ALEXANDRE, Noël. - Dominican historian-theologian, b. at Rouen on 19 Jan. 1639; d. at Paris on 21 Aug. 1724. He entered the Dominicans at Rouen in 1654 and made his profession on 9 May 1655. He was immediately sent to Paris for studies in philosophy and theology and later became regent of the College of S. Jacques. He became a doctor at the Sorbonne in 1675, provincial of Paris in 1706-10, and was in contact with the most eminent scholars of his time in his field. As a theologian he remained faithful to the Thomist system of his order and did not lean toward Jansenism; he was, however, attracted to a moderate Gallicanism, like many French theologians of his time.
On the occasion of the famous controversy that arose in Paris regarding the case of conscience, the author was one of the forty Sorbonne doctors who approved its resolution on 20 July 1701 in the sense that a Jansenist’s *silentium obsequiosum* was sufficient to obtain sacramental absolution. When this resolution was published the following year by the Jansenists, it caused a great uproar and was condemned by the Holy See. Fr. A. was the first to offer explanations and to make his retraction along with ten other doctors, and subsequently to protest his devotion to the Holy See. Despite this, we find the author among the “appellants” against the bull *Unigenitus* of 8 Sept. 1713; even then he changed his mind before 1722. But in that year, now 84 years old and blind for ten years, pressed by the insistences of the appellants, he declared himself again on their side; however, on 4 Aug. 1724, a few days before his death, he once more withdrew his appeal and died in peace with the Church.
The literary activity of Fr. A. is manifold and extensive. Omitting his polemical writings on the controversies of his time, his first work is the *Selecta Historica ecclesiastica capita*, published in 26 volumes at Paris in 1676-86. On 1 Oct. 1680 he sent the first thirteen volumes to Innocent XI as a token of reverence, and the pope praised the work in 1682; but the work was placed on the Index in 1684 and again in 1687 when the author’s ideas became more evident. In 1689 A. published the *Selecta Historica Veteris Testamenti capita* (6 vols.), which was later merged with the previous work and issued at Paris in 1690 under the title: *Historia ecclesiastica Vet. et Novi Testamenti* (8 vols.). The work, more than a continuous and systematic exposition, is a collection of theses and dissertations, arranged chronologically, on various subjects in ecclesiastical history.
The *Historia* was reprinted many times; in Italy, Costantino Roncaglia produced at Lucca in 1734 an edition in 9 volumes, supplemented with notes correcting the Gallican observations of A., and another edition with supplements was issued at Lucca by Fr. G. Dom. Mansi in 1749, also in 9 volumes, which had wide circulation and numerous reprints with further supplements. Besides this work, Fr. A. published at Paris in 1694 in 10 volumes a noteworthy *Theologia dogmatica et moralis secundum ordinem catechismi Concilii Tridentini*, which enjoyed wide diffusion.
The same was true of his *Expositio litteralis et moralis* of the Gospel (Paris 1702), which he wished to dedicate to Clement XI, and of his *Commentarius litteralis et moralis* on the letters of St. Paul and the canonical epistles (Rouen 1710), so that it can truly be said that A. was one of the writers who exercised the greatest influence in the cultural environment of the time in the field of sacred sciences.