ANTELMI, JOSEPH. - French theologian and ecclesiastical historian, b. at Fréjus in 1648, d. there in 1697. He took his degree in theology at Lyons, became a canon of the cathedral of his native city, and vicar general of the bishop of Pamiers.
Works: De initio ecclesiae Foroniliensis: the fruit of youthful researches which confronted the A. with historical and theological problems that he would develop in his later works; De veris operibus sv. Patrum Leonis et Prosperi Aquitani, Paris 1689. This work is connected with a controversy with Quesnel concerning the history of semi-Pelagianism and the authorship of the De vocatione gentium and other writings. The development of the controversy involved the Athanasian Creed, and the A., for reasons of internal criticism, was led to exclude Athanasian authorship, settling instead on St. Vincent of Lérins, in the work Nova de symbolo Athanasiano disquistilio, Paris 1693.