L'abbé Grégoire devant les prophétesses

Catherine Laurence Maire (1)

1 CRPRA - Centre de recherches politiques Raymond Aron

This contribution reevaluates Henri Grégoire's Histoire des sectes religieuses (1810), which was overlooked by historians: it offers a significant and complex perspective on the role of women within religious life, while, at the same time, represents one of the first attempts to analyze the sectarian phenomenon with modern instruments. Such a phenomenon is considered in an eschatological, prophetic framework, which explains the tension toward the accomplishment of the Scriptural predictions and the goal of the religious, final and universal unification on earth. As for the role of women active in these heretical movements, Grégoire recovers and updates the anti-feminist tradition embodied in Feustking, who viewed women's influence on ecclesiastic affairs as a calamity, although he was also open to admitting some positive aspects. This essay studies the pheonmenon of women's prophecy linked to "figural Jansenism" and its apocalyptic developments, well known by Grégoire, and focuses in particular on the "prophetesses of the Revolution" and on the "enlightenend women" of the XIX century.

Cette contribution réévalue l'importance de l'histoire des sectes religieuses (1810) de l'abbé Grégoire, en particulier sur la question du rôle des femmes au sein des minorités religieuses et dans le ministère ecclésiastique. Elle révèle l'ambivalence et l'anti-féminisme culturel de l'abbé Grégoire vis à vis des prophétesses surtout issues des courants jansénistes mais également de l'illuminisme du début du XIXème siècle.

Mots clés: abbé Grégoire; prophétesses; figurisme; jansénisme; anti-féminisme; ministère des femmes

Domaines: Histoire

Catherine Laurence Maire. L'abbé Grégoire devant les prophétesses. Rivista di Storia del Cristianesimo, 2007, IV (2), pp.411-429. ⟨halshs-00609995⟩