the Duties of the Great, London, 1776; Sermons, with a Life, by D'Alembert, ib. 1839; a volume of Ser mons, with Life, .ib. 1849; and two volumes in the Ancient and Modern Library of Theological Literature , London, 1889-90.

(J. Viénot.)

Bibliography: The best work on the subject is L. F. F. Therennin, Demoagenes and Massillon, Berlin, 1845. Consult the studies by L. Doumergue, Montauban, 1841; R. Labeille, Strasburg, 1857; A. Bayle, Paris, 1867; A. Laurent, Tours, 1870; E. A. Blampignon, Massillon d'apri'a des documents in6dits, Paris, 1879; idem, L'Epiacopal do Massillon d'aprta des documents inldite, ib. 1884; idem, Supplement h son hist. et a sa correspondanee, ib. 1891; G. Chabert, Théologie pastorale de Massillon, Montauban, 1890; E. Chasel, La Pr6dication de Massillon, Paris, 1894; Lichtenberger, ESR, viii. 771-774.