, a learned father of the Romish church, and a monk of the Benedictine
, a learned father
of the Romish church, and a monk of the Benedictine order, was born at Martres in the diocese of Rieux in Gascony, and entered into the order of the preaching friars
at Toulouse in 1622. He taught divinity several years
with applause in the convent of the same city, and was
made prior there; as he was likewise at Avignon, and in
the general novitiate of the suburb of St. Germain at Paris.
He was definitor for his province in the general chapter
held in 1656, in which he presided at the theses dedicated
to pope Alexander VII. which gained him the esteem of all
the city and his whole order. He was present at the assembly, in which the pope ordered the definitors and
fathers of the chapter to be told, from him, that he was
extremely grieved to see the Christian morality sunk into
such a deplorable relaxation, as some of the new casuists
had reduced it to, and that he exhorted them to compose
another system of it, which should be conformable to the
doctrine of St. Thomas. This was what engaged father
Baron to undertake the works which he wrote upon that
subject. He was again chosen provincial; and afterwards
sent by the father general as commissary to Portugal, upon
important affairs, which he managed with such success,
that the queen, the court, and all the monks gave testimony of his merit by a public act. He returned to Paris
to the general novitiate, and died there, Jan. 21, 1674,
aged seventy years. Besides several Latin poems, which
he left as instances of his capacity in polite literature, he
published the following works: 1. “Theologia Moralis,
”
Paris, Libri
Apologetici contra Theophilum Rainaudum,
” Paris, Mens sancti Augustini & Thorn ae de
Gratia & Libertate,
” Ethica Christiana,
”
Paris, Responsio ad Librum Cardense,
” ibid, in 8vo. 6. “L'Heresie Convaincue,
” Paris,
Panegyriques des Saints,
” ibid.