Books Fatal to Their Authors by P. H. (Peter Hampson) Ditchfield
page 71 of 161 (44%)
page 71 of 161 (44%)
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Clement XIII., as well as by the Sorbonne and the Parliament of Paris.
Berruyer seems to have had few admirers. He delighted to revel in the details of the loves of the patriarchs, the unbridled passion of Potiphar's wife, the costume of Judith, her intercourse with Holophernes, and other subjects, the accounts of which his prurient fancy did not improve. His imaginative productions caused him many troubles. The Jesuits disavowed the work, and, as we have said, its author was deposed from his office. The French ecclesiastical historian Louis Elias Dupin, born in 1657 and descended from a noble family in Normandy, was the author of the illustrious work _La Bibliotheque Universelle des auteurs ecclesiastiques_. Dupin was a learned doctor of the Sorbonne, and professor of the College of France; and he devoted most of his life to his immense work, which is a proof of his marvellous energy and industry. He gives an account of the lives of the writers, a catalogue of their works, with the dates when they were issued, and a criticism of their style and of the doctrines set forth therein. But the learned historian involved himself in controversy with the advocates of Papal supremacy by publishing a book, _De Antiqua Ecclesiae disciplina_, in which he defended with much zeal the liberty of the Gallican Church. He lived at the time when that Church was much agitated by the assumptions of Pope Clement XI., aided by the worthless Louis XIV., and by the resistance of the brave-hearted Jansenists to the famous Bull _Unigenitus_. For three years France was torn by these disputes. A large number of the bishops were opposed to the enforcing of this bull, and the first theological school in Europe, the Sorbonne, joined with them in resisting the tyranny of the Pope and the machinations of Madame de Maintenon. Dupin took an active part with the other theologians of his school in |
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