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Marlorat(Us), Augustine

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Marlorat(Us), Augustine,

a French Protestant theologian, was born at Bar-le-Duc in 1506. At an early age he was put in an Augustine convent, and took the vows in 1524. He soon acquired great reputation as a preacher. Having been appointed prior of a convent of his order at Bourges, he commenced to entertain Protestant views, as is evinced in the sermons he delivered after 1533 at Bourges, Poitiers, and Angers. He was designated to preach during the Lenten season at Rouen, when he openly separated from the Church. Pursued as a heretic, he sought refuge at Geneva, where he lived for a time by correcting proofs for the printers. He then went to Lausanne, to perfect his knowledge of theology. In 1549 he was appointed pastor at Crissier, and afterwards at Vevay. The consistory of Geneva sent him in 1559 to Paris, and in the beginning of the year following he was called to take charge of the Reformed Church at Rouen. His talents and his personal qualities now had a fair opportunity for display, and soon gained him great influence in that city, and brought many converts to the Church. In 1561 he went to the Colloquy of Poissy, where, next to Theodore de Beza, he stood at the head of the Protestants, and on the 15th of May he presided over the provincial synod assembled at Dieppe. The opposition of the government towards all expression of religious opinion adverse to Roman Catholicism, and more particularly the bloody deeds of Vassy on March 1, 1562, had greatly exasperated the Protestants, (See HUGUENOTS); and the latter, feeling that there was only one alternative for them, either to fight for their conscience sake or abjure their honest convictions, took to arms all over France. The opening scene had been made at Paris. At Rouen the Protestants were in the majority (if we may follow Beza; according to Floquet [Rom. Cath.], however, they only constituted one fifth of the population), and, anxious to secure the city for the armies of Conde, made themselves masters of the place by stealth in the night of April 15 to 16. An independent government was established, and unbounded religious toleration exercised towards non-Protestants.

The masses, however, in the hour of excitement behaved madly. A spirit of iconoclasm took hold upon them, and within twenty-four hours they destroyed some of the most valuable works of art in fifty churches. For this and other outrages the Protestant leaders, of whom Marloratus was one, were not responsible either directly or indirectly. Yet, when the Roman Catholics succeeded in retaking the city, he was one of the first accused, and, though he had done no more than simply battle for the grant of religious freedom, he was arrested Oct. 26, 1562, brought before the bar of the Parliament, which had re-entered Rouen with the Roman Catholic forces, and condemned, as a traitor and heretic, to be drawn on a hurdle through the streets of the town, and then hung in front of his own church. After the execution, which took place Nov. 1, 1563, his head was severed from the trunk, and exposed on the bridge of the town. The Huguenots revenged this outrage by the execution of two leading Romanists in their hands. The widow and five children of Marloratus fled to England, where they were for a long time maintained by the French Protestants.

As a writer Marloratus figures very prominently also. His exegetical works are numerous and valued, because of the accuracy and scholarship which they evince in the author. "They may be best described as painstaking and not injudicious selections of the interpretations of other writings" (Kitto). His earliest production is Remonstrances i la reyne mere par ceux qui sont persecutes pour la parole de Dieu (1561, 12mo; 2d ed. 1561, 8vo); but one of his most important productions is his Novi Testamenti catholica expositio, etc. (Geneva, 1561, fol.; 2d ed. 1605, fol.). This is a valuable work, containing Erasmus's Latin version of the N.T., with the expositions of the fathers of the Church, and of Bucer, Calvin, Erasmus, Muscululs, Melancthon, Sarcerius, Brentius, Bullinger, Zwginlius, Vitus Theodorus, etc. His object seems to have been to prove to Romanists the identity of the Protestant and the Apostolic Church, and the essential oneness of the two Protestant parties. He himself leaned towards Calvinism. Parts of it were translated into English, and published under the following titles: A Catholike and Ecclesiastical Exposition of the holy Gospell after S. Mathewe. Translated out of Latine into Englishe by Thomas Tymnze, in lynister (Lond. 1570, fol.); A Catholike and Ecclesiastical Exposition upon the Apocalyps of S. John the Apostle. Translated (black letter, Lond. 1574, 4to). Translations have also been published of his Exposition of St. Mark (1583, 4to); St. John (1574, 4to); St. Jude (1584, 4to), etc. He also wrote Genesis, cum cattholica Expositione, etc. (Geneva, 1562, fol., often reprinted); In CL Psalmos et aliorum S. S. Prophetarum — Expositio ecclesiastica, etc., Item Cantica sacra ex divinis Bibliorumn locis cum simili expositione (Geneva, 1562, fol., often reprinted; and in English under the title Prayers in the Psalms, Lond. 1571, 16mo); etc. See Haag, La France Protestante; Chevrier, Menm. pour servir a l'histoire des honmmes illustres de la Lorraine; Notice sur Aug. Marlorat, in the Bulletin de la Societ de l'Hist. du Protestantisme ‘ Frangais, une annue, p. 109; Augustin Marlorat, sa vie et sa mort (Caen, 1862, 8vo); Floquet's Beza, Histoire Ecclesiastique, passim, and especially 2:610 sq.; Schott, in Herzog, Real-Encyklop. 20:92-96; Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Generale, 33:858; Darling, Cyclopaedia Bibliographica, 2:1965; Middleton, Ev. Biog. 2:82. (J. H.W.)