Article V: Historical Notes on Moral Theology

Order and manner of treatment. To retrace the historical fortunes ¹ both of moral science and of the sources which exhibit it is as foreign to the purpose of this book as to our ability; but we judge that to give certain historical indications will be useful to many and pleasing.

Therefore, after first considering the New Testament, we shall distinguish the Apostolic age; the age of the Fathers properly so called; the age of the Fathers less properly so called, by which at the same time transition is made to the age of the Scholastics of the Middle Ages; the age of the Scholastics after the Middle Ages; the post-scholastic age, down to St. Alphonsus; and the age after St. Alphonsus down to our own days.

Then, in a few conclusions, we shall gather, as it were, the fruits of the exposition made.

Not a few learned works contribute aids for history, for example, von Schulte, Die Geschichte der Quellen und Literatur des canonischen Rechts, Stuttgart, 1875; Grabmann, Geschichte der Scholastischen Methode, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1909-1911; Turmel, Histoire de la theologie positive jusqu'au Concile de Trente, Paris, 1904; Tixeront, Histoire des dogmes dans l'antiquite chretienne, 3 vols., Paris, 1905-1912-1919; J. de Ghellinck, S.J., Le mouvement theologique du XIIe siecle, Paris, 1914; Pourrat, P., La spiritualite chretienne, Paris, I, 1919; II, 1921.

Recently R. D. Callewaert learnedly exhibited the History of the Liturgy, Liturgicae Institutiones, vol. 1, c. 3, n. 53-118, Bruges, 1919.

¹ Bouquillon, Theologia moralis fundamentalis, in the Introduction, n. 72-140, treats at sufficient length the chiefly literary history; Koch treats the same argument in Lehrbuch der Moraltheologie, Introduction, § 10. Before them d'Annibale, in the Prooemium of his very well-known Summula, n. 3-11, treats of the vicissitudes of Moral Theology, whose formal origin he ascribes to the thirteenth century, so that only from that century does he expound its fortunes.

Already in the Gospel itself, the Lord directly proposes the moral sum, with principles concerning the charity of God and neighbor, or the greatest commandments to which all the documents of the law and the prophets can be referred ¹; and with precepts, both those which direct human actions ², and those which regard sacrifice and the sacraments ³.

To moral doubts the Lord adapts responses, as when he declares marriage indissoluble ⁴.

To responses are added counsels, for example, concerning the renunciation of riches for his sake ⁵, and concerning almsgiving ⁶.

His speech becomes polemical against the scribes and Pharisees, to whom he objects that they made void the commandment of God because of their own traditions ¹, and that they joined violation of the weightier commandments with scrupulosity in the smallest things ².

Likewise he reproves a certain rigorism which did not tolerate that the disciples plucked ears of grain on the Sabbath in order to eat ³, nor grasped the saying: "I will have mercy, and not sacrifice" ⁴; and which bound heavy and unbearable burdens ⁵.

Indeed, he already prepares the moral apology of Christians, when he wills that the justice of the disciples abound more than that of the scribes and Pharisees ⁶, and that it excel beyond the customs of the Gentiles by love of neighbor and merciful beneficence. The Lord pronounced a word of immense fecundity when he taught this mysterious law: "It is more blessed to give than to receive." St. Paul recalls this ⁸, and then, in the first century, St. Clement praises it as accepted by Christians in the First Epistle to the Corinthians: "You were all of humble mind... giving more gladly than receiving" ⁹.

¹ St. Matthew 22, 37-40: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God... Thou shalt love thy neighbor... On these two commandments depend the whole law and the prophets."

² St. Matthew 19, 18.19: "Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not steal," etc.

³ St. Matthew 28, 19: "Baptizing them in the name of the Father," etc. St. Luke 22, 19.20: "And having taken bread, he gave thanks... This is my body... Do this in commemoration of me." St. John 20, 22.23: "Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them," etc.

⁴ St. Matthew 19, 9. [Corrected from printed/OCR "10, 9" by context.]

