author
Albert Réville
1826–1906
A leading voice in liberal Protestant thought, he explored religion with a historian’s curiosity and a willingness to challenge convention. His work helped bring comparative religion and modern biblical criticism into French intellectual life.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Born in Dieppe in 1826, Albert Réville became a French Protestant theologian, pastor, and scholar of religion. He served for many years at the Walloon Church in Rotterdam, where he built connections with liberal theological circles and developed the historical and critical approach that shaped his writing.
After returning to France in the 1870s, he moved from parish ministry into academic life and became a professor at the Collège de France. His books and lectures ranged across biblical studies, the history of Christianity, and the religions of the wider world, making him one of the notable French figures in the early study of comparative religion.
Réville was known in his own time for strongly liberal views and for treating religion as a subject that could be studied with the same seriousness and openness as history. He died in Paris in 1906, leaving behind a body of work that reflects both deep learning and a desire to make big religious questions accessible to a broader public.