Of Sceptres and Censors: Biblical Interpretation and Censorship in Seventeenth-Century France

In 1676 Pierre-Daniel Huet, scholar and tutor to the Dauphin,encountered difficulties with state censorship. Bishop Bossuetwas blocking the publication of his Demonstratio evangelica,a recasting of an ancient Christian apologetic. The Sorbonnetheologian and censor, Edme Pirot, was caught in the middle.An analysis of the interaction between these three men revealsAncien Régime censorship as a series of negotiationsshaped by the different stakes, personalities, ambitions andstatus of the participants. Huet and Bossuet’s quarrelalso echoed the confessional debates of the sixteenth centuryand reflected disagreements within the Catholic Church thereafter.It raised such important questions as whether the Bible shouldbe subjected to the same types of analysis as secular textsand anticipated concerns about the relationship between biblicalcriticism and the rise of irreligion. Throughout, Bossuet skilfullymanipulated the mechanisms of state censorship to defend hisvision of Church Tradition by delaying the publication of Huet’sDemonstratio and suppressing Richard Simon’s L’histoirecritique du Vieux Testament.     

试论中世纪法国王室的"圣德尼崇拜"

在宗教氛围浓郁的中世纪西欧,几乎每个社会群体都拥有自己的守护神(庇护圣徒),法国王室亦不例外,它也常年沐浴在其守护神圣德尼(Saint Denis)的圣光之下。通过对"圣德尼崇拜"发展历程的考察可以看出,这一崇拜的确立虽非一帆风顺,但在法兰西王权和圣德尼修院的合作经营下,圣徒德尼终究成为法兰西君主的守护神、国家的守护神以及王权象征物的守护神。正是在"圣德尼崇拜"这一官方意识形态的辅佑下,法兰西民族国家开始形成,法兰西王权开始走向绝对化。然而,绝对化的法兰西王权最终灰飞烟灭,隆崇的圣德尼修院最终亦败落凋零。     

State-Building in Eighteenth-Century Russia

HUGH RAGSDALE, ed. and trans., and VALERII NIKOLAEVICH PONOMAREV, asst. ed. Imperial Russian Foreign Policy. New York and Cambridge: Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Cambridge University Press, 1993. Pp. xvi, 457. $59–95 (US);

E. V. ANISIMOV. Rossiia bez Petra, 1725–1740. St Petersburg: Lenizdat, 1994. Pp. 496. No Price Available;

IA. A. GORDIN. Mezh rabstvom i svobodoi: 19 ianvaria-25 fevralia 1730 goda. St Petersburg: Lenizdat, 1994. Pp. 379. No Price Available;

CAROL S. LEONARD. Reform and Regicide: The Reign of Peter III of Russia. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1993. Pp. vii, 232. $35.00 (US);

A. S. MYL'NIKOV. Ikushenie chudom: ‘Russkii prints’, ego prototipy i dvoiniki-samozvantsy. Leningrad: ‘Nauka’, Leningradskoe otdelenie, 1991. Pp. 268. No Price Available.