ALEXANDRE, NOËL. - Dominican historian-theologian, b. at Rouen on 19 January 1639; d. at Paris on 21 August 1724. He entered the Dominicans at Rouen in 1654 and professed on 9 May 1655. He was immediately sent to Paris for studies in philosophy and theology and was subsequently regent of the college of St. James, doctor at the Sorbonne in 1675, provincial of Paris in 1706-10, in contact with the most distinguished masters of his time in the field of his studies. As a theologian he remained faithful to the Thomist system of his order and did not lean toward Jansenism; he allowed himself instead to be drawn toward a moderate Gallicanism, like a good part of the French theologians of his time. On the occasion of the famous controversy that arose in Paris concerning the case of conscience, A. was one of the forty Sorbonne doctors who approved its solution on 20 July 1701 in the sense that the silentium obsequiosum was sufficient on the part of a Jansenist to obtain sacramental absolution. Made public the following year by the Jansenists, this resolution provoked enormous uproar and the condemnation of the Holy See; Fr. A. was the first to give explanations and to make his retraction together with ten other doctors and subsequently to protest his devotion to the Holy See. Despite this, we find A. among the number of the "appellants" against the bull Unigenitus of 8 September 1713; this time too he recanted before 1722; but in that year, now old at 84 and blind for ten years, pressed by the insistences of the appellants, he declared himself once again on their side; however, on 4 August 1724, a few days before his death, he again revoked the appeal and died in peace with the Church.
The literary activity of Fr. A. is manifold and extensive. Omitting the polemical writings concerning the controversies agitated in his time, the first of his works is the Selecta Historiae ecclesiasticae capita published in 26 vols. at Paris in 1676-86. On 1 October 1680 he sent the first thirteen volumes to Innocent XI as a sign of reverence and the pope praised it in 1682; but the work was placed on the Index in 1684 and then in 1687 when the author's ideas manifested themselves more openly. In 1689 A. published the Selecta Historiae Veteris Testamenti capita (6 vols.), which then, merged with the preceding one, came out at Paris in 1699 under the title: Historia ecclesiastica Vet. et Novi Testamenti (8 vols.). The work, rather than a continuous and systematic exposition, is a complex of theses and dissertations, arranged in chronological order, on the various subjects of ecclesiastical history.
The Historia was reprinted several times; in Italy Fr. Costantino Roncaglia made an edition of it at Lucca in 1734 in 9 vols., furnished with notes with which he corrects A.'s Gallican observations, and another edition with supplements was made at Lucca by Fr. G. Dom. Mansi in 1749 also in 9 vols., which had wide diffusion and numerous reprints with other supplements. Besides this work, Fr. A. published at Paris in 1694 in 10 vols. a valuable Theologia dogmatica et moralis secundum ordinem catechismi Concilii Tridentini, which had wide diffusion.
The same happened also with the Expositio litteralis et moralis of the Gospel (Paris 1702) which he wished to dedicate to Clement XI; and with the Commentarius litteralis et moralis on the letters of St. Paul and the canonical epistles (Rouen 1710), so that one can truly affirm that A. was one of the writers who exercised the greatest influence in the cultural milieu of his time in the field of the sacred sciences.
Bibliography3 works
Pio Paschini