BILLOT, LOUIS. - An eminent figure of modern theology, b. at Sierck (Metz) on 12 Jan. 1846 and d. at Galloro (Rome) on 18 Dec. 1931. He pursued theological studies in the seminaries of Metz and Blois, was ordained a priest in 1869, and immediately afterward entered the Society of Jesus at Angers. He taught Sacred Scripture at Laval, then dogmatic theology at Angers, from where he moved to Jersey. In 1885 he was called to Rome, to the Gregorian University, where, apart from a brief interruption, he held the chair of dogmatics until 1911, when he was created cardinal. Following an incident determined by his convictions regarding the Action Française, he voluntarily renounced his cardinalatial dignity into the hands of Pope Pius XI (H. du Passage, Reponse à une calomnie, in Etudes, 1932, I, 491-92) and withdrew to a most private life in the novitiate of Galloro (1927), where he ended his industrious life.
B. passes into history for the depth of his intellect, for the effectiveness of his long magisterium, and for the whole body of his publications, which represent an important milestone on the path of theological thought. If in the historical and patristic field he remains inferior to the scholar Cardinal Franzelin, who preceded him at the Gregorian, in the field of theological speculation he leaves a luminous furrow, by which he links himself to the best masters of classical theology.
His work embraces almost the entire field of dogmatic theology: De Verbo Incarnato (Rome 1892); De Sacramentis (2 vols., ibid. 1894-95); De peccato personali (ibid. 1894); De Deo uno et trino (ibid. 1895); De Ecclesia (ibid. 1900); De virtutibus infusi (ibid. 1909); De novissimis (ibid. 1902); De inspiratione S. Scripturae (ibid. 1903); De sacra traditione (ibid. 1904); De peccato originali (ibid. 1910); De Gratia (ibid. 1912, 1921).
Two series of articles that appeared first in Etudes, 1917-19, are worthy of note: La Parousie (separately, Paris 1920), and La Providence de Dieu et le nombre infini des hommes hors de la vie du salut (ibid., 1919-23). The thesis defended therein: that even amid the most brilliant civilizations, such as those of Babylon, Athens and Rome, "there was for the great mass no possibility whatever of attaining the notion of the true God and of the law, and that therefore it found itself in a state of invincible ignorance, with all the consequences that follow from this as regards moral responsibility and the sanctions of the future life" (Etudes, 1920, IV, p. 535), did not gather much assent because it seemed excessive (cf. S. Harent, Jufidèles, in DThC, VII, coll. 1891-93; 1898-1912).
In this vast work B. reveals himself a true theologian, who does not repeat but rethinks all the riches of dogma, with full mastery of the material and with a personal tone. The most organic and harmonious among his treatises are the De Deo trino, the De Verbo Incarnato and the De S. ma Eucharistia, in which the most arduous questions find a solution that may be considered definitive.
B. spoke the language of St. Thomas and of the best theological tradition, understood and applauded by thousands of disciples, at a moment when within the Church there seethed a spirit of dangerous novelties, which issued in modernism, against which he fought with dialectical vigor and with soundness of doctrine, contributing to its being crushed forever. He was a man who had well assimilated classical theological thought, along the Thomistic line, without however losing contact with and sensitivity to the currents of modern thought and culture.