ALÈS, ADHÉMAR d'. - French Jesuit, theologian, historian and apologist, b. at Orléans on 2 Dec. 1861, d. at Paris on 24 Feb. 1938. First devoted to the literary formation of his young confreres, from 1907 he taught theology at the Institut Catholique in Paris, where for many years he was dean of the Faculty.
He had been led to theology by his exquisite philological formation, which drew him to the scientific study of Christian tradition, with a predilection for Tertullian and his circles. Thus he produced, besides many articles in the journals Etudes, Recherches de science religieuse, Rev. d'histoire ecclésiastique, a series of monographs in the Bibliothèque de théologie historique of his confrere Giov. Bainvel: La théologie de Tertullien (1905), La théologie de s. Hippolyte (1906), L'édit de Calliste, étude sur les origines de la pénitence chrétienne (1914), La théologie de s. Cyprien (1922), Novatien, étude sur la théologie romaine au milieu du IIIe siècle (1925). Other publications, of a more occasional character, exploit the mastery acquired in the same field: Lumen vitae, l'espérance du salut au début de l'ère chrétienne (1916), Le dogme de Nicée (1926), Le dogme d'Ephèse (1931)... For about fifteen years this output was, if not interrupted, at least slowed by the work of directing the new Dictionnaire apologétique de la Foi catholique (4 vols., 1911-22; suppl. 1931), perhaps the best-known work of Fr. d'A., carried out with great uprightness and with special sensitivity to the needs of the hour after the modernist crisis. Fr. d'A. also published the compendium of his lectures, Prima lineamenta tractatus dogmatici, five manuals dense with first-hand erudition.
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Edmondo Lamalle