Chapter IX: History and Literature of Moral Theology

Catholic Moral Theology has a very extensive literature. In this compendium we can do little more than give a list of the principal authors and their more important works. We shall supplement this enumeration with sufficient data to make it serve as an historical outline of the development of our science.

The history of Moral, like that of Dogmatic Theology, and Church History in general, may suitably be divided into three periods: (1) the Patristic, (2) the Medieval or Scholastic, and (3) the Modern Period.