AMÉLINE, CLAUDE. - Oratorian theologian, born in Paris in 1635, died there in 1706. At the age of 25 he entered the Oratory, where he came to know Malebranche. Archdeacon of Paris, he collaborated in the editing of the Breviary of 1680 and the Missal of 1684.
He published a Traité de la volonté, de ses principales actions, de ses passions et de ses égarements, Paris 1684, ordinarily cited under the title Treatise on the Passions, marked by Malebranche’s influence: the principle of all passions, as of all virtues, is love; passions are distinguished according to the nearness or remoteness of their object, and virtues according to the obstacle to be overcome in order to attain, while passion endures, that happiness toward which God has implanted in us a tendency. The idea that we must seek happiness in virtue also guides his polemic against Molinism, contained in the Traité de l'amour du souverain bien qui donne le véritable caractère de l'amour de Dieu, Paris 1699: man cannot, by a principle of reason, renounce the desire to be happy; nor, by a principle of faith, abandon the desire for his own salvation. Similar ideas are contained in L'Art de vivre heureux, Paris 1694, which many, however, attribute to Louis Pascal.