Section 2: The Medieval or Scholastic Period

1. The ecclesiastical writers of the early Middle Ages contented themselves with gathering up the moral teachings of the Fathers, expounding and adapting them to practical use by means of encyclopedic collections known as Libri Sententiarum, Scintillae Patrum, or Sacra Parallela. It is sufficient to mention St. Isidore of Seville, St. John of Damascus, St. Bede, St. Peter Damian, and Alcuin.¹

¹ Cfr. Kihn, Enzyklopädie und Methodologie der Theologie, Freiburg 1892, p. 441. —On SS. Isidore and John Damascene see Bardenhewer-Shahan, Patrology, pp. 660 sqq., 582 sqq. On St. Bede, St. Peter Damian, and Alcuin, the Cath. Encyclopedia, II, 384 sqq., XI, 764 sq., I, 276 sqq.

About the same time the ancient penitential canons together with the existing ordinances regarding the administration of penance were gathered into so-called Penitential Books (Libri Poenitentiales), which, by noting the penances to be imposed in the confessional, helped to prepare the way for the casuistic method.²

² Pohle-Preuss, The Sacraments, Vol. III, pp. 199 sq.; H. J. Schmitz, Die Bussbücher, 2 vols., Mayence 1883 and 1899; Lehmkuhl in the Cath. Encyclopedia, XIV, 605.

2. Beginning with the eleventh century the moral teaching of the Church was systematically expounded according to the speculative, the casuistic, and the mystical method. However, Moral Theology was not yet an independent science, but formed a part of the Scholastic Summae, and was dealt with either in philosophy or dogmatic theology.

The first writer who treated Moral Theology as a separate science probably was William Perault, O.P. (+ before 1270).³ He was followed by St. Antoninus of Florence, also a Dominican (+ 1459). ⁴ Both Perault and St. Antoninus combined the systematic with the casuistic method. a) The real founder of Moral Theology as a science, however, is Saint Thomas Aquinas (+ 1274). ⁵ Utilizing the work of Peter Lombard (+ 1164), called "Master of the Sentences," whose Libri Sententiarum for several centuries served as a standard text-book in the theological schools, and following Alexander of Hales (+ 1245) and Blessed Albert the Great (+ 1280),⁶ the Angelic Doctor in the second part of his classic Summa Theologica developed Catholic moral teaching into a magnificent system based upon the philosophy of Aristotle and the dogmatic anthropology of St. Augustine.

³ Perault (Perauld, Peraldus, Peraltus) is believed by some to have been archbishop of Lyons. His Summa de Vitiis et Virtutibus was first published at Cologne, 1497. (Cfr. Chs. J. Callan, O.P., in the Cath. Encyclopedia, Vol. XV, p. 642.)

⁴ Summa Theologica, best edition by Peter Ballerini, Verona 1740, 4 vols. folio.—Cfr. K. Ilgner, Die volkswirtschaftlichen Anschauungen Antonins von Florenz, Paderborn 1904.—Protestant ethics was raised to the rank of an independent science by George Calixtus († 1656). (Cfr. G. Hönicke, Studien zur altprotestantischen Ethik, Berlin 1902, p. 128). Th. Venatorius, a Protestant minister in Nürnberg, had published a treatise De Virtute Christiana in three books as early as 1529. (Cfr. the New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, Vol. IV, pp. 188 sqq.)

