SABATIER, PAUL

Calvinist pastor and writer; b. Saint-Michel-de-Chabrillaneux, France, Aug. 3, 1858; d. Strasbourg, March 4, 1928. After studying at the Faculty of Theology in Paris under renan, Sabatier served as pastor in Strasbourg (1885–89). His bestselling Vie de S. François d'Assise (Paris 1894; éd. définitive, relatively unchanged, 1931; Eng. tr. London 1894) was marked by animus against the papacy and the veneration of saints. It was placed on the Index in 1894.

Despite Sabatier's impressive learning and a charming style, his subjective portrait of francis of assisi, excluding the sacramental and the supernatural, was demonstrably unhistorical in attributing to the saint a hostile and grudging obedience to the Church. In 1908 Sabatier publicly admitted this error: "It would be absurd to make St. Francis of Assisi a rebel or an unconscious Protestant." Resigning his pastorate in 1894, he devoted himself to the study and publication of early Franciscan documents, for expamle, the Actus Beati Francisci et Sociorum Ejus (Paris 1902), the Latin original of the fioretti ; and the Speculum Perfectionis. Sabatier's stubbornly maintained theory that the saint's secretary, Brother Leo (Leo of Assisi), wrote the latter in 1227 has been rejected by experts, who see in it a compilation made in 1318 of earlier texts, including some written by Leo in 1246 or later.

Between 1904 and 1914 Sabatier played an active part in Modernism, writing An Open Letter to His Eminence Cardinal Gibbons (Boston 1908) and delivering the Jowett Lectures on Modernism (London 1908). During World War I he substituted for drafted pastors, and defended the spiritual ideals of the Allied cause in A Frenchman's Thoughts on the War (London 1915). From 1919 until his death he taught at the University of Strasbourg. His (Franciscan) Études inédites (Paris 1932) reveal a marked intellectual evolution in his understanding of and sympathy for medieval spirituality. The stimulus and contributions that he made to Franciscan scholarship remain monumental.

Bibliography: c. brooke, "Paul Sabatier and St. Francis of Assisi," in St. Francis of Assisi: Essays in Commemoration (St. Bonaventure, N.Y. 1982) 41–58. p. sabatier, "The Originality of St. Francis of Assisi," in St. Francis of Assisi: Essays in Commemoration (St. Bonaventure, N.Y. 1982) 25–40. t. vetrali, ed., "Francesco d'Assis Attesa Dell'Ecumeniso: Paul Sabatier e la sua 'Vita di S Francesco' Cent'Anni Dopo," Studi Ecumenici 12 (Jl-S, 1994) 1–191. societa internazionale di studi francescani, La Questione Francescana da Sabatier ad oggi: Atti del I Covegno Internazionale (Assisi 1973).

[r. brown]