Isaac de Beausobre

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 (November 1685), 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.[1]

He had strong sense with profound erudition, was one of the best writers of his time and an excellent preacher.[1]

Beausobre was married twice. By his first wife he had a son, Charles Louis de Beausobre (1690–1753), 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 (1730–1783), who became a philosopher and political economist, and also a member of the Academy of Sciences.

• Beausobre, Isaac de (1734). Histoire critique de Manichée et du manicheisme. Vol. 1. Amsterdam: J. Frederic Bernard.; 2 (1739)

Attribution: This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Beausobre, Isaac de". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 3 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 599.

Biographical Sketch

• "Isaac De Beausobre Revisited: The Birth of Manichean Studies" by Guy Stroumsa