Isaac de Beausobre

Who was Isaac de Beausobre?

Isaac de Beausobre was a French Protestant churchman, now best known for his history of Manichaeism, Histoire Critique de Manichée et du Manichéisme in two volumes.

Beausobre was born at Niort, Deux-Sèvres. After studying theology at the Protestant Academy of Saumur, he was ordained at the age of twenty-two, becoming pastor at Châtillon-sur-Indre. After the revocation of the edict of Nantes he fled to Rotterdam, and in 1686 was appointed chaplain in Oranienbaum to the princess of Anhalt-Dessau, Henrietta Catherine of Orange-Nassau.

In 1693, on the death of John George II, Prince of Anhalt-Dessau, he went to Berlin and became a court preacher, and in 1695 pastor for the French church at Friedrichswerder Church. He became court preacher, counsellor of the French Reformed Consistory, director of the Maison française, a hospice for French people, inspector of the French gymnasium and superintendent of all the French churches in Brandenburg.

He had strong sense with profound erudition, was one of the best writers of his time and an excellent preacher.

Beausobre was married twice. By his first wife he had a son, Charles Louis de Beausobre, who became a pastor and theologian, and a member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin. By his second wife, Charlotte Schwarz, he had another son, Louis de Beausobre, who became a philosopher and political economist, and also a member of the Academy of Sciences.