⁵ Cfr. K. Werner, Der hl. Thomas von Aquin, Vol. I, Ratisbon 1858, p. 815; A. Stöckl, Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters, Vol. II, Mayence 1865, pp. 655-721; H. E. Plassmann, Die Moral gemäss der Schule des hl. Thomas, Soest 1861; A. Rietter, Moral des hl. Thomas von Aquin, Munich 1858; A. Portmann, System der theologischen Summe, 2nd ed., Lucerne 1903, pp. 105 sqq.; P. Berthier, L'Étude de la Somme Théologique de S. Thomas d'Aquin, 2nd ed., Paris 1905; M. Maurenbrecher, Thomas von Aquins Stellung zum Wirtschaftsleben seiner Zeit, Leipsic 1898; F. Walter, Das Eigentum nach der Lehre des hl. Thomas und der Sozialismus, Freiburg 1895; F. Schaub, Eigentumslehre nach Thomas von Aquin, Freiburg 1898; J. Mausbach, Ausgewählte Texte zur allgemeinen Moral aus den Werken des hl. Thomas von Aquin, Münster 1905; Jos. Rickaby, S.J., Aquinas Ethicus: or, The Moral Teaching of St. Thomas. A Translation of the Principal Portions of the Second Part of the "Summa Theologica," with Notes, 2 vols., London 1896; M. De Wulf, History of Medieval Philosophy (tr. by P. Coffey), London 1909, pp. 341 sqq.; Hettinger-Stepka, Timothy, or Letters to a Young Theologian, pp. 388 sqq., St. Louis 1902.

⁶ Cfr. W. Feiler, Die Moral des Albertus Magnus, Leipsic 1891; E. Michael, S.J., Geschichte des deutschen Volkes, Vol. III, pp. 245 sqq.; M. De Wulf, History of Medieval Philosophy, pp. 298 sqq.

The Thomistic system was attacked by Duns Scotus (+ 1308), ⁷ who asserted that "good is good because God wills it so, and to say that God wills the good for the reason that it is good would be false." ⁸

⁷ Cfr. M. De Wulf, op. cit., pp. 367 sqq.; A. Stöckl, Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters, Vol. II, pp. 851 sqq.; A. Bertoni, Jean Duns Scot, sa Vie, sa Doctrine, ses Disciples, Levanto 1917, pp. 402 sqq.

⁸ Scotus, Comment, in Sent., III, dist. 19, qu. unica, § 7. —Cfr. Parthenius Minges, O.F.M., Ist Duns Scotus Indeterminist? Münster 1905; IDEM, Die Gnadenlehre des Duns Scotus, ibid., 1906; IDEM, Der Gottesbegriff des Duns Scotus, Vienna 1907. —Fr. Minges says in his article on Scotus in the Cath. Encyclopedia (Vol. V, pp. 197 sq.): "Scotus declares emphatically that the morality of an act requires an object which is good in its nature, its end, and its circumstances, and according to the dictate of right reason. It is not true that he makes God's free will decide arbitrarily what is good and what is bad; he only asserts that the Commandments of the second table of the Decalogue are not in such strict sense laws of nature as are those of the first table; because God cannot grant a dispensation from the laws of the first, whereas he can dispense from those of the second, as in fact He did when He commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son. But the precepts of the second table also are far more binding than the other positive laws of God,” etc.

b) Casuistry does not owe its existence, as has been supposed, to St. Raymond of Pennafort (+ 1275). Robert of Flamesbury, towards the end of the twelfth century, or at the beginning of the thirteenth, in a treatise called Poenitentiale employed the casuistic method with much skill. St. Raymond himself, in composing his Summa, utilized an earlier treatise by an unknown author, which was probably written between 1217 and 1226 and exhibits the casuistic method fully developed. This anonymous treatise constitutes the first known application of the casuistic method to Moral Theology.⁹ However, among the numerous works known as Summae Confessorum, or Summae Casuum Conscientiae, which served the clergy of the Middle Ages in the administration of Penance, St. Raymond's Summa de Casibus Poenitentiae, or, as it is more often called, Summa Raimundiana, was by far the most famous.

⁹ Cfr. E. Michael, S.J., Geschichte des deutschen Volkes, Vol. III, pp. 237 sqq.—On Raymond of Pennafort see M. M. O'Kane, O.P., in the Cath. Encyclopedia, Vol. XII, pp. 671 sq.