⁵ St. Matthew 19, 21: "If thou wilt be perfect, sell what thou hast."

⁶ Luke 16, 9: "Make unto yourselves friends of the mammon of iniquity."

¹ St. Matthew 15, 6.

² St. Matthew 23, 24: "Blind guides, straining out a gnat, but swallowing a camel."

³ St. Matthew 12, 8.

⁴ St. Matthew 12, 7.

⁵ St. Matthew 23, 4.

⁶ St. Matthew 5, 20.

⁷ St. Matthew 5, 47; 6, 7.

⁸ Acts of the Apostles 20, 35.

⁹ To the Corinthians, c. 2.

The canonical writings of the Apostles are full of moral documents, and indeed of the highest perfection, which are proposed to all the faithful. In his whole First Epistle to the Corinthians, Paul rebukes contention and vice; he teaches the faithful which states are good, which are better; he solves cases concerning things sacrificed to idols; he hands down laws concerning public worship; he instructs the faithful concerning mystical matters. Moral are his three Pastoral Epistles to Timothy and Titus, and the Epistle to Philemon. In the Epistle to the Romans, chapters 12-15 are moral; in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, chapters 8 to 9, 15; the Epistle to the Galatians is moral from chapter 5; the Epistle to the Ephesians, from chapter 4; the Epistle to the Colossians, from chapter 3; the First Epistle to the Thessalonians, from chapter 5; the Second, from chapter 3; the Epistle to the Hebrews, from chapter 10. Moral are the whole Catholic Epistle of St. James and each Epistle of St. Peter. The Epistles of St. John are a perpetual exhortation to charity. The Epistle of St. James is moral. The first part of the Apocalypse directs moral admonitions to various churches.

To give certain special examples: in these sacred letters principles, responses, and counsels alike recur. The excellence and primacy of charity are extolled ¹. The faithful are deterred from sins ². Cases are solved concerning the privilege of the faith ³, concerning things sacrificed to idols ⁴; the counsel of virginity is inculcated ⁵, as is patience of injuries ⁶. Rigorism also is rejected ⁷. The apologetic exposition is prepared, while the vices of paganism are denounced ⁸, and the necessity of higher justice is preached ⁹. Documents concerning mystical theology are already handed down ¹⁰. Precepts concerning various states are explained ¹¹. The First Epistle of St. Peter contains general admonitions concerning holiness, which can be called a moral summa, just as the Catholic Epistle of St. James itself, which at the same time, not undeservedly, would be called "social" in the present meaning.

But in the first Council, which the Acts of the Apostles report to have been held at Jerusalem ¹², four moral and disciplinary points are defined or decreed; and an example of authoritative solution is offered to us.

¹ 1 Corinthians, c. 13, which chapter is wholly in praise of charity; Romans 13, 9: "Love is the fullness of the law"; Galatians 5, 14: "All the law is fulfilled in one word: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."

² 1 Corinthians 6, 10.

³ 1 Corinthians 7, 15.

⁴ 1 Corinthians 10, 27. And cf. the various questions solved in 1 Corinthians, cc. 7-11.

⁵ 1 Corinthians 7, 1-25 ff.

⁶ 1 Corinthians 6, 7.

⁷ 1 Corinthians 10, 28-29 and Galatians 4.

⁸ Romans 1, 24-32.

⁹ 1 Corinthians 5, 6-13.

¹⁰ 1 Corinthians 12-14.

¹¹ 1 Timothy 3, 1-13 and cc. 5-6.

¹² Acts 15, 29.

Both these things had to be accomplished in the Apostolic age: the new Christians had to be imbued with evangelical perfection, and the unity of the Catholic society founded by Christ had to be strengthened by the bond of obedience and mutual love. And this twofold solicitude is in fact demonstrated by the monuments of that age.

