Marie-Joseph Lagrange

Marie-Joseph Lagrange (born Albert Marie-Henri Lagrange on 7 March 1855, in Bourg-en-Bresse, died on 10 March 1938, in Marseille) was a Catholic priest in the Dominican Order, theologian and founder of the École Biblique in Jerusalem. Life Albert Marie-Henri Lagrange was born 7 March 1855, in Bourg-en-Bresse, France. At the age of three, he received a blessing from the Curé d’Ars. At the junior Seminary of Autun, he studied languages: Greek, German, English, and Italian. He studied law at Paris, obtaining a Doctorate in 1878; and he was admitted to practice. In 1878 he entered the Dominican seminary at Issy-les-Moulineaux, and from there went to the novitiate at St Maximin in Toulouse, where he received the habit and was given the name Brother Marie-Joseph. In 1880, the Dominicans were expelled from France. Lagrange went to the Spanish Dominican house of St. Stephen in Salamanca. He was ordained a priest at Zamora in 1883. Lagrange was a professor of Church history and Holy Scripture when he was sent to Vienna to improve his knowledge of Oriental languages: Assyrian, Egyptian, Arabic, and Hebrew. He also studied Rabbinical literature. In February 1889, he was sent to Jerusalem, where in November 1890 he opened the École Pratique d’Études Bibliques (Practical School of Biblical Studies). In 1892, he founded the Revue biblique. While some contemporaries criticized the new scientific and critical approach to the Bible, Lagrange made use of it.