Jérôme-Hermès Bolsec
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Jérôme-Hermès Bolsec (b. probably at Paris, date unknown; d. at Lyons c. 1584) was a French Carmelite theologian and physician, who became a Protestant and controversialist.
A sermon which he preached at Paris aroused misgivings in Catholic circles regarding the soundness of his ideas, and Bolsec left Paris. Having separated from the Catholic Church about 1545, he took refuge at the Court of Renée, duchess of Ferrara, who was favourably disposed towards persons holding Protestant views. Here he married, and began the study of medicine, about 1550 settling as a physician at Veigy, near Geneva.
A theological controversy with John Calvin, whose doctrine of predestination he deemed an absurdity, soon ensued. In 1551, at one of the religious conferences or public discussions, then held at Geneva every Friday, he interrupted the orator of the day, Jean de Saint André, who was speaking on predestination, and argued against him. Bolsec was arrested, and through the influence of the reformer banished from Geneva (1551).
In 1555 he was also driven from Thonon, in the Bernese territory, whither he had retired. He went to Paris and sought admission into the ministry of the Reformed Church. But his opinions were not found sufficiently orthodox, from a reformed point of view, for one wishing to hold such a position. He was asked for a declaration of faith, but refused.
He went to Lausanne (c. 1563), but as the signing of the Confession of Bern was made a condition of his residence here, he preferred to return to France. Shortly after this, he recanted his errors, was reconciled with the Catholic Church, and published biographies of the two Genevan reformers, Calvin and Theodore Beza (1519-1605). These works are violent in tone, and their historical statements cannot always be relied on. They are "Histoire de la view, des moeurs . . . de Jean Calvin" (Lyons and Paris, 1577; published in Latin at Cologne in 1580; German tr. 1581); "Histoire de la vie et des m urs de Th. de B�ze" (Paris, 1582). The life of Calvin was edited by L. F. Chastel in 1875 with extracts from the life of Beza.
[edit] References
- Fritz in Kirchenlexikon
- Schaff, History of the Christian Church (New York, 1903), VII, 614-621
- Walker, John Calvin (New York, 1906), 116-119, 315-320.
- Jérôme-Hermès Bolsec - article in the Catholic Encyclopedia.
- This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.