The Apostolic Fathers ¹, St. Clement of Rome, St. Ignatius Martyr, St. Polycarp, especially commend union with superiors and charity. This is especially seen in the magnificent Epistle to the Corinthians which St. Clement wrote, having taken occasion from the sedition against the presbyters. After recalling the splendid examples of the Corinthians, which had brought so great peace and abundance of grace, he chiefly preaches humility, modesty, simplicity of soul, and concord. In the same age, the very well-known Didache is ascetical in its first part, where it opposes the way of life, which is exhibited by the moral discipline of Christians, to the way of destruction; in the other part, it teaches sacramental theology, while the third part, assigned to ecclesiastical ordering, can be called canonical. The two ways also, of light and of darkness, are described in the other part of the Epistle called that of St. Barnabas. And in the second book of the Shepherd, Hermas seems to hand down the twelve commandments as a kind of moral summa of Christians.

¹ Concerning the Apostolic Fathers, the edition of Funk is to be commended, which Fr. Diekamp edited at Tubingen with new care; also the edition of Lightfoot: The Apostolic Fathers, London, 1890.

I. First period of the Fathers. Resting upon the revealed sources, the Holy Fathers commend the theological virtues, prayer, patience, flight from worldly delights, so that all moral discipline is supernatural. The virtues of Christians especially commend the new religion. Controversies are carried on concerning the reconciling of those who had fallen away from the faith; concerning the value of baptism ministered by heretics. And the rigor of the Montanists must be opposed.

In the second and third century there are written:

1. Apologetic works, in which it is brought out how greatly the morals of Christians excel those of pagans. Aristides does this; Athenagoras does this in the Legation for the Christians. The wonderful life of Christians is also described in the Epistle to Diognetus, which they ascribe to the second or third century.

2. Monographic works, such as the two epistles to virgins which are inscribed under the name of Clement of Rome; several treatises which Tertullian wrote, both as a Catholic and as a Montanist ¹; St. Cyprian, in most beautiful opuscules and ascetical little books; Origen, whose opuscule On Prayer is said to be an excellent work of the Alexandrian Doctor.

3. More general treatises, for example, the Paedagogue of Clement of Alexandria, books 2 and 3. Then also there appear the Ecclesiastical Discipline of the Apostles and the Didascalia of the Twelve Apostles, which imitate the Didache in moral and canonical rules.

¹ He himself calls the Lord's Prayer the Breviary of the whole Gospel. Koch, Lehrbuch der Moraltheologie, Introduction § 10, I, p. 21, note 7, observes that the first principle of a good action is placed by Tertullian in the formal fulfillment of the divine will: "For neither because it is good ought we therefore to listen, but because God commands" (De Paenitentia, 4).

The golden period of the Fathers. In that golden age of the Fathers, which contains the fourth century and the first part of the fifth century, the Church must be protected from the dangers of prosperity and peace. Wherefore the Fathers of that age: a) try to restrain the invasion of the morals of the Gentiles. They inveigh against usury, so that St. John Chrysostom seems somehow to have been attracted by a certain image of a better communism; b) many are occupied in describing the duties of each state; c) St. Augustine founds the City of God in the love of God, of which every virtue is a mode; d) the foundations of mystical theology are laid both by St. Macarius and by St. Augustine; e) from St. Augustine we learn the clear distinction of mortal sin from venial sin; f) in polemical controversies against the Pelagians, doctrine concerning the necessity of grace, free choice, and the conditions of merit is more accurately proposed.

The authoritative responses at that time were the responses of bishops, which were often given in Councils ².

But in conciliar canons dogmatic definitions must be distinguished from disciplinary ones. Thus it must also be carefully weighed what the Holy Fathers said as witnesses of divine-apostolic tradition, and what they said as theologians.

Moreover, in the fifth century a very extensive collection of ecclesiastical law with moral rules is published under the name of the Apostolic Constitutions.

