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Hardouin (Hardinus), Jean

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Hardouin (Hardinus), Jean

a Jesuit, one of the most learned, but most eccentric members of his order was born A.D. 1646, at Quimper, in Brittany. His paradoxes on ancient history are well known, and had their origin chiefly in the vanity which prompted him to obtain celebrity at any cost. He endeavored to prove that the AEneid ascribed to Virgil, and the odes attributed to Horace, were really composed by some monks during the Middle Ages! He edited an edition of the Councils to the year 1714 (12 vols. fol.), which is much esteemed. (See CONCILIA). This may appear singular, considering that Hardouin looked upon all councils preceding that of Trent as supposititious. Father Brun, of the Oratory, knowing the opinions of the Jesuit on that point, asked him one day, "How did it happen that you published an edition of the Councils?" Hardouin answered, "Only God and I know that." He died at the College of St. Louis, Paris, and Sept. 3, 1729. His most noted work is his Chronologiae ex Nummis Antiquis restitutce Prolusio de Nummis Herodiadum (Paris, 1693, 4to), in which he labors to show that, with few exceptions, the writings ascribed to the ancients are wholly spurious. He wrote also Chronologia Vet. Testamenti (Paris, 1697, 4to): — Commentarius in Nov. Test. (Amst. 1741, fol.): — De situ Paradisi Terrestris Disquisitio (in his edit. of Pliny): — Plinii Historia Naturalis (in the Delphin classics): — Opera selecta (1709, fol.). His Opera Omnia (Amsterdam, 1733, fol.) contains some curious pieces, among which are his Pseudo-Virgilius, Pseudo-Horatius, and especially his Athei detecti, against Jansenius, Arnauld, Nicole, Pascal, Quesnel, Des Cartes, etc. A posthumous work of his, Prolegomena ad Censuram Scriptorum Veterum (1766, 8vo), contains his full theory of the production of the classics by the monks of the Middle Ages. See P. Oudin, Eloges de quelques auteurs frangais; Moreri, Grand Dict. histor.; Dupin, Bibl. des auteurs eccles. 19:109; Journ. des Savants, June, 1726, p. 226; March, 1727, p. 328; January-April, 1728, p. 579; La Croze, Dissert. hist. sur divers sujets, p. 231; Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Gé neralé, 23, 357.