Pierre (Peter) Allix 

(1641–1717)

Pierre Allix was a notable French Protestant pastor, historian, and author, celebrated for his theological scholarship and his advocacy for religious tolerance. He was born in 1641 in Alençon, Normandy, to Pierre Allix, the pastor of the Reformed church in the town. Allix received his education at the Protestant academy at Saumur, where in 1664 he participated in a disputation published as De ultimo judicio. He began his pastoral career at Grande-Quevilly, Rouen, before succeeding Jean Daillé as pastor of the main Huguenot church at Charenton near Paris in 1670.

A prominent preacher, Allix was known for his brisk and effective style in the pulpit, which attracted scholars from the Sorbonne and visitors from England and Scotland. He built scholarly contacts with men such as the Oxford orientalist Robert Huntingdon and published both theological treatises and manuals for godly living and taking communion. ‘He was well versed in the Hebrew, Syriac, and Chaldean languages; and as his erudition was vast, and his memory was excellent, he was a kind of living library.’ (de Félice 1853: 383) However, controversy arose over his support for the ideas of Claude Payon, leading to tensions within his congregation and accusations of Socinianism.

The revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 forced Allix to flee to London, where (at the invitation of the Bishop of Salisbury) he settled in England, and established a church in Jewin Street, Aldersgate. On 16 December 1687 he was naturalised. His arrival in London was notable enough to prompt a pension offer from the French envoy if he would convert and return to France, which he declined. In London, Allix became one of the most celebrated Huguenot preachers of the 1680s, closely associated with Charles Le Cène, and advocated for religious toleration.

In 1678 Allix married Margeurite (d. 1739), daughter of Jean Roger of Rouen, and together they would have seven children: including John Peter Allix (1679-1758); Mary, d. 1741; m. Claude des Maretz, d. 1763); James  (c.1682-c.1705); Thomas (c. 1684-88);  William (1689-1769, naval commissioner); Gilbert (1692-1767, merchant); and Margaret (d. c.1772, Switzerland). Allix was 'universally esteemed the greatest master of the age in Rabbinical learning'.  In 1690, he was awarded a Doctor of Divinity by Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and was appointed treasurer and a canonry at Salisbury Cathedral by Bishop Gilbert Burnet (though he kept a house at Charter House Yard, London). Burnet considered him 'one of the learnedest and worthiest men in the world'. One of his significant scholarly contributions was the discovery that the Codex Ephraemi is a palimpsest, which was an important advancement in biblical scholarship.

Allix continued his scholarly pursuits in England, publishing numerous works. His writings included Reflexions sur les cinq livres de Moyse (1687), an exposition of the Pentateuch, and Reflexions sur les livres de l'écriture sainte (1687), with an English edition appearing in 1688. He also published anti-Catholic discourses and works defending the Reformation, such as Some Remarks upon the Ecclesiastical History of the Ancient Churches of Piedmont (1690) and Remarks upon the Ecclesiastical History of the Ancient Churches of the Albigenses (1692). Allix's position, that the Albigensians and Waldensians were connected, and represented a form of pure Christianity going back to the days of the apostles, had a significant impact on subsequent English perceptions of, and support for, Waldensian causes in Italy. The fusion of the Waldensian and Hugenot causes fuelled Allix's passionate defence of the advent of William of Orange to the British throne, making him ‘the most published of all the defenders of the new Whig regime in the 1705 collected State Tracts’. (Marshall 2006: 88)

Allix maintained extensive scholarly contacts throughout his career (including among his correspondents people such as Isaac Newton), and was involved in various academic and religious debates (particularly against post-Tridentine Roman Catholic doctrine and in support of the Glorious Revolution; and in defence of his own positions, as might be seen in his Remarks upon some places of Mr. Whiston's books, 1711). 'He passionately desired to unite the Protestants, particularly the Lutherans, with the Reformed, and he frequently consulted the ministers of Geneva, Holland and Berlin, on this subject'. (de Félice 1853: 383) Despite significant contributions to theology and biblical studies, his long-promised magnum opus on the history and councils of the Gallican Church never appeared.

Pierre Allix died on 3 March 1717 in London and was buried at St Sepulchre. His substantial personal library was sold by retail sale upon his death. He was survived by his wife, Marguerite (Margaret). Their son (John Peter), vicar of Swaffham (1712-1753), became Dean of Gloucester and Ely, and married an heiress (Catharine, daughter of Sir George Wager, first Lord of the Admiralty), setting the family up for entry into the Cambridgeshire gentry (centred on the former convent at Swaffham Priory House, which John Peter bought for their son Charles on his marriage. The family continued to own Swaffham House until the 1980s). Various members of the family sustained the tradition, begun by John Peter (Queen's 1703; Fellow of Jesus College, 1705-1714), in enrolling at the University of Cambridge (e.g. John Peter Allix MP (1785-1848)).   

Works

Sources:

de Félice, Guillaume Adam, History of the Protestants of France, tr. by P.E. Barnes (London: George Routledge, 1853)

Gwynn, Robin D., The Huguenots in later Stuart Britain. Volume I, Crisis, renewal, and the ministers' dilemma (Eastbourne, UK: Sussex Academic Press, 2015)

Kingsley, Nick, 'Allix of Swaffham Prior House and Willoughby Hall', Landed Gentry of Britain and Ireland, https://landedfamilies.blogspot.com/2014/02/111-allix-of-swaffham-prior-house-and.html

Larminie, Vivienne, 'Allix, Peter [Pierre], (1641–1717)', Oxford National Dictionary of Biography, 2004, online.

Marshall, John, John Locke, toleration and early Enlightenment culture: religious intolerance and arguments for religious toleration in early modern and 'early Enlightenment' Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).

Obituary, 'John Peter Allix, Esq', The Gentleman's Magazine (May 1848): 551.