Jean-Pierre Camus
Encyclopedia
Jean-Pierre Camus de Pontcarré (November 3, 1584 (Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

) - April 26, 1652) was a French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 bishop
Bishop
A bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...

, preacher, and author of works of fiction and spirituality
Spirituality
Spirituality can refer to an ultimate or an alleged immaterial reality; an inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of his/her being; or the “deepest values and meanings by which people live.” Spiritual practices, including meditation, prayer and contemplation, are intended to develop...

.

Biography

Jean-Pierre Camus was the son of Jean Camus, seigneur de Saint Bonnet, who was governor of Étampes
Étampes
Étampes is a commune in the metropolitan area of Paris, France. It is located south-southwest from the center of Paris . Étampes is a sub-prefecture of the Essonne department....

. As a young man he traveled about Europe, and following his theological studies he became a priest in 1608; in the same year Henry IV
Henry IV of France
Henry IV , Henri-Quatre, was King of France from 1589 to 1610 and King of Navarre from 1572 to 1610. He was the first monarch of the Bourbon branch of the Capetian dynasty in France....

, necessitating a dispensation from Pope Paul V
Pope Paul V
-Theology:Paul met with Galileo Galilei in 1616 after Cardinal Bellarmine had, on his orders, warned Galileo not to hold or defend the heliocentric ideas of Copernicus. Whether there was also an order not to teach those ideas in any way has been a matter for controversy...

, appointed him bishop of Belley (1609–1628) and Camus became a fervent disciple of Saint François de Sales. Camus gave three speeches at the Etats-Généraux
French States-General
In France under the Old Regime, the States-General or Estates-General , was a legislative assembly of the different classes of French subjects. It had a separate assembly for each of the three estates, which were called and dismissed by the king...

 of 1614. After the death of François de Sales, Camus remained in Belley for a five more years, and then resigned his post in 1628. He was briefly given a position at the Abbey of Aunay in 1629, and subsequently performed other duties for the archbishop of Rouen. In the last years of his life, he consecrated himself to working with the poor in Paris. In 1652, he was appointed bishop of Arras, but died shortly thereafter.

Preaching

As an orator, Camus was a product of the 17th century Baroque
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...

 school of preaching. In form, he believed the sermon should exude good literary style, including ample illustrations and vivid examples designed to entertain the audience. In content, Camus' preaching focused primarily on doctrinal instruction, such as the defense of the Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist
Transubstantiation
In Roman Catholic theology, transubstantiation means the change, in the Eucharist, of the substance of wheat bread and grape wine into the substance of the Body and Blood, respectively, of Jesus, while all that is accessible to the senses remains as before.The Eastern Orthodox...

 against that of the Protestants. His sermons occasionally took the form of moral exhortation - which foreshadowed the practice of later Neoclassical
Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome...

 preachers - and drew on the lives of the saints as moral exemplars, of whom Charles Borromeo
Charles Borromeo
Charles Borromeo was the cardinal archbishop of the Catholic Archdiocese of Milan from 1564 to 1584. He was a leading figure during the Counter-Reformation and was responsible for significant reforms in the Catholic Church, including the founding of seminaries for the education of priests...

 and Ignatius of Loyola
Ignatius of Loyola
Ignatius of Loyola was a Spanish knight from a Basque noble family, hermit, priest since 1537, and theologian, who founded the Society of Jesus and was its first Superior General. Ignatius emerged as a religious leader during the Counter-Reformation...

 were favorite of his.

Works

Jean-Pierre Camus was one of the most prolific authors of the period 1620-1648. His prose is succinct, without the elaborate rhetoric of authors—such as Antoine de Nervèze
Antoine de Nervèze
Antoine de Nervèze was a French nobleman and writer of novels, translations, letters and moral works at the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th centuries.-Biography:...

 -- from the previous generation. He also shows a vast knowledge of poetry.

Camus's first works were strongly influenced by the Essays of Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne , February 28, 1533 – September 13, 1592, was one of the most influential writers of the French Renaissance, known for popularising the essay as a literary genre and is popularly thought of as the father of Modern Skepticism...

, albeit with more religious content. His spiritual works were directly inspired by Saint François de Sales; he was critical of mendicant orders and wrote extensively on poverty, grace and spiritual reflection.

His fictional works encompass both novels and short stories. His dark and violent stories, often based on contemporary anecdotes or criminal incidents (he wrote over 1000 such works) were in the tradition of the horrific tales ("histoires tragiques
Histoires tragiques
Histoires tragiques were a genre of French fiction in 16th-17th centuries, a Baroque rendering of Boccaccio's type of short stories, concentrating on the dark side of human nature....

") of Matteo Bandello
Matteo Bandello
-Biography:Matteo Bandello was born at Castelnuovo Scrivia, near Tortona , c. 1480 or 1485. He received a good education, and entered the church, but does not seem to have been very interested in theology. For many years he lived at Mantua, and superintended the education of the celebrated Lucrezia...

, popular in France in the late Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

 and early seventeenth century. His longer works show the influence of ancient Greek novels (such as the works of Heliodorus of Emesa
Heliodorus of Emesa
Heliodorus of Emesa, from Emesa, Syria, was a Greek writer generally dated to the third century AD who is known for the ancient Greek novel or romance called the Aethiopica or sometimes "Theagenes and Chariclea"....

 and Achilles Tatius
Achilles Tatius
Achilles Tatius of Alexandria was a Roman era Greek writer whose fame is attached to his only surviving work, the ancient Greek novel or romance The Adventures of Leucippe and Clitophon.-Life and minor works:...

), with their scenes of tempests and kidnappings. Much of his fiction has a moralistic intention, showing human folly, the unruliness of passions, the dangers of illicit love, and the saving grace of divine love.

See also

  • Blaise Pascal
    Blaise Pascal
    Blaise Pascal , was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and Catholic philosopher. He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a tax collector in Rouen...

    ' Provincial Letters (in particular the Fifth)
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