The New International Encyclopædia/Vernes, Maurice Louis

VERNES, vârn, Maurice Louis (1845 — ). A French biblical scholar, born at Nauroy (Aisne). He studied theology at Montauban and Strassburg, and went to the Sorbonne in 1877 as lecturer on philosophy in the Protestant faculty of theology. In 1886 he became director of the department of religious sciences in the École Pratique des Hautes Etudes. He devoted himself particularly to the subject of comparative religions, and published: Le peuple d'Israël et ses espérances (1872); Histoire des idées messianiques depuis Alexandre jusqu'd l'empereur Adrien (1874); Histoire du peuple israelitique (1881); L'hisioire des religions: son esprit, sa méthode et ses divisions (1887); Une nouvelle hypothese sur la composition et l'origine du Deutéronome (1887); and Du prétendu polythéisme des Hebreux (1891).