ALÈS, ADHÉMAR D'

Jesuit theologian and patrologist; b. Orléans, France, Dec. 2, 1861; d. Paris, Feb. 24, 1938. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1880 and was ordained in 1896. As a scholastic and young priest he taught philosophy and both Greek and Latin literature. He inaugurated the Bibliothèque de théologie historique in collaboration with P. Bainvel and published detailed theological studies on tertullian (1905), hippolytus (1906), the Edict of Callistus (1914), cyprian (1922), and novatian (1925). He became professor of theology at the Institute Catholique in Paris in 1907 and dean of the faculty in 1925. He served as principal director of the Dictionnaire Apologétique de la Foi Catholique (4 v. Paris 1911–28), to which he contributed many articles dealing with the development of theology in the early and medieval Church. He was an exact and careful scholar whose analyses of theological problems in their historical development have proved invaluable. As a result of a controversy over divine providence and free will he published Providence et libre arbitre (Paris 1927). He also contributed to the Bibliothèque des sciences religieuses with: Baptême et Confirmation (Paris 1928), Eucharistie (Paris 1930), Le Dogme de Nicée (1925), Le Dogme de Éphèse (1931), De Verbo Incarnato (1930), and De Deo Trino (1935) and wrote articles and reviews for scholarly periodicals.

Bibliography: r. metz, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche ², ed. j. hofer and k. rahner, 10 v. (2d, new ed. Freiburg 1957–65) 1:304–305. Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, ed. a. vacant et al., 15 v. (Paris 1903–50) Tables générales 1:70–71. j. lebreton, Catholicisme 1:294–295. "In Memoriam: Le. R. P. D'Alès," Recherches de science religieuse, 28 (1938) 129–133.

[f. x. murphy]