Genebrard Gilbert

Genebrard Gilbert, a celebrated Benedictine, was born at Rioni, in Auvergne, in 1537. Having entered into the Benedictine order at the abbey of Maussac, he studied at Paris, where he learned Greek under Turnebius. In 1569 he was made professor of Hebrew at the Royal College of Navarre. In 1592 he was made archbishop of Aix by Gregory XIV. He bad, in the same year, published a "Treatise of Elections" (De Sacrarum Electionuses Jure et necessitate, ad Ecclesiae Gallicanae Redintegrationem), in which he maintained that the elections of bishops belong of right to the clergy and people, and argued acutely against the nominations of kings and princes. The Parliament of Aix in 1596 decreed that his book should be burnt by the bands of the common executioner, and, after depriving the author of his see, condemned him to banishment from the kingdom, prohibiting his return to it on pain of death. 'He was afterwards permitted to return to his priory at Seamur, where he died March 24, 1597. Genebrard was one of the most learned men of his time. He wrote in Latin, besides the work above mentioned, and others of which a list is given in Dupin, A Sacred

Chronology (8vo): — Notes upon the Scriptures — A Commentary upon the Psalms (8vo), in which be particularly applies himself to reconcile the Hebrew tenet with the vulgar Latin, and defends the Septuagint version; the best edition is that of Paris (1588, fol.) — A Translations of the Canticles into Iambic Verse: — Notes upon the Hebrew Grammar. He published an edition of Origen's Works, with a Latin version (1578); and a translation into French of Josephus (2 volumes, 8vo). — Dupin, Eccl. Writers, cent. 16; Hoefer. Nouv. Biog. Generale, 19:865; Hook, Eccl. Biog. 5:287.