Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol III (1901).djvu/308

 singing of a simple song or a devotional oratorio air, Reeves never sang for mere effect.



 (1822–1897), egyptologist, oriental scholar, and theologian, son of Joseph Renouf of Guernsey, and his wife Mary, daughter of John le Page, also of Guernsey, was born in Guernsey on 23 Aug. 1822. He was educated at Elizabeth College, Guernsey, and thence passed in 1841 with a scholarship to Pembroke College, Oxford, where, being intended for the church, he soon came into contact with the protagonists of the tractarian movement, especially with Newman, whose views exerted considerable influence over him. He is said to have aided in the compilation of some of the 'Tracts for the Times.' Certainly his tractarianism was of so uncompromising a type that it hurried him rapidly into the Roman church, and he was 'received' as early as Easter 18-42 at St. Mary's College, Oscott, where, having abandoned Oxford, he remained for some years engaged in various studies.

The years from 1846 to 1855 were occupied in desultory travel and study. In the latter year Renouf, after delivering, at the newly founded Roman catholic university of Ireland, a course of historical lectures on French literature and the history of philosophy, was appointed by Newman, then the rector, to the chair of ancient history, to which was afterwards added the professorship of eastern languages. He held this professorship till 1864, and it was during his tenure of it that he first turned his attention towards egyptology. His first essays in the science which was eventually to become the chief occupation of his life were published in 'Atlantis,' the literary journal of the university, in which, in 1863, appeared his noteworthy defence of egyptological science against the attacks of Sir [q. v.], entitled 'Sir G. C. Lewis on the Decipherment and Interpretation of Dead Languages.' This article finally disposed of all objections to Young and Champollion's: method of deciphering the hieroglyphs [see, 1773-1829]. Though devoting more and more of his time to egyptology, Renouf still took part in the discussion of other subjects, chiefly theological, which interested him. He contributed articles to the 'Home and Foreign Review,' 'North British Review,' and other periodicals. After 1864, when he severed his connection with the Irish Catholic university, he gradually grew out of sympathy with the Ultramontane position. In 1868 he published an essay on the subject of 'The Condemnation of Pope Honorius.' This was in effect a vigorous attack on the doctrine of papal infallibility, which was now definitely propounded at Rome; he showed that without possible doubt the 'infallible Vicar of Christ' Honorius was a monothelite heretic, who, in the words of the judgment of the council held at Constantinople in 681, 'shall be cast out of the Holy Church of God, and be anathematised with them (Sergius of Constantinople and others), because we have found, from the letter written by him to Sergius, that he followed the mind of the latter in all things, and gave authority to his impious dogmas.' This insistence on the historical condemnation of a pope as a heretic was by no means to the taste of the Ultramontane champions of infallibility on the continent and in Ireland, and Renouf 's essay was placed on the 'Index.' His thesis was taken up vigorously by a Jansenist writer, the Rev. J. A. van Beek, who translated Renouf's essay into Dutch, under the title 'Zal de Paus op het aanstaande Concilie onfeilbaar verklaard worden? De Veroordeeling van Paus Honorius,' and supported it with a brochure of his own, 'Beschouwingen over de Pauselijke Onfeilbaarheid.' Renouf did not retreat before the clamour of Ultramontane resentment, which was well expressed in a pamphlet written by Paolo Bottalla, an Italian priest, but he defended his position in a second publication, 'The Case of Pope Honorius reconsidered, with reference to recent Apologies' (1869). With the official adoption of the doctrine of infallibility the controversy ceased. But Renouf did not follow Dr. Dollinger in severing his connection with the Roman church on its adoption of that dogma.

In 1864 Renouf advocated a project which commended itself to many English Roman catholics, though not to the Ultramontanes the foundation of a college for Roman catholics at Oxford; his views were put forward in a letter addressed to Dr. Newman by 'a Catholic Layman,' and entitled 'University Education for English Catholics' (London 1864). The proposal came to nothing.

On his retirement from the Irish catholic, university Renouf was appointed in 1866 one of her majesty's chief inspectors of schools, a post which he held for nearly 