Coustant, Peter

, a learned Benedictine of the congregation of St. Maure, was born at Compiegne in 1654, and died at Paris October 18, 1721, in the abbey of St. Germain des Pres, of which he was dean. He employed much of his time, as was the case with other learned men of his order, in preparing editions of the fathers. In 1693, he published an edition of St. Hilary, folio, and in | 1706 undertook the defence of Mabillon on the subject of establishing rules for distinguishing genuine from fictitious writings, and wrote against Mabillon’s antagonist, father Germon$ a Jesuit, “Vindicise ms. codicum a R. P. Barth. Germon impugnatorum, cum appendice in qua S. Hilarii quidam loci ab anonymo (the abbe Faydit) obscurati et depravati illustrantur et explicantur.” In 1715 he published “Vindiciae veterum codicum confirmatae,” against another work of the same Germon’s, “De veteribus hrcreticis ecclesiasticorum codicum corruptoribus.” He also assisted in the Benedictine edition of St. Augustin’s works, and published “The Letters of the Popes,” at Paris, folio, with a preface and notes, 1721. He was, as to private character, a man of unbounded charity, and, his biographer says, not only loved the poor, but poverty itself. ¹