VACANT, ALFRED. - Theologian, b. 23 Feb. 1852 at Morfontaine (Meurthe-Moselle), d. 2 Apr. 1901 at Nancy.
A priest in 1876 and a doctor of theology in 1880, he taught at the Seminary of Nancy from 1876 to 1901 and in 1900 was appointed its rector. A valued contributor to journals and dictionaries, he linked his name to the Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, of which he was the originator and the first editor, conceiving it, more than as an up-to-date survey of names and bibliographical data, as an instrument of scientific progress in the field of ecclesiastical disciplines. Nevertheless, in his articles, rather than popularization, he shies away from descending to conclusions. His works on specific subjects are numerous: De certitudine iudicii quo assentitur existentia revelationis (Nancy 1878); De nostra maturitate cognitione Dei (ibid. 1879); Etudes comparées sur la philosophie de St Thomas d'Aquin et sur celle de Duns Scot (Paris 1891); Histoire de la conception du sacrifice de la Messe dans l'Eglise latine (ibid. 1894); his most important work: Etude théologique sur les constitutions du Concise du Vatican, constitution « Dei Filius » (2 vols., ibid. 1895). A tutiorist in his conclusions, he is rather deficient in criticism and backward in exegesis. Dependent on Vigouroux, he is too concerned with finding complete agreement between science and faith down to the details.