1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Monod, Adolphe

4797871911 Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 18 — Monod, Adolphe

MONOD, ADOLPHE (1802–1856), French Protestant divine, was born on the 21st of January 1802, in Copenhagen, where his father was pastor of the French church. He was educated at Paris and Geneva, and began his life-work in 1825 as founder and pastor of a Protestant church in Naples, whence he removed in 1827 to Lyons. Here his evangelical preaching, and especially a sermon on the duties of communicants (“Qui doit communier”?), led to his deposition by the Catholic Minister of education and religion. Instead of leaving Lyons he began to preach in a hall and then in a chapel. In 1836 he took a professorship in the theological college of Montauban, removing in 1847 to Paris as preacher at the Oratoire. He died on the 6th of April, 1856. Monod was undoubtedly the foremost Protestant preacher of 19th-century France. He published three volumes of sermons in 1830, another, La Crédulité de l’incrédule in 1844, and two more in 1855. Two further volumes appeared after his death. His elder brother Frédéric (1794–1863), who was influenced by Robert Haldane, was also a distinguished French pastor, who with Count Gasparin founded the Union of the Evangelical Churches of France; and Frédéric’s son Théodore (b. 1836) followed in his footsteps.