JURIEU, Pierre (1637-1713), a French Protestant theologian, was born in 1637 at Mer, in Orléanais, where his father was a Protestant pastor. He studied at Saumur and afterwards at Sedan under his maternal grandfather the famed theologian Pierre Dumoulin, who died about the time that Jurieu left Sedan. After completing his studies in England under his maternal uncle Dumoulin, Jurieu received episcopal ordination there, and returning to France succeeded his father as pastor of the church at Mer. In 1674 he accepted the chair of theology and Hebrew at Sedan, where he soon afterwards became also pastor. Both as preacher and professor he obtained a very high reputation, but much of the legitimate influence of his talents was destroyed by the extreme warmth of his controversial temper, which frequently developed into an irritated fanaticism verging on insanity. On the suppression of the university of Sedan in 1681, Jurieu received an invitation to a church at Rouen, but, dreading persecution on account of a work he was about to publish, entitled La Politique du Clergé de France, he went to Holland and became soon after pastor of the Walloon church of Rotterdam, an office which he occupied till his death, 11th January 1713....
Deeply pained by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes Jurieu turned for consolation to the prophecies of the Apocalypse, and succeeded in persuading himself that the overthrow of Antichrist would take place in 1689, and afterwards, when that year had passed without the fulfilment of the prophecy, in 1715. Jurieu defended the doctrines of Protestantism with great ability against the attacks of Arnauld and Bossuet, but was equally ready to enter into dispute with his fellow Protestant divines when their opinions differed from his own even on minor matters. The bitterness and persistency of his attacks on his colleague Bayle led to the latter being deprived of his chair in 1693. In his favour it must, however, be mentioned that he was actuated in his controversies not by a mean jealousy of his opponents but by a sincere anxiety for truth. One of the most important works of Jurieu is Lettres Pastorales adressées aux Fidèles de France, 3 vols., Rotterdam, 1686 and 1687, which found its way into France notwithstanding the vigilance of the police, and produced a deep impression on the Protestant population. Besides his numerous other controversial writings, which deal with nearly every topic in regard to which difference of opinion was possible, Jurieu was the author of a Traité de la Dévotion, Rouen, 1679.
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