Moral matters are proposed: a) In the homilies of the Fathers: think of St. Augustine, St. John Chrysostom, the pious and affective homilies of St. Macarius of Egypt, father of mystical Theology.

b) In methodical monographs, of which St. Augustine writes many: think of his books On Lying, Against Lying, On the Good of Marriage, On Holy Virginity. St. John Chrysostom composed the classic work On the Priesthood; the work On Virginity, exhortations To Theodore the Fallen. On virginity we have the ascetical treatise of St. Gregory of Nyssa. Also to be remembered is St. Methodius, martyr (311), Symposion, or the banquet of ten maidens, in which ten virgins in order celebrate virginity and at the end sing a fervent hymn in praise of Christ the bridegroom and his bride the Church.

c) In epistles. From epistle 211 (formerly 109) and from sermons 355 and 356, On the Morals of Clerics, the rule of St. Augustine was taken. Many and excellent epistles of St. Jerome are had, for example, the 22nd to Eustochium, On the Duties and Institutes of Virgins, the 52nd to Nepotian, On the Priestly Life. The responses of St. Basil to the Brothers in the desert, both the fuller and the briefer, constitute his rule. He himself also already ordered the canonical discipline of penance in three canonical epistles to Amphilochius.

d) We have a manual book for the use of Christians in the work of St. Ambrose On the Duties of Ministers; while in the works On the Mysteries and On Penance, he treats sacramental theology. St. Augustine also left us a more general work, at once dogmatic and moral, the Enchiridion on Faith, Hope, and Charity.

e) The so-called Testament of the Lord, or the little book which in its second part orders the whole Christian life, seems to be of the same age. The Lausiac History of Palladius, the Institutes of the Coenobia and Conferences of Cassian, and the Monastic History of Theodoret teach us the ascetical norms of monks; Theodoret's fifth book exhibits summarily the Catholic doctrine of faith and morals.

² St. Cyprian, ep. 52, 6, recalls a little book in which solutions were preserved in writing. This seems to be the beginning of collections of canons.

III. The third period of the age of the Fathers, which in the West is concluded by St. Isidore of Seville (636), is prolonged in the East to St. John Damascene (about the middle of the eighth century).

Already after the middle of the fifth century, authors and inventors yield their place to collectors and repeaters. Both in the West and in the East, labor is expended in copying and arranging things previously said. There is zeal for preserving, not for increasing, the sacred sciences. By this zeal a more methodical exposition of matters is prepared.

The most outstanding were Boethius (524-529), whose celebrated treatise On Consolation contains many moral and ascetical things; Cassiodorus (570); St. Gregory of Tours (595), who in his work On Ecclesiastical Courses gives us a liturgical enchiridion; while St. Gregory the Great (604), in the Commentaries on the Book of Job whose title is Moralia, left us an ample moral work. In the golden book of the Pastoral Rule, the same Pontiff left us an outstanding ascetical work. St. Caesarius of Arles (542) wrote a very ancient rule for virgins. St. Gregory also deserved very well of sacred and liturgical music; we have his complete Missal under the name of the Gregorian Sacramentary.

In the sixth century, the canonical collection of Dionysius Exiguus is to be remembered; since it was sent by Hadrian II to Charlemagne, it is thence called Hadriana. In Britain and Ireland the first penitential books appear, which exhibit the order of doing penance; in Gaul they are to be expected at the sixth century.

In the seventh century, the first books of sentences come to light; by their very name they profess to be collected sayings of others. The three books of St. Isidore of Seville propose dogmatic and moral matters to us. St. Julian of Toledo (690), in the Prognosticon of the Future Age, hands down counsels concerning death and burial. Then also the canonical Spanish Collection is brought into systematic order.

In the East, the very celebrated liturgical and mystical works of the pseudo-Dionysius, of the Neoplatonic school, are ascribed to the sixth century. Although these were first usurped by the Monophysites and rejected by Catholics, and are not empty of every error, nevertheless, with great applause, when in the ninth century they were rendered into Latin, they were received in the Middle Ages as true works of St. Dionysius the Areopagite and were adorned with many commentaries.

In the East also, many florilegia appear, Eklogai. Controversies are often carried on through opposed allegations.

Moschus composed the celebrated work concerning the virtues and miracles of ascetics under the name Spiritual Meadow. From St. Maximus the Confessor (662), besides most excellent chapters on charity and examinations of many doubts, we have an ascetical book by question and answer, in which a younger monk is instructed by the abbot concerning the end of man and of the world and concerning the duties of the spiritual life.

