TURMEL, JOSEPH. - Modernist theologian, b. at Rennes on 13 Dec. 1859, d. there on 5 Feb. 1943.
He was ordained a priest on 3 June 1882 and appointed professor of dogmatic theology at the Seminary of Rennes; in 1884 began the crisis that was to separate him from the Catholic faith. Deprived of his chair in 1892, he held the office of chaplain of the Petites Soeurs of Rennes, and continued his scholarly activity by regularly writing the historical chronicle for the Revue du clergé français and by contributing patristic studies and notes to numerous French and foreign journals. Indeed he was entrusted with the first volume of the Bibliothèque de théologie historique of the Catholic Institute of Paris; thus there appeared alongside the Théologie de St Paul of Prat and the Théologie de Tertullien of D'Alès, the Histoire de la théologie positive of T. (2 vols., Paris 1904-1906). Objections from critics and theologians were not long in coming, and they prepared the way for its condemnation to the Index (7 March 1910 and 2 Jan. 1911). Other works too had been criticized, but they could not yet compromise his orthodoxy. T., following a tactic systematically adopted by the modernists, preferred to express his opinion in articles signed with pseudonyms (as many as 14); thus in 1906 he wrote on the development of the dogma of the Trinity in the Revue d'histoire et de littérature religieuses (signed A. Dupin), emptying the subject of tradition. The following year, in the same journal, an article appeared signed G. Herzog, which denied tradition regarding the virginity of Mary. T. himself, reviewing it, acknowledged it to be destructive, but refrained from refuting it on the pretext that this required a specialist.
On 20 March 1908 in the Bulletin de littérature ecclésiastique there appeared an article by L. Saltet, which demonstrated exisist a close affinity of style and thought between Herzog and the Histoire of T., concluding that the former had plagiarized from the manuscripts of the latter. The entire French Catholic press was alarmed by the suspicion that came to weigh upon the orthodoxy of T. Proceeding with the same method, Salter reached the same conclusions regarding the article by A. Dupin, but T. shut himself up in a disdainful silence, which discouraged his defenders and aggravated the suspicions of his adversaries. Urged by the archbishop of Rennes, T. declared that he knew neither Herzog nor Dupin and signed a general formula of adherence "to the integral doctrine of the Church." The polemic came to an end, for the time being, because of T.'s obstinate silence and the lack of direct and irrefutable proofs. There followed at a short distance the condemnation of T.'s works (5 July 1909; 7 March 1910), and he disappeared from the theological world, entrenching himself behind old and new pseudonyms with articles that engaged the best representatives of French Catholic theology and criticism. For twenty years "the Herzog-Dupin case" remained an enigma. In 1929 Salter, having obtained decisive proofs, published a new article with the complete list of T.'s pseudonyms and works. On 6 Nov. 1930 the Holy See declared him excommunicated vitandus and degraded from the ecclesiastical state.
In his last years he published an Histoire du diable (Paris 1931) in the collection Christianisme edited by P. L. Couchoud, a brief study on the Apocalypse (ibid. 1938) and an attack against the Shroud of Turin (ibid. 1938), and from 1930 to 1931 he printed, in 6 vols., a venomous Histoire des dogmes. Of his demolishing work nothing remains that was not promptly refuted; of his person there remains a severe judgment for the double game pursued systematically for more than twenty years.
His principal works, besides those mentioned, are: S. Jérôme (Paris 1905); Histoire du dogme de la papauté des origines jusqu'à la fin du IVe siècle (ibid. 1908); (H. Delafosse), Les écrits de St Paul (4 vols., ibid. 1925-27); (L. Coulange), Catéchisme pour adultes (2 vols., ibid. 1929-30 [cf. Index of Prohibited Books under T., Delafosse, Herzog, Dupin, Coulange]).