Raynaud, Theophilus

, a celebrated Jesuit, was born in 1583, at Sospello, in the county of Nice. He resided almost wholly in France; and though his singular opinions, joined to a temper naturally morose and satirical, involved him in many disputes with his society, he would not quit it. He died at Lyons, October 31, 1663, aged eighty, and the Carmelites paid him funeral honours in all their convents on account of the book he had written on the Scapulary. A complete collection of his works was printed at Lyons; in 1665, 20 vols. fol. Tom. XX is not numbered so, but entitled “Apopompaeus,” 1669, and falsely marked Cracow; it contains those works which father Raynaud did not choose to own. They discover uncommon learning and extent of reading; but as almost all the subjects he has chosen are singular, and treated in a singular and extravagant manner, his books sold slowly at first, and Boissat, who printed them, was ruined, and died in an hospital. Most of his works had been published separately, and their author suffered the mortification of seeing some of them put into the Index. Two of the best and most remarkable among them are, “Erotema cle bonis et mails Libris,” i. e. Questions concerning good and bad books; and “Symbola Antoiiiana,” Rome, 1648, 8vo, relative to St. Anthony’s fire. ²