Alfred Firmin Loisy

LOISY, ALFRED FIRMIN ), French Catholic theologian, was born at Ambrieres in French Lorraine of peasant parents. The boy was sent into the ecclesiastical schools of St. Dizier, without any intention of a clerical career; but he decided for the priesthood, and in 1874 entered the Grand Seminaire of Chalons-sur-Marne. He was ordained priest in 1879. After being cure successively of two villages in that diocese, Loisy went in May 1881, to study and take a theological degree, to the Institut Catholique in Paris, where he ultimately became professor. He was dismissed from his professorship in 1893 in consequence of an article on "La Question biblique et l'inspiration des Ecritures" contributed by him to his bimonthly review, L'Enseignement biblique. The promulgation of the papal bull Providentissiirnus Deus by Leo XIII. led him to discontinue the review. Meanwhile he had brought his Evangiles synoptiques down to the confes sion of Peter. Loisy then became chaplain to a Dominican con vent and a girls' school at Neuilly, but he soon resigned these appointments to continue his critical work in seclusion at Belle vue. A paper on "La Religion d'Israel" (Revue du clerge fran pis, Oct. 1900) was condemned by Archbishop Richard and by the pope. Loisy then began to lecture on biblical criticism at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes Pratiques. Meanwhile he made a Euro pean reputation by his L'Evangile et l'eglise (1902, Eng. trans., 1903), which was a Catholic answer to Harnack's W esen des Christentums. The book was condemned by the archbishop, but Leo XIII. declined to condemn the Etudes evangeliques, which appeared about the same time. But after the accession of Pius X., both these books, with Autour d'un petit livre (19o3) and Le Quatrieme Evangile (1903) were placed on the Index. Loisy made a partial submission, which was regarded as unsatisfactory at Rome; he retired first to Dreux, then to his home in Lorraine.

But in 1908 he published the now completed Evangiles synop tiques, embodying the results of the "higher criticism," followed. by Simples Reflexions sur le decret Lamentabili et sur clique Pascendi. The Holy Office pronounced the major excom munication on Loisy on March 7, 1908.

From 1909 to 1932 Loisy was professor of Church history at the College de France. His later works include L'Evangile selon Marc (1912); Les mysteres paiens et le mystere chretien (1914); Les Actes des Apotres (192o) ; L' Apocalypse de Jean (1923).

The Loisy controversy attracted great attention throughout Europe, and the literature is extensive. See Loisy's own Autour d'un petit livre (1903) ; A. Houtin, La Question biblique au XIXe Siecle (1902) ; C. A. Briggs and F. von Hiigel, The Papal Commission and the Pentateuch (1907).

LOJA

(formerly written Loxa), a town of southern Spain, in the province of Granada, on the Granada-Algeciras railway. Pop. (1930) 21,021. Loja, which has sometimes been identified with the ancient Ilipula, or with the Lacibi (Lacibis) of Pliny and Ptolemy, first emerges in the Arab chronicles of the year 89o. It was taken by Ferdinand III. in 1226, but was soon afterwards abandoned, and was not finally recaptured until 1486.

The narrow and irregular streets of Loja wind up the sides of a steep hill surmounted by a Moorish citadel; many of the older buildings, including a fine Moorish bridge, were destroyed by an earthquake in 1884, although two churches of the early i6th cen tury remained intact. An iron bridge spans the river Genil, which flows past the town on the north. The place was of great military importance, ranking with the neighbouring town of Alhama as one of the keys of Granada. Its manufactures consist chiefly of coarse woollens, silk, paper and leather. Salt is obtained in the neighbourhood.