Calmet, Antoine Augustin (1672-1757), French Benedictine, was born at Mesnil-la-Horgne on the 26th of February 1672. At the age of seventeen he joined the Benedictine order, and in 1698 was appointed to teach theology and philosophy at the abbey of Moyen-Moutier. He was successively prior at Lay, abbot at Nancy and of Sénones in Lorraine. He died in Paris on the 25th of October 1757. The erudition of Calmet’s exegetical writings won him a reputation that was not confined to the Roman Catholic Church, but they have failed to stand the test of modern scholarship. The most noteworthy are:—Commentaire de la Bible (Paris, 23 vols. 1707-1716), and Dictionnaire historique, géographique, critique, chronologique et littéral de la Bible (Paris, 2 vols., 1720). These and numerous other works and editions of the Bible are known only to students, but as a pioneer in a branch of Biblical study which received a wide development in the 19th century, Calmet is worthy of remembrance. As a historical writer he is best known by his Histoire ecclésiastique et civile de la Lorraine (Nancy, 1728), founded on original research and various useful works on Lorraine, of which a full list is given In Vigouroux’s Dictionnaire de la Bible.
See A. Digot, Notice biographique et littéraire sur Dom Augustin Calmet (Nancy, 1860).
