Migne, Jacques-Paul

▪ French priest and publisher

born Oct. 25, 1800, Saint-Flour, France

died Oct. 24, 1875, Paris

 French Roman Catholic priest who became one of the foremost 19th-century publishers of theological literature.

      Migne studied theology at Orléans, France, where he was ordained priest in 1824. He was then assigned to the French parish of Puiseaux. In 1833 he went to Paris and started a newspaper, L'Univers Religieux (“The Religious World”). At Petit-Montrouge, near Paris, he opened (1836) a publishing house that produced vast collections of religious works at popular prices. The original establishment was destroyed by fire in 1868, but Migne subsequently founded a new house in Paris.

      Migne published, among other works, the Collection intégrale et universelle des orateurs sacrés, 99 vol. (1844–66; “Complete and Universal Collection of Sacred Orators”), and the Encyclopédie Théologique, 168 vol. (1845–66; “Theological Encyclopedia”). His most celebrated publication, however, is considered to be the Patrologiae cursus completus (“Complete Course of the Teachings of the Church Fathers”). This enormous series consists of Patrologia Latina, 217 vol. (1844–55; “Collection of the Latin Fathers”), the available works of Latin ecclesiastical writers up to the time of Pope Innocent III; and Patrologia Graeca, 162 vol. (“Collection of the Greek Fathers”; Greek text and Latin translation, 1857–66), the writings of Christian Greeks to 1439. The Patrologiae is invaluable because its vast scope contains many works nonexistent in other editions.

Additional Reading

R. Howard Bloch, God's Plagiarist: Being an Account of the Fabulous Industry and Irregular Commerce of the Abbé Migne (1994).

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