Excepting occasional short absences, Le Quien never left Paris. At the time of his death he was librarian of theconvent in Rue Saint-Honoré, a position which he had filled almost all his life, lending assistance to those who sought information on theology and ecclesiastical antiquity. Under the supervision ofJacques Marsollier [fr] he mastered the classical languages,Arabic andHebrew, to the detriment, it seems, of his mother tongue.[1]
Défense du texte hébreu et de la version vulgate (Paris, 1690), reprinted inMigne'sScripturae Sacrae Cursus, III (Paris 1861), 1525–84. It is an answer toL'antiquité des temps rétablie by theCistercianPaul Pezron (1638–1706), who took the text of theSeptuagint as sole basis for his chronology. Pezron replied, and was again answered by Le Quien.
Johannis Damasceni opera omnia, Greek text with Latin translation (2 vols. fol., Paris, 1712), republished inMigne'sPatrologia Graeca volumes 94–96. To this fundamental edition, Le Quien added a number of dissertations. A third volume, which was to have contained other works of John of Damascus and various studies on him, was never completed.
Panoplia contra schisma Graecorum, under the pseudonym of Stephanus de Altimura Ponticencis (Paris, 1718), a response to thePeri arches tou Papa ofPatriarch Nectarius of Jerusalem, arguing for the primacy of the pope.
La nullité des ordinations anglicanes (2 vols., Paris, 1725), andLa nullité des ordinationes anglicanes démontrée de nouveau (2 vols., Paris, 1730), againstPierre François le Courayer's apology for Anglican Orders.
Various articles on archaeology and ecclesiastical history, published by Desmolets (Paris, 1726–1731).
Oriens christianus in quatuor patriarchatus digestus, in quo exhibentur Ecclesiae patriarchae caeterique praesules totius Orientis, published posthumously (3 vols., Paris, 1740). Le Quien contemplated issuing this work as early as 1722, and had made a contract with the printer Simart (Revue de l'Orient latin, 1894, II, 190). In editing it, he used the notes of the Benedictine Abel-Louis de Sainte-Marthe, who had projected anOrbis Christianus, and had obligingly handed him over his notes on the Orient and Africa. TheOriens Christianus, as projected by Le Quien, was to comprise not only the hierarchy of the four Greek and Latinpatriarchates ofConstantinople,Alexandria,Antioch andJerusalem, and that of theJacobite,Melkite,Nestorian,Maronite andArmenian patriarchates, but also the Greek and Latin texts of the variousNotitiae episcopatuum, a catalogue of the Eastern and African monasteries, and also the hierarchy of the African Church. The last three parts of this gigantic project were set aside by Le Quien's literary heirs. His notes on Christian Africa and its monasteries have never been used in their entirety.
Abrégé de l'histoire de Boulogne-sur-Mer et ses comtes in Desmolets,Mémoires de littérature, X (Paris, 1749), 36–112.
Quetif andJacques Échard,Scriptores ordinis prædicatorum recensiti, notisque historicis illustrati ad annum 1700 auctoribus, II, SOS; Journal des Savants, ci
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Michel Le Quien".Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.