Jacques Forget

The abbé Jacques Forget (Chiny, 6 January 1852 – Louvain, 1933) was a Belgian priest, biblical scholar and professor of Arabic at the Catholic University of Louvain.^[1]

Life

Jacques Forget was born 6 January 1852 in Chiny, Belgium. He was educated at the seminaries of Bastogne and Namur. He studied Semitic languages in Rome, Beirut, Syria, and the University of Berlin. Forget was ordained in 1876.^[2]

In 1885, Forget became a professor at the University of Leuven, teaching Arabic language and literature; the following year, he added dogmatic theology and Syriac. He founded the African Society, for missionaries to the Congo. He was an honorary canon of the cathedral of Namur; and wrote several articles for the Catholic Encyclopedia.^[2]

In 1895, he participated in the international Congress of Catholic Scholars in Brussels. In 1905, he attended the International Congress of Orientalists in Algiers. He also took part in the International Congress of Apologetics in 1910 in Vich, Switzerland.^[2]

References

^ Urbain Vermeulen, Union européenne des arabisants et islamisants. Congress, J. M. F. van Reeth - 1998 "At Beelen's retirement Arabic disappeared from the programme, but it came back in 1885, when Jacques Forget was appointed professor of Arabic. The activity of this scholar was unimaginably varied: after defending a dissertation on the Syrian Afraates, he taught Arabic, the history of Arabic philosophy, ethics, dogmatics, Syriac, Hebrew (1925) and during a number."
^ ^a ^b ^c The Catholic Encyclopedia and its makers. New York: The Encyclopedia Press. 1917. pp. 59. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.