Pothier, Remi

Pothier, Remi a French theologian, was born at Rheims in 1727. After entering the service of the Church he was successively curate of Betheniville and canon of Laon. At the outbreak of the Revolution he retired to Belgium. After his return to his native country he did not again discharge any sacerdotal functions. He entertained original and often strangely bold opinions, and his obstinate character and polemical mania made him the terror of all who approached him. He was convinced that no one before him had made out the true meaning of the Bible; he undertook to make it known to the world, and started with his alleged Explication de l'Apocalypse, the plan of which, published in 1773, was burned by order of the Parliament of Paris at the requisition of the advocate-general Seguier, who pronounced it a masterpiece of human extravagance. Nevertheless Pothier had his work clandestinely printed ill extenso (Douai, 1773, 2 vols. 8vo); he translated it into Latin (Augsburg, 1797, 2 vols. and 1798, 12mo), and published an extract of it, with the title Les Trois Dernlieres Plaies-The Three Last Plagues (1798, 12mo), in which he calls Bonaparte the precursor of the Antichrist. In 1802 he published in Latin an Explanation of the Psalms of David (Augsburg, 8vo). Under the empire two of his pamphlets against the four articles of the Gallican Church were confiscated by the police. Pothier died at Rheims June 23, 1812. — Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Géneralé, s.v.