In the eighth century, St. John Damascene, who has been called the Thomas of the East, a strenuous defender of the holy images, by his greatest work, Fount of Knowledge, precedes the works of the Scholastics, especially that of the Master of the Sentences. He treats many dogmatic and moral matters in the work whose title is Sacra Parallela, so called because individual vices are compared there with individual virtues. Many things concerning the theology of the sacraments are contained in his work On the Orthodox Faith. Yet he himself also openly confesses that he does not speak from his own opinion, but is a collector of ancient sayings.

As to canonical collections, in the year 692, the collection made in the Trullan Council, or Quinisext Council, is like the Code of Oriental law.

The public calamities themselves already explain why this third period of the Fathers is much inferior to the preceding one.

In this age, while the Fathers gradually cease to be such, the age of the Scholastics is prepared through the doctrinal exposition of masters in abbatial and episcopal schools, which are ordered especially by the capitularies of Charlemagne.

In the eighth century, in the West, St. Bede the Venerable must be named, an assiduous copyist, with whose works, genuine or spurious, six volumes of Migne are filled. He offers aids to moral theology already in exegetical works, but especially in homilies and in the lives of certain saints.

The most ancient Ordo Romanus also must be cited, that is, a liturgical collection.

In the ninth century, Alcuin (804) is to be remembered; in two opuscules, On the Virtues and Vices and On the Reason of the Soul, he repeats for us many things from St. Augustine. He also explained the manner of confessing in the opuscule On the Confession of Sins, and wrote on Liturgy.

Rabanus Maurus (856), besides exegetical works, has liturgical and moral works: On Not Seeing God, on Purity of Heart, and the Manner of Penance; On Vices and Virtues and the Satisfaction for Sins; On the Sacred Orders, on the Divine Sacraments and Priestly Vestments; On the Marriages of Blood-Relations and on the Deceptions of Magicians and False Divinations.

Notable in ecclesiastical history are the attempts then begun to be made, and which were to be continued through this whole epoch, of reconciling with one another the sayings of the Fathers; and they attempted this the more scrupulously because not a few then thought that the Fathers had been inspired writers ¹.

But the century is celebrated because of its collections. In the East, Photius, with great erudition and skill, publishes his nomocanon, in which civil laws are placed alongside canonical ones. In the West, besides several general collections composed in an imperfect systematic order, there are also special collections: penitential books. Famous also are the spurious collections: the capitularies of Benedict the Levite; the capitula of Angilramn; and especially the Pseudo-Isidorian Collection, which for a long time was held to be authentic ².

Already above we warned that, in the ninth century, the works of the Pseudo-Dionysius were diffused in the West.

In the tenth century, to which belongs the name "the iron century," few writers, and those of slight merit, are to be alleged. The age is distinguished by the singular fortune which the dialectical art then had, so that every syllogism was held for an argument ³.

But in the eleventh century a new age already begins to dawn. They begin to write from their own judgment. Dispute arises concerning the place to be conceded to dialectic in dogmatic matters; and the use of reasoning in theology becomes greater.

The works are monographic. We shall cite St. Peter Damian (1072), who, by epistles, by sermons, and by opuscules, deserved very well concerning moral matters. He wrote On Almsgiving, On Contempt of the World, On the Perfection of a Monk. He most gravely reproved moral abuses in the opuscule which is called Gomorrhianum, while another, which is called Gratissimum, demonstrates the validity of an ordination made simoniacally.

Lanfranc (1089) gave us the opuscule On Concealing Confession and the Decrees for the Order of St. Benedict.

In the same century appears the Book of Decrees of Burchard of Worms, a celebrated canonical collection.

In the twelfth century, the principal honor is owed to the great Doctor St. Anselm (1109), although the praises of him are claimed by the dogmatic theologian and the philosopher, and he promoted moral science rather by ascetical writings.

