Élie Benoist (10 January 1640 – 15 November 1728), was a French Protestant minister, known as an historian of the Edict of Nantes.

Benoist was born in Paris. His parents were servants of the Protestant family of La Trémoille. He displayed an early fondness for the classics, and supported himself tutoring in divinity while he studied at Montaigu College and at the Collège de La Marche (in the University of Paris) after the Huguenot college at Montauban, was disbanded on protest from the Jesuits, so he was ordained in 1664 from Puylaurens.

In 1665, the year after he was ordained, he was called to Alençon, where the original temple of the Huguenots had been ordered demolished the previous year. He served for twenty years as Protestant minister on the outskirts of the city, with as much prudence as capacity, under the watchful eye of the authorities. He married a difficult wife. He met with much opposition from the Roman Catholics, especially from the Jesuit de la Rue, who attacked him and even incited a riot against him in August 1681.