PORTALIÈ, EUGÈNE. - Jesuit, theologian, born at Mende on Jan. 3, 1852, died at Amélie-les-Bains (Toulouse) on Apr. 20, 1909.
Having entered the Order in 1867, he was professor of scholastic theology at Uclès and Vals from 1888 to 1899; then, from 1885 until the end, of positive theology at the Catholic Institute of Toulouse. The hallmark of his teaching, which was highly personal and fired with enthusiasm, was a clear exposition combined with a profound knowledge of doctrine, patristics, and especially the history of theological systems. His work as a writer (his school texts never achieved the definitive finish he desired for publication) is reduced almost exclusively to numerous articles published in the Études, the Bull. de littér. ecclésiastique of Toulouse, and the DThC. To this dictionary, in addition to the entries: Abélard; Adoptionisme, aux XIIe et XIIIe siècles; Alexandre III, he contributed: Augustin (I, coll. 2268-2472), Augustinionisme (I, coll. 2485-2501), Augustinisme (I, coll. 2501-2561), totaling 280 columns, which still constitute an indispensable comprehensive work today, despite the sometimes excessive rapidity with which certain points are developed. To the other two periodicals he contributed useful and dense works on the crisis of Protestantism in France and strong, clear articles against modernism, the modernists (Loisy, Tyrrell, Turmel) and excessive integralists, while defending the value of dogma against every even subtle assault (e.g., Dogmes et histoire, in Bull. de littér. ecclés., 3rd ser., 6 [1904], pp. 62-143); Explication morale des dogmes (Études, 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" (Études, 70 [1897], pp. 162-74) and L'hypnotisme au moyen-âge, Avicenne et Richard de Middletown (ibid., 55 [1892], pp. 481-99, 577-97).