§ 2. Moral Theology From The Year 1200 Down To The Year 1564

11. Already before the year 1200 certain attempts at an entire theological system (namely, dogmatic and moral) appear. These works are commonly inscribed: books of sentences, summas. The matter to be treated appears distributed in nearly the same way in all of them and more or less follows the order of the Apostles' Creed. Namely, God is considered in His nature and in His works, especially those saving works with respect to the human race. Works of this sort were published, for example, by St. Isidore of Seville (+636),⁴⁹ Hugh of St. Victor (+1141),⁵⁰ and the celebrated Peter Lombard. His work indeed (The Four Books of Sentences), although it is not perfect in every respect, indeed not free from errors, was held as classic for several centuries and was explained by innumerable commentaries. Peter Lombard (+1164), concerning whose life few things are certainly known, on account of his work was commonly called by all the ancients "Master of the Sentences."

The thirteenth century, as of architectural art, so also of the sciences, is the golden age. For in this happy century the most famous and most splendid cathedral churches of Gothic style began to be built, for example, at Paris, Reims, Cologne, London, etc. In this century Aristotelian philosophy led the greatest triumphs in the universities of Paris, Naples, and Bologna; in this century canon law was greatly cultivated by the authentic collections of Gregory IX and Boniface VIII; in this century universal Theology obtained certainly most noble masters, for example, Blessed Albert the Great, Alexander of Hales, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Bonaventure, and others. It would be long to enumerate all the works of these authors. Among all, however, Thomas Aquinas (+1274) is easily the prince; he gathered into one the doctrines of the old doctors (especially of St. Augustine), scattered as it were like the members of some body, arranged them in wonderful order, and increased them with great increments. He did not separate Dogmatics from Morals. In his Summa theologica he first treats of God, and indeed as He is in Himself and as He is the principle of all things. Then he treats of the motion of the rational creature into God; and this is the moral part, which is truly golden and cannot be sufficiently commended both to confessors and to preachers. The third part treats of the Incarnation of Christ and of the sacraments as of the way of arriving at God. St. Thomas employs in his Morals the scholastic-speculative method; he speaks sparingly of casuistry and of asceticism. St. Bonaventure, the Seraphic Doctor, coeval and friend of St. Thomas, in many works explained the doctrines of morals with no less learning and depth than piety and unction, so that he both teaches and moves the reader. Worthy of mention also is Guillelmus Peraldus (Peraltus), O.Pr., coeval with St. Thomas, who wrote a wholly distinguished work on virtues and vices, which in the fifteenth century was very often edited. - St. Raymond de Pennafort, O.Pr. (+1275), was the first at that time to cultivate casuistic Theology, writing a little Summa for confessors shortly after, by order of Gregory IX, he arranged the Collection of Decretals. This Raymundian little Summa indeed was very widely spread because of its practical usefulness, and was illustrated and enlarged with commentaries by William of Rennes and by John of Freiburg, O.Pr. Many authors, following the example of St. Raymond, composed little Summas of Moral Theology or treatises on the manner of confessing; such are, for example, the Summa Monaldina, Summa Astesana, Summa Pisanella, Summa Angelica, Summa Rosella, Summa summarum (which is called Silvestrina from Sylvester Prierias, O.Pr., +1523, and which was edited more than 41 times), St. John Capistran's Instruction or Direction of Simple Confessors, and Savonarola's Manual of Confessions. - Among the moralists flourishing after the thirteenth century, St. Antoninus, O.Pr., +1495, Archbishop of Florence, acquired great authority and celebrity through his Theological Summa. - The mystical method also flourished in this epoch. Mystical works were published by Master Eckhart, O.Pr. (+1327), John Tauler, O.Pr. (+1361), Blessed Henry Suso, O.Pr. (+1365), John Gerson (+1429), Thomas a Kempis (+1471), and others.

⁴⁹ Sententiarum libri tres, in Migne, Patr. lat. 83, 537 sqq.

⁵⁰ Summa sententiarum, Migne, Patr. lat. t. 176. Denifle (Archiv f. Lit. u. Kirchengesch. III, 634 sqq.) thinks that this work is not to be ascribed to Hugh.