GIGOT, FRANCIS ERNEST

Scripture scholar and professor; b. Lhuant (Indre), France, Aug. 21, 1859; d. New York City, June 14, 1920. After his studies at the Christian Brothers' college, Le Dorat, Vienne, the diocesan seminary of Limoges, and the Catholic Institute of Paris, he joined the Society of St. Sulpice. He was ordained on Dec. 22, 1883. In 1885 he came to America, and until 1899 he was on the faculty of St. John's Seminary, Brighton, Mass., as professor, successively, of dogmatic theology, philosophy, and Scripture. In 1899 he was transferred to St. Mary's Seminary, Baltimore, and in 1904 to St. Joseph's Seminary, Dunwoodie, Yonkers, New York. In both of these institutions he was professor of Scripture, and he remained in that field until his death. In 1906 he resigned from the Sulpicians and joined the diocesan clergy of New York. At the time it was stated in the public press that his resignation resulted from the fact that his researches and the publication of them were being curtailed by his Sulpician superiors who were fearful of criticism from ultraconservative Vatican circles. The rector of Dunwoodie denied that interpretation of the resignation. Gigot's competence as a scripturist was acknowledged by scholars of various faiths. He contributed articles to Vigouroux's Dictionnaire de la Bible, the Catholic Encyclopedia, and the New York Review, and he translated the Apocalypse for the Westminster version of the NT. He was the author of several books on Biblical subjects, which reflected the best contemporary scholarly trends and were models of their type. The ecclesiastical spirit of the time was not favorable to the scholarship that Gigot represented, but his method and approach to scriptural study were amply vindicated two decades after his death by the divino af ante spiritu of pius xii. Once widely used manuals were Gigot's General Introduction to the Study of the Holy Scriptures (New York 1900) and Special Introduction to the Study of the Old Testament (2 v. 1903–06).

[m. m. bourke]