The celebrated school of Liege offers to us for praise Alger (1132), with his treatise On Mercy and Justice. Hugh of St. Victor (1141) wrote a work On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith. Abelard comes before us, with his very well-known Sic et Non, or collection of opposed opinions from the sacred books and the Holy Fathers. With what intention he did this, de Ghellinck explains ¹. Abelard attributes so much to intention that he seems almost to efface the objective distinction of good and evil. He assigns far more parts to reason than St. Bernard (1151), by whom for that reason he was vigorously opposed. That holy Doctor, besides epistles and sermons, supplies us excellent moral documents in the work On Consideration (to Pope Eugene) and On the Duties of Bishops.

Toward the end of the century, Peter of Blois has many moral things in epistles, sermons, and treatises: On Christian Friendship and the Charity of God and Neighbor; On the Twelve Benefits of Tribulations; On Sacramental Confession; On the Institution of a Bishop.

The mystical-ascetical school obtains outstanding doctors: St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Hugh of St. Victor, and Richard of St. Victor (1173).

But here we must turn especially to collection. The canonical collection of St. Ivo of Chartres, which is named Decretum, and the Panormia of the same author, and the Summa of Sentences, which for a long time was ascribed to Hugh of St. Victor, are so excellent that Bouquillon, n. 99, did not hesitate to write that through them the edifice of moral theology had been erected which Clement of Alexandria had begun.

In the middle of this century there also appeared the most celebrated Decretum of Gratian, which from forensic use acquired a certain authenticity, improperly so called.

It is divided into three parts. The first treats of ecclesiastical persons and offices. It is divided into 101 Distinctions, which in turn are divided into canons. The other Part embraces 36 Causes, divided into questions. Cause 33 treats On Penance. The remaining causes touch upon many matters. The third Part is destined for Liturgy and is called On Consecration. The solicitude for reconciling authorities appears in the very title which Gratian had given to his work: The Concord of Discordant Canons.

In theological matters, before all others the four Books of Sentences (1150) of Peter Lombard come to be known. The intention of the author was, by copying many things, to give a full theological work. Throughout all the remaining Middle Ages, the work was held in the highest esteem and obtained many commentators, and those most excellent. Let it suffice to name St. Bonaventure, St. Thomas, Scotus. For several centuries it was the classic work of theology.

It embraces four books, divided into chapters without a very logical order. Afterwards it was divided into Distinctions ¹. The first book is on God and on the Most Holy Trinity; the second, on creation, on the angels, on the works of the six days, on the state of man before and after sin, on grace and on sin. The third book is on the incarnation, on the virtues, on sins, and on precepts. The fourth book treats of the sacraments and of the last things.

At the close of the twelfth century, special Summas on matrimony already exist.

¹ Cf. de Ghellinck, S.J., Le mouvement theologique du douzieme siecle. Cf. V, 3, p. 317 ff.

² Today they are sufficiently agreed that the collection was written in Gaul, in the city of Le Mans, between the years 849 and 851. The intention of "Isidore" was that of restoring ecclesiastical discipline.

³ Cf. de Ghellinck, Le mouvement theologique du douzieme siecle, p. 38-40.

¹ Le mouvement theologique du douzieme siecle, p. 102-104 and p. 331 ff.

¹ In the Middle Ages, Distinctions signify a certain collection of chapters, or also the pauses to be made in reading according to the punctuation. de Ghellinck, cited work, Le mouvement, etc., p. 132.

In that age, which is extended from the end of the twelfth century to the sixteenth century, a separation of theology and law was indeed made, but dogmatic theology is for the most part treated together with moral theology. The Doctors, in their youth, write commentaries on the books of the Sentences; when occasion is given, they compose quodlibetal questions; the things which they wish to examine more deeply they reserve for disputed questions. Finally they write Summas, as storehouses for the use of learners.

Sometimes they conclude the course with compendious works, such as St. Thomas's Compendium of Theology, in which course also they do not refuse to compose separate opuscules.

