ABELLY, LOUIS. — French theologian and writer, of whom neither the year (1603, 1604, 1606) nor the place of birth (in the Vexin or in Paris) is known with certainty. He died on 4 October 1691 in Paris. He was an opponent of the Jansenists and the Gallicans. From the earliest years of his priesthood, he placed himself under the direction of s. Vincenzo de' Paoli, on whose advice he accepted the position of vicar general to the bishop of Bayonne, Francesco Fouquet (1640–43). When the latter was transferred to Agde, A. returned to Paris, where he became parish priest of Saint-Josse and then spiritual director of the General Hospital. Elected bishop of Rodez (1664), after three years, following an attack of hemiplegia, he resigned. S. Lazzaro of Paris took him in for the remainder of his life, which he spent in study and prayer.
He composed some forty works, which may be grouped into three principal categories: theological and ascetical writings, to which his earliest and best-known works belong; polemical writings, defending the dignity and prerogatives of the Most Holy Virgin, the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and Eucharistic worship; and historical writings, especially on heresies.
Three works brought him particular fame: 1) the
Medulla Theologiae... (approved by the doctors of the Sorbonne, in 2 vols., Paris 1650: 13 editions), which earned him from Boileau (Lutrin, IV) an ironic epithet (le mailleux A.), but which s. Alfonso himself recommended for the education of the clergy (cf. letter to Di Costanzo, 17 January 1782: Lettere di s. Alfonso, II, Rome 1887, p. 623); 2) La Couronne de l'Année Chrétienne, ou Méditations sur les principales et les plus importantes vérités de l'Évangile de J. C. disposées pour tous les jours de l'année, in 2 vols. (Paris 1657), continually reprinted until the second half of the last century: 45 editions; 3) La vie du Vénérable Serviteur de Dieu Vincent de Paul, in 3 vols. (Paris 1664), judged by Coste « la più pia e la più esatta », so that A. has gone down in history as the first biographer of the great saint.
Of interest for the positive method it adopts is the work on the Madonna: La tradition de l'Église touchant la dévotion particulière des chrétiens envers la Très-Saïncité Vierge Marie, Mère de Dieu... (Paris 1652). For ecclesiastics he wrote Sacerdos christianus, seu ad vitam sacerdotalem pie instituendam manuductio (Paris 1656), which likewise went through many editions.
Because of the effectiveness of his activity and writings, A. must be considered one of those who, in the seventeenth century, worked most assiduously to restore ecclesiastical discipline in France.
BIBLI: Hurter, II, p. 386; M. U. Maynard, Saint Vincent de Paul, Paris 1860, preface: A. Vogt, s. V. in DIIG, I, cols. 97–103 (with a list of the works); P. Coste, Le grand Saint du grand siècle: Monsieur Vincent, III, Paris 1932, pp. 545–57; A. Rastoul, s. V. in Dict. de Biogr. Française, I, Paris 1933, cols. 130–40. Igino Cecchetti