Other widely quoted works of the same kind were: the Summa Astesana (or Astensis) de Casibus Conscientiae, composed about 1317 by a Franciscan friar of Asti in Piedmont; the Summa Pisana (or Pisanella) of Bartholomew of Pisa, O. P., written about 1338; the Summa Pacifica of Pacificus Novariensis (a resident of Ceredano near Novara), composed about 1470; the Summa Rosella or Baptistiniana, of J. B. Trovamala of Genoa, written about 1484; the Summa Angelica, of Blessed Angelus Carletus, a Franciscan, who is generally called Angelus de Clavasio from his birth-place Chiavasso (+1495); and, last not least, the Summa Summarum quae Silvestrina dicitur, composed by Sylvester Prierias, O. P., at Strassburg, 1518, which practically brings the age of the great "Summists" to a close.¹⁰ c) The chief representatives of the ascetic method¹¹ are St. Bernard of Clairvaux (+ 1153),¹² Hugh and Richard of St. Victor (+ 1141 and 1173),¹³ and St. Bonaventure (+ 1274). ¹⁴ Later writers worthy of mention in this field are: John Tauler (+ 1361),¹⁵ Bl.

¹⁰ Cfr. T. Brosnahan, S.J., art. "Casuistry" in the Cath. Encyclopedia, Vol. III, pp. 415 sqq.; Schmitz, Die Bussbücher, Vol. II, pp. 792 sqq.

¹¹ Cfr. K. Werner, System der christlichen Ethik, Vol. I, pp. 58 sqq.

¹² Migne, P. L., CLXXXII-CLXXXV. —Cfr. A. Stöckl, Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters, Vol. I, pp. 293 sqq.; M. Gildas, O.C.R., in the Cath. Encyclopedia, Vol. II, p. 501.

¹³ Migne, P. L., CLXXV-CLXXVII; CXCVI. Cfr. Stöckl, op. cit., I, 304 sqq., 355 sqq.

¹⁴ St. Bonaventure's Opera Omnia were re-edited by the Franciscan Fathers of Quaracchi, Italy, 1882 sqq.; Decem Opuscula ad Theologiam Mysticam Spectantia, ibid., 1896. — Cfr. De Wulf, History of Medieval Philosophy, pp. 282 sqq.; L. Lemmens, O.F.M., Der hl. Bonaventura, Kempten 1909, pp. 30 sqq.; A. Stöckl, Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters, Vol. II, pp. 880 sqq.; P. Robinson, O.F.M., in the Cath. Encyclopedia, Vol. II, pp. 648 sqq.

¹⁵ Cfr. K. Löffler in the Cath. Encyclopedia, Vol. XIV, pp. 465 sq.

Henry Suso (+ 1365),¹⁶ Bl. John of Ruysbroeck (+ 1381), surnamed "the Admirable Doctor," ¹⁷ Gerard Zerbolt of Zutphen (+ 1398),¹⁸ John Gerson (+ 1429), ¹⁹ and Thomas a Kempis (+ 1471), author of the world-famous Imitation.²⁰

¹⁶ Cfr. A. L. McMahon, O.P., in the Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. VII, pp. 238 sq.

¹⁷ V. Scully, C.R.L., Life of John Ruysbroeck, London 1910. Ruysbroeck's Adornment of Spiritual Marriage, The Sparkling Stone, and The Book of Supreme Truth have recently been published in an English translation by C. Wynschenk Dom, edited by Evelyn Underhill, who contributes a valuable introduction, containing, inter alia, a brief biographical sketch of "the greatest of the Flemish mystics." (John of Ruysbroeck, London 1916).

¹⁸ Cfr. Scully in the Cath. Encyclopedia, Vol. VI, pp. 471 sq.

¹⁹ Cfr. L. Salembier, ibid., pp. 530 sqq.

²⁰ Cfr. Stöckl, op. cit., II, pp. 1095 sqq.—A splendid critical edition of Thomas à Kempis' writings has lately been published by M. J. Pohl (Thomae Hemerken a Kempis Opera Omnia, Freiburg 1902 sqq.).—Cfr. Sir Francis R. Cruise, Thomas à Kempis, London 1887; IDEM, Who Was the Author of the "Imitation"? London 1898; V. Scully, Life of the Ven. Thomas à Kempis, London 1901; IDEM in the Cath. Encyclopedia, Vol. XIV, pp. 661 sqq.

READINGS. —Thos. Slater, S.J., A Short History of Moral Theology, New York 1909, pp. 35-44.—Aug. Lehmkuhl, S.J., in the Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. XIV, pp. 605 sqq.