Auguste Sabatier

Louis Auguste Sabatier (French: [sabatje]; 22 October 1839 – 12 April 1901) was a French Protestant theologian.

Biography

He was born at Vallon-Pont-d'Arc, Ardèche and died in Strasbourg.

He was educated at the Protestant theological faculty of Montauban as well as at the universities of Tübingen and Heidelberg.

After holding the pastorate at Aubenas in Ardèche from 1864 to 1868, he was appointed professor of reformed dogmatics at the Protestant theological faculty of Strasbourg. His markedly French sympathies during the War of 1870 led to his expulsion from Strassburg in 1872. After five years' effort he succeeded in establishing a Protestant Faculty of Theology in Paris (today: Faculté de théologie protestante de Paris) along with Eugène Ménégoz, and became professor and then dean. In 1886, he became a teacher in the newly founded religious science department of the École des Hautes Etudes at the Sorbonne.

His brother, Paul, was a noted theological historian. He is the father of two daughters, Marguerite Chevalley, translator, and Lucie Chevalley. Claude Chevalley, mathematician, is his grandson.

Recognition

In 1901, Sabatier was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature by French historian Gabriel Monod for his Esquisse d'une philosophie de la religion d'après la psychologie et l'histoire ("Outlines of a Philosophy of Religion based on Psychology and History", 1897). He died before his only chance to be awarded.

Published works

Among Louis Auguste Sabatier's chief works were:

Essai sur les sources de la vie de Jésus, Les Trois premiers Évangiles et le quatrième ("Essay on the Sources of the Life of Jesus, The First Three Gospels and the Fourth", 1866)