‘A Religious Attention to Minutiae’: César de Missy (1703–1775) Studies the New Testament

Abstract

“This article offers a portrait of the milieu and scholarly activity of César de Missy, an assiduous and richly connected but hitherto unknown member of the Republic of Letters in eighteenth-century London. De Missy preached at Huguenot churches and collected books, especially bibles: he published little, but left a great deal of scholarship in manuscript, mostly concerned with the readings and codicology of the Greek New Testament. Perhaps his most peculiar and revealing pursuit was the minute study of scribal error in the production of manuscripts, an activity that absorbed his attention far more than its profit might seem to warrant. I argue that De Missy's fixation on the multiple histories of the scriptural text represents a private reaction to loss, turning away from the more conventional public scholarship of the Huguenot diaspora.”