Simon, Richard, a celebrated French biblical scholar, born at Dieppe; entered the Congregation of the Oratory in 1659, and became professor of Philosophy at the College of Juilly; was summoned to Paris, and under orders of his superiors spent some time in cataloguing the Oriental MSS. in the library of the Oratory; his free criticisms and love of controversy got him into trouble with the and the Benedictines, and the heterodoxy of his “Histoire Critique du Vieux Testament” (1678) brought about his withdrawal to Belleville, where he remained as curé till 1682, when he retired to Dieppe to continue his work on Old and New Testament criticism; he ranks as among the first to deal with the scriptural writings as literature, and he anticipated not a few of the later German theories (1638‒1712).
Definition taken from The Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood (1907)
Simon, Jules * Simon Magus