Abstract: Nothing more natural than a preacher quoting the Bible and the Fathers of the Church. But, surprisingly enough, whenever he quotes a passage, Bossuet regularly delivers its French translation, in his own words, before quoting the original Latin text. In so doing he may intend to show that he already has in himself, and we have in ourselves, God’s message. Such a chronology, akin to an act of faith, is the one we find in the Latin language, where History is not exposed in the same order as in French.
