HOCEDEZ, EDGARD. - Jesuit theologian, b. at Ghent on 10 July 1877, d. at Fayt-lez-Manage (Belgium) on 5 September 1948. Entering the religious life at Tronchiennes in 1895 and beginning historical studies, he seemed destined for a career as a Bollandist, but after his priestly ordination in 1907 he was suddenly sent to India as professor of theology at Kurseong (1908–12). Returning to his homeland for health reasons, he resumed the same teaching at Louvain, and during the First World War at Hastings (1914–18), deepening his work in apologetics and the history of theology. From 1921 to 1926 he served as director of the Nouvelle revue théologique in Louvain. From 1928 to 1940 he divided his theological teaching between Louvain and the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. With the outbreak of war, he remained definitively in Louvain.
His extensive and varied output is difficult to classify; it rather follows the various phases of his life. He began with several studies in the Analecta Bollandiana on St. John of Capistrano, the Blessed Anthony of Rivoli, the Blessed Venturino of Bergamo, and the Blessed Urban V. After his return from India he published various articles on the De fide orthodoxa of John of Damascus and a truly valuable essay on the Augustinian conception of the sacrament in the Recherches de science religieuse (10 [1919], pp. 1–29). During the years in which he directed the Nouvelle revue théologique, he contributed notable articles on the Eucharistic doctrine of Fr. de Taile and on many dogmatic and moral questions.
Among his studies in medievalism are: Richard de Middleton, in the Spicilegium sacrum Lovaniense (Louvain 1925), and Aegidii Romani theoremate de esse et essentia, in the Museum Lessianum (ibid. 1930); also several articles in the Gregorianum (on Henry of Ghent, Peter of Auvergne) and in the Mélanges Mandonnet (on Giles of Rome), and the valuable collection of texts Quaestio de unico esse in Christo a doctoribus saec. XIII disputata (Textus et documenta, Rome 1933). Around 1937 he conceived the plan for his Histoire de la théologie au XIXe siècle, which absorbed all his activity in his final years: before his death he published the third volume, Le règne de Léon XIII (1878–1903) (Brussels-Paris 1947); the first volume appeared posthumously: Décadence et réveil de la théologie 1800–21 (ibid. 1949). The second volume, treating the period from the condemnation of Lamennais to the Vatican Council, is awaited. This work, rich in information, fair in judgment, and clear in style, demonstrates the author’s mature historical-theological insight.