Joseph Anthelmi
Joseph Anthelmi (Antelmi) was a French church historian born July 25, 1648, in Fréjus and died June 21, 1697, in Fréjus. From a family with a long connection to Fréjus, he studied theology in Lyon under the Jesuit François de la Chaise and was ordained. He returned to Provence and became a canon of Fréjus Cathedral, though he preferred study. Influenced by his uncles Pierre and Nicolas, who had written about the bishops of Fréjus, Anthelmi devoted himself to the history of the French Catholic Church, starting with his own diocese.
In 1694 he was made vicar-general to the Bishop of Pamiers, but ill health brought him back to Fréjus, where he died in his forty-ninth year.
His first work appeared in 1680, De inito ecclesiae Forojuliensis dissertatio chronologica, critica, profano-sacra. He engaged in public disputes with Pasquier Quesnel over the authorship of certain early works, defending Prosper of Aquitaine as the author. The exchange appeared in the Journal des Savants in 1689, and later that year Anthelmi published De veris operibus SS. Patrum Leonis et Prosperi.
The dispute continued regarding the authorship of the Athanasian Creed. Quesnel argued it was by Vigilius, while Anthelmi followed the view that it was by Vincent of Lérins, a position supported by Pithou, père. In 1693 he published Nova de symbolo Athanasiano disquisitio, arguing that the Creed was not by Athanasius and that its author was a Gaul, likely Vincent, noting stylistic similarities to Vincent’s writings.
Anthelmi’s brother Charles, Bishop of Grasse, collected and published other historical papers, including The Life and Death of St. Martin of Tours.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 06:37 (CET).