VIGNIER, JÉRÔME

French Oratorian scholar; b. Blois, 1606; d. Saint-Magloire, Nov. 14, 1661. Vignier, the son of a Calvinist minister, became a lawyer. While doing historical research, he met the bishop of Orléans, who occasioned his conversion to Catholicism. He joined the Bérullian Oratory at Blois (1630) and became a priest. He studied Greek, Hebrew, and Scripture, and also genealogy and numismatics. From 1648 he taught at the seminary at Saint-Magloire. He published the Véritable Origine des Maisons d'Alsace, de Lorraine, et d'Autriche (Paris 1649), a relevant contribution to the complex dynastic politics of the period. He edited (1654) St. Augustine's Contra Julianum, Opus Imperfectum (a second treatise against Julian; four of the six books hitherto unpublished). Relationships between this and Cornelius Otto jansen's Augustinus caused some to allege the books were spurious, thus delaying publication for a time. Friendship with Cardinal Jean de retz brought Vignier into political disgrace, and he had to hide in the house of the bishop of Châlons until the cardinal was reconciled to the court. Vignier then resumed work at Saint-Magloire, but he died soon afterward. His Endiatessaron, Histoire et Harmonie de l'Evangile (Paris 1662), the best concordance then available, did not appear until after his death.

Bibliography: h. hurter, Nomenclator literarius theologiae catholicae, 5 v. in 6 (3d ed. Innsbruck 1903–1913); v.1 (4th ed.1926) 1:461. h. rahner, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. m. buchberger, 10 v. (Freiburg 1930–38) 10:611.

[j. c. challenor]