Adolphe Monod

Adolphe-Louis-Frédéric-Théodore Monod (21 January 1802 – 6 April 1856) was a French Protestant pastor and theologian. His elder brother was Frédéric Monod.¹

Monod was born in Copenhagen, where his father, Jean Monod (1765–1836; himself the eldest son of pastor Gaspard Joël Monod /1717-1782/ and his wife Suzanne Madeleine Puerari /1739-1799/),² was a pastor of the French Reformed church and where Jean Monod met his wife and consequently Adolphe's mother, Louise-Philippine de Coninck (1775-1851), daughter of shipowner Frédéric de Coninck.³ Educated at Paris and Geneva, Monod began his life-work in 1825 as founder and pastor of a Protestant church in Naples, moving to Lyon in 1827.¹

In Lyon, Monod' preaching, and especially a sermon on the duties of communicants (Qui doit communier?), led to his deposition by the Catholic Minister of education and religion.¹ Instead of leaving Lyon he began to preach in a hall and then in a chapel.¹ In 1836 Monod took a professorship in the theological college of Montauban, moving in 1847 to Paris as preacher at the Oratoire.¹ He died in Paris on 6 April 1856.¹⁴

Monod was considered by some the foremost Protestant preacher of 19th-century France (e.g. Guillaume Guizot (1833-1892), son of the French statesman and Protestant historian François Guizot (1787-1874)⁵ referred to him in an article published in the “Journal des débats politiques et littéraires” (Journal of political and literary debates) on April 11, 1856, i.e. a few days after Adolphe Monod's funeral, as "one of the foremost Christian speakers of his time."⁶ He published three volumes of sermons in 1830, another, La Crédulité de l'incrédule in 1844, and two more in 1855. Two further volumes appeared after his death.¹ One of his most influential books was the posthumous, Les Adieux d'Adolphe Monod à ses Amis et à l'Église (1857).

Monod married Hannah Honyman (1799-1868)⁷ in Lyon on 2 September 1829. They had seven children,⁸ including pastor André John William Honyman Monod (1834–1916), philanthropist and feminist Alexandrine Elisabeth Sarah Monod (1836–1912), Émilie Monod and Camille Monod (1843–1910).