SIMON, RICHARD, was bom at Dieppe, May 13, 1638. He entered the congregation of the Oratory at an early age, and soon distinguished himself as a learned and laborious Hebrew scholar. He taught philosophy first at Juilly, and then at Paris, where he employed himself in forming a catalogue of the numerous and valuable Oriental MSS. in the library of the Oratory, and thence making collec tions which assisted him greatly in his subsequent labours. Front the beginning of his career he was distinguished by a boldness of thought and action which are rarely found in members of his com munion ; and the first work of magnitude which he attempted was prompted by the offer of 12,000 livres by the Protestants of Charenton for a new translation of the Bible in place of that of Geneva, which was objected to as antiquated and obscure. But his plan of a version which should be equally acceptable to Protestants and Roman Catholics had no result except to bring upon him the rebukes ot his Roman Catholic brethren. His celebrity is chiefly owing to his (t.) Critical History of the O. T., first published in 1678. In the course of this work he denies that Moses was the author of the Pentateuch, and attributes its compilation to scribes of the time of Esdras, acting under the direction of the Great Synagogue. So daring a criticism could not fail to excite the alarm of his censor Pirot, and was by him submitted to Bossuet, who obtained an order from the Chancellor to forbid its publication until more rigorously examined. The result of the exatnination was a decree of council suppressing the work, and ordering all copies of it to be destroyed. One of these escaped, and was the basis of a defective edition published by the Elzevirs in Holland. A Latin translation by Aubert de Verse is still more defective. But a very correct edition, with preface, apolog,y, marginal notes, and controversial tracts, was published at Rotterdam in 1685, by Raineer Leers. An English translation was published in London in 1682. The scandal occasioned by this work fell on the congregation of the Oratory, and after a vain attempt by Abel Louis de Sainte Marthe, the general of the order, to make him modify his views, he was ejected from the body, and retired to his cure at Bolleville in Normandy. Having returned to Paris after an absence of two years, he published in 1689 his (2.) Critical History of the N. T., and in 1690 his (3.) Critical History of the Versions of the N. T. These works were well received, and it was proposed to republish his Histories, while Bossuet wished to engage him in the translation into Latin of a number of theological tractates of the Greek church for the information of Catholics. But these plans fell to the
g-round from his refusal to alter his criticisms on the Pentateuch, and in 1693 he published at Rot terdam his (4.) Critical History of the Principal Commentators on the N. T, in which he spoke very contemptuously of councils and fathers, especially St. Augustine, while he extolled the merits of Grotius and the Unitarians. His next work was (5.) A French Translation of the N. T. with critical remarks, printed in 1702 at Trevoux, the capital of the little state of Dombes, to whose sovereign, the Duke du Maine, he dedicated the work. But notwithstanding the privileke of this prince, and the approbation of Bouvet, a doctor of the Sorbonne, the keen judgment of Bossuet de tected false views and dangerous principles in every part of the work, and stopped its publication. This led to a good deal of controversy, and some manceuvring on the part of Simon, who succeeded in obtaining for it the privilege of Pontchartrain, the Chancellor of France. But the Cardinal de Noailles, Archbishop of Paris, forbade its perusal by a mandateof the 15th October 1702. Simon, however, had powerful supporters, and it required all the address and resolution of Bossuet to obtain a revocation of the privilege granted by Pontchar train, and pass against the work a mandate similar to that of the Cardinal Archbishop. He died at Dieppe, April 1, 1712, after leaving his books and MSS. to the Cathedral of Rouen.
He was a man of immense learning, and his worics abound in curious and instructive observa tions ; but he was too fond of new and paradoxical opinions, and too obstinately attached to those lie had formed, never allowing that any harm could result from them. He had the fancy of writing under fictitious names, and did not scruple to dis own a work which he thought it dangerous to ac knowledge. He wrote many books besides the 1 above, among which may be named Fides Ecclesia, Orientalis, 1671 and 1682 ; Ceremonies et Cott tames des 721ifs d'aujottrdhui, translated from the Italian of Leon de Modena—the edition of 168i has a supplement on the Caraltes and Samaritans ; Histoire Critique de la Creance et des Coutuntes des nations du Levant, 1684, 171i ; Histoire de gine et a'es Progres des Reventes Ecclesiastiques, 1684.; Navonim Bibliorttm Synopsis—this was the pro ject of a new Polyglott to contain the Hebrew and the Greek text, and the Latin Vulgate, in three columns, 1684 ; the work was far advanced at the time of his death. Ambrosii Dricenis Epistola de Novis Bibliis Polyclottis contains the plan of a dictionary and Hebrew grammar, to be used with his Polyglott.—M. H.