£395.00
LE MAISTRE DE SACY, Isaac-Louis (1613–1684). Lettres Chrétiennes et Spirituelles de Messire Isaac Louis Le Maistre de Sacy.
Paris: Guillaume Desprez and Elie Josset, 1690.
Two volumes. First edition. 8vo. French text. Woodcut printer’s device to title and typographical ornaments.
Volume I in contemporary calf, raised bands to spine; binding heavily worn with substantial surface loss, rubbing and deterioration, particularly around the joints and extremities.
Volume II rebound in later brown cloth with manuscript spine lettering and library shelf mark.
Institutional/library stamps and markings, including stamp to the title page of Volume I. Internally the photographed leaves appear substantially better preserved than the bindings, with expected toning and occasional spotting.
Condition: A complete two-volume set in mixed bindings. Volume I retains its substantially worn contemporary calf; Volume II in later institutional cloth. Library markings and stamps. Internally generally well preserved for age. Sold as photographed.
Year: 1690
Edition: First Edition
Publisher: Guillaume Desprez & Elie Josset
Published in Paris in 1690, six years after the author’s death, Lettres Chrétiennes et Spirituelles brings together the spiritual correspondence of Isaac-Louis Le Maistre de Sacy (1613–1684), one of the major religious and literary figures associated with Port-Royal and French Jansenism.
Sacy is particularly important in the history of the French Bible. His name became inseparably associated with the Bible de Port-Royal, whose elegant French prose exercised a lasting influence on French religious literature. Scholarship on Sacy describes his biblical translation as a modern French text that remained influential for more than two centuries.
His religious convictions also brought him into direct conflict with authority: Sacy was imprisoned in the Bastille amid the controversies surrounding Jansenism and Port-Royal.
These letters reveal another aspect of Sacy—not simply the biblical translator and theologian, but the spiritual counsellor. Addressed to bishops, religious figures and others seeking guidance, they deal with humility, faith, Christian conduct and the interior spiritual life.
The collection was published posthumously in two volumes in Paris in 1690, edited by Sister Madeleine de Sainte-Christine Briquet of Port-Royal. Modern scholarship continues to regard these two volumes as an important source for Sacy as a religious writer.
This is a first edition from 1690, now more than 330 years old.
Sacy is a significant figure in the history of French biblical translation, Port-Royal and Jansenism, rather than an obscure seventeenth-century devotional writer. His religious writings are closely connected with one of the major theological and intellectual controversies of seventeenth-century France.
Having both volumes together matters. Bibliographical sources consistently record the original 1690 publication as a two-volume work.
The bindings are certainly compromised, but the historical and bibliographical interest is genuine.
