'Comme des brebis au milieu des loups': Biblical Ideas and Imagery in the Sermons and Pastoral Letters of the French Clergy, 1790-91

This article examines the role of biblical ideas and imagery in the ecclesiastical debates of 1790-91, primarily in the sermons and pastoral letters of the French bishops. These sermons and letters were among the most important means of mass communication at the end of the eighteenth century: they translated often complex ideas into a language that was accessible to millions of Frenchmen and women. The clergy of both the Ancien Régime and the new constitutional Church drew regularly on scriptural narratives in their doctrinal quarrels and personal feuds. These politico-theological polemics involved appeals to apostolic authority, exegeses of well-known parables, denunciations of idolatry from the Old Testament, and prophecies of Armageddon. This language reinforced antagonisms between the refractory and the constitutional clergy and contributed to the schism in the French Church.