These writers were read by him, as other young persons peruse romances
or novels, only from a puerile desire of amusement; for he had so
little veneration for them, even while he studied them with most
eagerness, that he often diverted his parents with recounting their
fables and chimeras.
P. 381. _In his twelfth year he applied more particularly to the
study of the fathers._
His father being somewhat uneasy to observe so much time spent by him
on rabbinical trifles, thought it necessary now to recall him to the
study of the Greek language, which he had of late neglected, but to
which he returned with so much ardour, that, in a short time, he was
able to read Greek with the same facility as French or Latin.
He then engaged in the perusal of the Greek fathers, and councils of
the first three or four centuries; and undertook, at his father's
desire, to confute a treatise of Samuel Crellius, in which, under the
name of Artemonius, he has endeavoured to substitute, in the beginning
of St. John's gospel, a reading different from that which is at
present received, and less favourable to the orthodox doctrine of the
divinity of our Saviour.
This task was undertaken by Barretier with great ardour, and
prosecuted by him with suitable application, for he not only drew up a
formal confutation of Artemonius, but made large collections from the
earliest writers, relating to the history of heresies, which he
proposed at first to have published as preliminaries to his book, but,
finding the introduction grew at last to a greater bulk than the book
itself, he determined to publish it apart.
Pages:
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559
560
561
562
563
564
565
566
567
568
569
570