Gardeil, Ambroise

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GARDEIL, AMBROISE

Dominican theologian; b. Nancy, March 29, 1859;d. Paris, Oct. 2, 1931. Gardeil joined the Dominican Province of France in 1878 while it was in exile. He began his long teaching career on the Gold Coast in 1884; his lifelong specialty was theological methodology. In 1893 he assisted Father Coconnier in founding the Revue Thomiste, and became provincial regent of studies. Meanwhile, he continued to instruct young Dominicans, eventually covering the whole of the Summa Theologiae twice in class. Although he was probably his order's best theologian at the time, Gardeil gave up teaching in 1911 to have more time for writing and preaching. Apart from his many articles in the Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, the Revue Thomiste, etc., he is best known for his trilogy: La Crédibilité et l'apologétique (1908), Le Donné révélé et la théologie (1910), and La Structure de l'âme et l'expérience mystique (1926).

Bibliography: h. d. gardeil, L'Oeuvre théologique du Père Ambroise Gardeil (Paris 1956). r. garrigou-lagrange, "Le Père A. Gardeil," Revue thomiste 36 (1931) 797808.

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