Lami, Bernard

, a learned priest of the Oratory, was born at Mans in 1640; and educated among the religious of the congregation of the oratory at Paris, and at Saumuc From 1661 to 1667, he taught the classics | and the belles lettres, and in the latter of these years he was ordained priest. He taught philosophy at Sauimir and at Angers, till 1676, when he was deprived of his professorship for being a Cartesian, and his enemies having obtained a lettre de cachet agains^t him, he was banished to Grenoble, where cardinal le Camus had established a seminary, for the education of ecclesiastics^ and having a great esteem for Lami, appointed him professor of divinity. He died January 29, 1715, at Rouen. He left many valuable works: the principal are, “Les Elemens de Geometric, et de Mathematiques,” 2 vols. 12mo; “Un Trait de Perspective,” 1700, 8vo; “Entretiens sur lea Sciences, et sur la Methode d’Etudier,” 1706, 12mo; an introduction to the Holy Scriptures, entitled “Apparatus Biblicus,” 4to. The abbe de Bellegarde has translated it under the title of “Apparat de la Bible,” 8vo, and there is an English translation, by Bundy, in 4to, with fine plates, Lond. 1723, 4to. He published also a valuable work, the labour of thirty years, entitled, “De Tabernaculo foederis, de Sancta Civitate Jerusalem, et de Templo ejus,” folio; “Demonstration, ou Preuves eVidentes de la Vérite et Sainted de la Morale Chretienne,” 1706 to 1711, 5 vols. 12 mo. He wrote also several works concerning the time in which our Saviour kept the passover, &c. the largest of which is his “Harmonia sive concordia Evangelii,” &c. Lyons, 1699, 2 vols. 4to with a Commentary, and a Geographical and Chronological Dissertation. He asserts in this work, that John the Baptist was imprisoned twice; that Christ did not eat the paschal lamb, nor celebrate the passover at his last supper; and that Mary Magdalen, and Mary the sister of Lazarus, were the same person; which three opinions involved him in a long series of disputes with many among the learned. Pere Lami also left “A System of Rhetoric,” 1715, 12mo; “Reflexions sur l’Art Poetique,” 12mo; “Traite de Mechanique, de PEquilibre,” 1687, 12ino, &c. It "was Lami’s practice to travel on foot, and he composed his Elements of Geometry and Mathematics in a journey from Grenoble to Paris, as cardinal Quirini assures us in his Memoirs. ¹