Cally, Pierre

CALLY, PIERRE. - Cartesian theologian and philosopher, b. at Mesnil-Hubert (Orne) in the 17th century and d. at Caen on 31 Dec. 1709. After studying philosophy at Caen and theology in Paris, he taught (1660) philosophy and eloquence at the college of Arts in Caen, becoming its principal in 1675. Parish priest of St. Martin at Caen (1684), he had to leave for some time (1686-1688) because of his philosophical ideas and because of enmities aroused in the wake of certain conversions. Following the tenets of Cartesian philosophy and the thought of Durandus, he maintained that, after the Consecration, the matter of the bread remains unchanged, and that from that moment it passes into the matter of the body of Christ, without any separation of the accidents from their substance. Condemned in 1701, he publicly recanted.

Works: Institutio philosophiae (Caen 1674); Boethius's De consolatione philosophiae (ad usum Delphini, ibid. 1695); Universae philosophiae institutio (4 vols., ibid. 1695); Durand commenté ou l'accord de la philosophie avec la théologie touchant la transubstantiation de l'Eucharistie (ibid. 1700, under the pseudonym of P. Marteau); Discours en forme d'homélies sur les mystères, les miracles et sur les paroles de N.S.J.C., qui sont dans l'Évangile (2 vols., ibid. 1703).