, licentiate in laws, member of the academy of inscriptions and belles lettres,
, licentiate in laws, member of
the academy of inscriptions and belles lettres, and an
ecclesiastic in the diocese of Clermont, in Auvergne, where
he applied himself to his several studies, except philosophy, to pursue which he went to Paris, was born in 1673.
His parents being too poor to maintain him in this city,
commanded him to return home but the friendships he
had contracted, and the pleasure they gave him, were more
irresistible than the authority of his relations; for he told
them, that he was determined to remain where he was, and
seek, in the exertion of his abilities, far those resources
which, from their indigence, he had not any reason to expect. He was very shortly afterwards received into the
family of Monsieur du Metz, president of the chamber
of accounts, who intrusted to him the education of his
sons, who always honoured him with their patronage and
esteem. The exercises which he had set for these young
gentlemen gave birth to his “Historical Explanation of
Fables,
” and, in some measure, determined the author to
make mythology the principal object of his studies during
the remainder of his life.
This work appeared at first only in two volumes 12mo;
but the uncommon taste and erudition discovered through the
whole were the causes of his obtaining, in the year 1714,
an admission into the academy of inscriptions and belles
lettres, as one of their scholars. In 1716, this order was
suppressed, and that of the associates augmented to ten,
of which number was B&nier. In 1729, he was elected one
of their pensioners. In 1715, he published a new edition
of his “Explanation of Fables,
” in dialogues, to which he
annexed a third volume so great was the difference between this edition and the former, that it became justly
entitled to all the merits of a new performance. Besides
the five dialogues, which he added on subjects either not
treated of in his former undertaking, or else very slightlymentioned, there is scarcely a single article which has not
been retouched, and enriched by new conjectures or rendered more valuable by the multitude of proofs which are
advanced in its support. “Until that time,
” says the abbe
du Fresnoy, in his catalogue of historians, “the origin of
ancient fables had never been explained with such knowledge and discernment mythology is sought after at its
first source, profane history. Here are no endeavours to
mark out its affinity to the sacred writings and it is more
than probable that the ill success which Huet bishop of
Avranches, Bochart, and many others, met with in their
attempts of this kind, was the chief reason to induce Banier to drop so fruitless an undertaking. This, however,
is a work in which the author, without losing himself in
the labyrinth of a science which is but too often less replete with use than ostentation, has not only unravelled all
the notions which the ancients, even of the remotest times,
had entertained of their deities, but traced out, with equal
judgment and precision, the progress of their religious
worship in the succeeding ages of the world.
”