Pirot, Edmonde

Pirot, Edmonde a French theologian, was born Aug. 12, 1631, at Auxerre. He chose the clerical career, and having taken his degrees, the doctorate included, at the Sorbonne, he became a most successful professor of theology, a member of the chapter of Notre Dame de Paris, and at last chancellor. It was his regular business to examine the works and theses of theology. He interrogated Mme. Guyon, and undertook the censure of her doctrines. Fenelon gave him his Explication de Maximes des Saints to examine. He approved of it greatly, after some small changes, going even so far, it is said, as to call it a golden book; then, under the influence of Bossuet, he took back his first decision and wrote against the Explication a censure which was signed by sixty other doctors. He died at Paris Aug. 4, 1713. With the exception of a Latin speech pronounced in 1669, nothing of his exists in print; but some manuscript pamphlets are mentioned by contemporaries.

A Jesuit of this name, Prof (Georges), who was born in 1599 in the bishopric of Rennes, is the author of an Apologie des Casuistes contre les Calomnies des Jansenistes (1657), a work condemned by Alexander VII and several bishops. He died Oct. 6, 1659. — Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Géneralé, 40, 320.