Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples

Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples (Latinized as Jacobus Faber Stapulensis; c. 1455 – c. 1536) was a French theologian and a leading figure in French humanism. He was a precursor of the Protestant movement in France. The "d'Étaples" was not part of his name as such, but used to distinguish him from Jacques Lefèvre of Deventer, a less significant contemporary, a friend and correspondent of Erasmus. Both are also sometimes called by the German version of their name, Jacob/Jakob Faber. He himself had a sometimes tense relationship with Erasmus, whose work on Biblical translation and in theology closely paralleled his own.

Although he anticipated some ideas that were important to the Protestant Reformation, Lefèvre remained a Roman Catholic throughout his life, and sought to reform the Church without separating from it. Several of his books were condemned as heretical, and he spent some time in exile. He was, however, a favorite of the King of France, Francis I, and enjoyed his protection.

He was born of humble parents at Étaples, in Picardy. He appears later to have been possessed of considerable means. He had already been ordained a priest when he entered the University of Paris for higher education. Hermonymus of Sparta was his master in Greek.

He visited Italy before 1486, for he heard the lectures of John Argyropoulos, who died in that year; he formed a friendship with Paulus Aemilius of Verona. In 1492 he again travelled in Italy, studying in Florence, Rome and Venice, making himself familiar with the writings of Aristotle, though greatly influenced by the Platonic philosophy. Returning to the University of Paris, he became a professor in the Collège du Cardinal Lemoine. Among his famous pupils were François Vatable, Charles de Bovelles, and Guillaume Farel; his connection with the last drew him closer to the Calvinistic side of the movement of reform. Farel joined Lefèvre at Meaux to help in the training of preachers, before Farel left for Switzerland where he was one of the founders of the Reformed churches.

In 1507 he took up his residence in the Benedictine Abbey of St Germain des Prés, near Paris; this was due to his connexion with the family of Briçonnet (one of whom was the superior), especially with Guillaume Briçonnet, cardinal bishop of Saint-Malo, father of Guillaume Briçonnet, the later bishop of Meaux. He now began to give himself to Biblical studies, the first-fruit of which was his Quintuplex Psalterium: Gallicum, Romanum, Hebraicum, Vetus, Conciliatum (1509); the Conciliatum was his own version. This was followed by S. Pauli Epistolae xiv. ex vulgata editione, adjecta intelligentia ex Graeco cum commentariis (1512), a work of great independence and judgment.

His De Maria Magdalena et triduo Christi disceptatio of 1517, which argued that Mary the sister of Lazarus, Mary Magdalene and the penitent woman who anointed Christ's feet were different people, provoked violent controversy and was condemned by the Sorbonne in 1521, and by Saint John Fisher. He had left Paris during the whole of 1520, and, removing to Meaux, was appointed vicar-general to Bishop Briçonnet on 1 May 1523; he published his French version of the New Testament later that year. This translation, contemporary with Luther's German version, has been the basis of all subsequent translations into French. From this, in the same year, he extracted the versions of the Gospels and Epistles "a l'usage du diocese de Meaux". The prefaces and notes to both these expressed the view that Holy Scripture is the only rule of doctrine, and that justification is by faith alone.

He incurred much hostility, but was protected by Francis I and his intellectual sister Marguerite d'Angoulême. After Francis was taken captive at the battle of Pavia on 25 February 1525, Lefèvre was condemned and his works suppressed by commission of the parlement; these measures were quashed on the return of Francis some months later. He issued Le Psautier de David in 1525, and was appointed royal librarian at Blois in 1526; his version of the Pentateuch appeared two years later. His complete version of the Bible of 1530 was based on the Vulgate of Jerome, took the same place as his version of the New Testament. The publication and its revised edition based on the Hebrew and the Greek texts were printed by Merten de Keyser in Antwerp in 1534. Marguerite, now queen of Navarre, led him to take refuge from persecution in Nérac in 1531. He is said to have been visited in 1533 by John Calvin on his flight from France. He died in Nérac in about 1536.

The publication, with critical apparatus, of Boethius, De Arithmetica. Paris: Johannes Higman and Wolfgang Hopyl, 22 July 1496.

He was a prolific translator of the Bible. He completed a translation of the Old Testament in 1528, and was famous for his French translation of the Psalms and the Pauline epistles, which he finished early in his career. His completed translation of the entire Christian Bible, published in 1530, was the first in the French language.