James Darmesteter

Born in Château-Salins, France, James Darmesteter moved to Paris in 1852; his father was a bookbinder. Darmesteter attended a French school and a Talmud Torah until age twelve. He ultimately earned degrees in science and law. In 1872, he began to devote his studies to Persian cultural history and became a pioneering scholar of Zoroastrianism. His 1877 dissertation on the key Zoroastrian scriptural text, the Avesta, also bore relevance for ancient Jewish studies, as he argued for a hitherto unacknowledged Jewish influence on Zoroastrianism. He enjoyed a successful career in the French academy, becoming a professor of Persian studies at the École des Hautes Études and later at the Collège de France, the most prestigious educational institution in France. Darmesteter published broadly (in French, English, and German) on ancient Persian and related cultures, traveled to India to collect Afghan songs, served as secretary of the Société Asiatique, and affiliated with the French literary journal Revue de Paris. He married the English poet Agnes Mary Robinson in 1888, and translated her poems into French. he also wrote several works expounding “prophetism,” a personal ethic inflected by his understanding of Judaism.