Jean Barbeyrac

Jean Barbeyrac

a famous French jurist, was born March 15, 1674, at Beziers, where his father was a minister of the Gospel. After the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, he went with his parents to Lausanne, where he pursued his theological studies. In 1694 he went to Frankfort-on-the-Oder, and finally settled at Berlin, where he was appointed, in 1697, tutor at the French College. Giving up his theological studies, he betook a himself to the study of jurisprinudence. In 1706 he published the famous Latin treatise of Puiffendorf in French, with notes, in De Droit de la Nature et de Gens, whereby he achieved such a renown that the Academy of Lausanne extended to him a call as professor of law and history in 1710. In 1714 he was appointed rector of the academy; an honor which he received for three succeeding years. But, being a conscientious man and unable to subscribe fully to the Formula Consensus, he accepted a call to Groningen, where he died, March 3, 1744. Besides a number of articles published in Nouvelles de. la Republique. des Lettres. Bibliotheque Britannique, Nouvelle Bibliotheque, and Bibliotheque Raisonnee, he translated from the Latin a treatise of Puffendorf, under the title TraiteSdes Devoirs de l'omme et du Citoyne (17l07), and of Noodt, Traift du Pouvoir des Souveraines et de la Liberte de Conscience (eod.).- From the English he translated Tillotson's sermons (1706-16). He wrote Traite du Jeu, from the standpoint of the natural and moral law (1709), and translated the famous treatise of Grotius De Jure Beli'et Pacis (1724).'He also wrote Traite de la Moral des Peres de l'Eglise (1728), and published Histoire des Anciens Traites depuis les Temps les plus Recules jusqu'a Charlemagne (1739). See Gardes, Oratio Funebris in Obitum: J. Barbeyrac (Groningen, 1744); Laissac, Notice Biograph. sur Barbeyrac (Montpellier, 1838), which received the prize from the Societe Archeologique:de Beziers; Lichtenberger, Encyc. des Sciences Religieuses, s.v.; Winer, Handbuch der theol. Lit. i, 491. (B. P.)