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Combefis, Francois

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Comber, Thomas

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a learned Dominican monk was born in November, 1605, at Marmande, in the Department of Lot-et-Garonne, in France. He was educated by the Jesuits at Bordeaux, and in 1624 entered the Dominican order. After completing his theological studies, he was appointed professor of philosophy and theology in several houses of his order (in 1640 at Paris). But soon he withdrew from his professorship in order to devote all his time to literary labors, and, in particular, to the study and publication of the ancient writers of the Church. After publishing, in 1644, the works of Amphilochius, bishop of Iconium, of Methodius and Andreas of Crete (2 vols. fol., Greek and Latin, with notes), and in 1645 the Scholia of St. Maximus on Dionysius, he attracted great attention by the publication of the Novum Auctarium Greeco-Latinoe. Bibliothecae Patrum (Paris, 1648), which consists of an exegetical and a historical part. The former contains homilies and sermons of St. Asterius, bishop of Amasea, of St. Proclus, of St. Anastasius of Alexandria, and of several other Church fathers and writers. The second part contains a history of the Monothelites, which was not well received in Rome, and the writings of several Greek writers, ecclesiastical and secular.

In 1655 he published the Chronography of the Byzantine writer Theophanes, which had been begun by the Dominican monk Goar, but left unfinished at his death. In order to encourage these literary labors, the French bishops, at a meeting in Paris in 1655, assigned to Combefis an annual salary of 500 livres, which in the next year was increased to 800, and later to 1000 livres. In 1656 he published several works of Chrysostom; in 1660 the acts of martyrs of the Greek Church (Illustrium Christi Martyrum Lecti Triumphi, Greek and Latin). In 1662 appeared one of his greatest works, the Bibliotheca Patrum Concionatoria (8 vols. Paris). Among the most important of his later works are the following: Auctarium novissimum Bibliothecoe Graecorum Patrum (Paris, 1672, 2 vols.), containing Liber Flavii Josephi de imperio rationis in laudem Maccabceorum, two books of Hippolytus, one essay of Methodius, two works against the Manicheans by Alexander of Lycopolis (formerly himself a Manichean). and by Didymus of Alexandria; some essays of the Hesychast Palamas and his opponent Manuel Kalakas, who, on account of his Romanizing tendencies, had been expelled from the Greek Church and had entered the Dominican order; the Eccles. Groecus (Par. 1674), containing a Latin translation of select works of Basil the Great and Basil bishop of Seleucia; and new editions of the works of Maximus Confessor (Paris, 1675, 2 vols. fol. this work was left incomplete in consequence of the death of Combefis) and of Basil the Great. The edition of Gregory of Nazianzus, and of the works of those Byzantine writers who wrote after Theophanes, were prepared by Combefis, but not finished. The latter was published by Du Fresne (Paris, 1685); the former was made use of by the Maurine Louvard for his edition of Gregory. Combefis died March 23,1679. See Wetzer u. Welte, Kirchen Lex. 2:701 sq.; Quetif and Echard, Script. Ord. Praedic. 2:678 sq.