PORTALIÈ, EUGÈNE. - Jesuit, theologian, b. at Mende on 3 January 1852, d. at Amélie-les-Bains (Toulouse) on 20 April 1909.
Having entered the Order in 1867, he was professor of scholastic theology at Uclès and at Vals from 1888 to 1899; then, from 1885 to the end, of positive theology at the Catholic Institute of Toulouse. Characteristic of his teaching, very personal and kindled with enthusiasm, was a clear exposition, joined to a profound knowledge of doctrine, of patristics, and especially of the history of theological systems. His work as a writer (his school texts never received that definitive finish that he wanted for publishing them) comes down almost exclusively to the numerous articles published in the Etudes, in the Bull. de littér. ecclésiastique of Toulouse and in the DThC. To this dictionary, besides the entries: Abélard; Adoptionisme, aux XIIe et XIIIe siècles; Alexandre III, he gave: Augustin (I, coll. 2268-2472), Augustinionisme (I, coll. 2485-2501), Augustinisme (I, coll. 2501-2561), in all 280 columns, which still today form an indispensable overall work, despite the rapidity, at times excessive, with which certain points are treated. To the other two periodicals he offered useful and dense works on the crisis of Protestantism in France and strong and clear articles against modernism, the modernists (Loisy, Tyrrel, Turmel) and the excessive integralists, defending at the same time the value of dogma against every even insidious assault (e.g., Dogmes et histoire, in Bull. de littér. ecclés., 3rd series, 6 [1904], pp. 62-143); Explication morale des dogmes (Etudes, 104 [1905], pp. 144-73, 318-42); L'évolutionnisme condamné par le St-Siège (ibid., 112 [1907], pp. 393-412); La Question Herzog-Dupin (ibid., 116-17 [1908]; separately: La critique de M. Turmel et la Question Herzog-Dupin, Paris 1908); also noteworthy: A propos du dernier roman de «Diana Vaugnan» (Etudes, 70 [1897], pp. 162-74) and L'hypnotisme au moyen-âge, Avicenne et Richard de Middletown (ibid., 55 [1892], pp. 481-99, 577-97).