Name Henri Bremond | ||
Henri Brémond (31 July 1865 – 17 August 1933) was a French literary scholar, sometime Jesuit, and Catholic philosopher, one of the theological modernists.
Biography
He was born and educated in Aix-en-Provence. He served his novitiate in Sidmouth, Devon, and received orders in 1892. He then taught for two years, and worked on the Jesuit publication Études.
He left the Society of Jesus in 1904, but remained a priest, suspended for his presence and an address he gave at the funeral of the modernist, George Tyrrell (1909), of whom he was a friend. Brémond made a sign of the cross over Tyrrell's grave, for which he was temporarily suspended a divinis by Bishop Amigo for some time but later reintegrated. He wrote for the Annales de philosophie chrétienne, Correspondant, Revue des deux mondes and the Revue de Paris. He also became a prolific author of books on literary topics and Catholicism. Brémond's magnum opus was his Histoire littéraire du sentiment religieux en France (cited below). He had a permanent interest in English topics, e. g. public schools (Thring of Uppingham), the evolution of Anglican clergy (Walter Lake, J. R. Green) and wrote a study of the psychology of John Henry Newman (1906) (well before Geoffrey Faber's attempt). He became a member of the Académie française succeeding Louis Duchesne, being elected in 1923 to the seat number 36. He was also awarded the Légion d'honneur. He died in Arthez-d'Asson.