All these things are proposed in a plain and brief form, without sought-after elegance of style; altogether didactically. Documents of faith are cited very briefly; the sound philosophy of Aristotle helps them to confirm the concord of faith and reason. In this thirteenth century, Alexander of Hales (1245), O.M., was the first to use the philosophy of Aristotle in his Summa.

Before St. Thomas, Blessed Albert the Great (1280) and St. Bonaventure (1274), the Seraphic Doctor, expounded the text of the Master of the Sentences. After St. Thomas, John Duns Scotus (1308) did the same.

By unanimous consent, the prince of the Catholic school is St. Thomas, especially through his Summa Theologica.

He himself had previously written Commentaries on the books of the Sentences; disputed questions. He also has various quodlibetal questions, and many opuscules on special arguments: for example, on justice, on superstition, on the religious life (the controversy with William of Saint-Amour), on the Eucharist, so that we may give the subjects which more often gave origin to these treatises.

Using diverse philosophical principles, the Scotist school is opposed to the Thomistic school. Thomists trust reason more than Scotists: you would call the latter akin to Tertullian, when he attends to the will of God alone, and to Alcuin, when he ties a good moral action almost to intention alone. Thomists, on the contrary, more defend the necessity and immutability of the order of reason; they separate venial from mortal sin more objectively; they connect good habits with sanctifying grace in another way; concerning the essence of several sacraments, for example, penance, they disagree.

St. Bonaventure, with a more peaceful course, and not differing from St. Thomas in method or principles, directs as it were a third school; and at the same time he is celebrated as a doctor of mystical-ascetical theology.

Henry of Ghent (1293) also must be named; he left us quodlibetal works and a Summa.

We have a moral exposition separated from dogma in William Peraldus (before 1270), in his Summa on Vices and Virtues.

In the place of Decrees, Summas succeed. Celebrated is the Summa on Matrimony of Tancred (1210-1214), which St. Raymond received almost word for word into his own Summa. At the beginning of the thirteenth century, Robert of Flamesbury used the expository and casuistic method in his Penitential; likewise a moral Summa of an unknown writer preceded the very well-known Summa on Penitential Cases, which St. Raymond of Pennafort, O.Pr., composed. With the same author, Gregory IX, in the Constitution Rex Pacificus, on 5 September 1234, promulgated the books of the Decretals, five in number, whose matter is exhibited in order by this little verse: Iudex (Prelate), iudicium, clerus, conubia, crimen.

And at the end of the century, on 3 March 1298, Boniface VIII promulgated the Sixth Book of the Decretals, arranged in the same order.

In the fourteenth century, perhaps because of the propagation of nominalism, and certainly because of the iniquity of the times, in which the Church was struggling with the State and was suffering the Western Schism, scholastic theology lost not a little of its vigor: it becomes less ample, more subtle, more polemical ¹.

Nevertheless, the celebrated Scotists O.M. Peter Aureolus (1321), the Eloquent Doctor, and Ockham (1349), author of nominalism, must be named; then, from the Friars Preachers, the Thomist Peter Paludanus (1312), and Durandus, not a Thomist, the Most Resolute Doctor.

Very well known among purely moral works is the Summa on Cases of Conscience of Astesanus (ca. 1317), called the Astesan; and the Summa of Bartholomew of Pisa (1338), called the Pisan.

Germany, Flanders, and Holland then brought forth mystics of great name: Tauler (1361), H. Suso (1365), Blessed Ruysbroeck (the Admirable Doctor), Gerard of Zutphen (1398).

The Corpus Iuris Canonici was completed in the same century by the Clementines, which, arranged in the same order as the Decretals, were promulgated on 25 October 1317; and by the Constitutions which are called Extravagantes, because they were outside the authentic collections: 20 of John XXII and 70 common Extravagantes.

In the fifteenth century, John Capreolus, O.Pr. (1441), wrote highly esteemed commentaries on the Master of the Sentences, to which were added controversies between St. Thomas and the other theologians and philosophers.

In mystical theology Thomas a Kempis (1471) is to be praised.

Angelus de Clavasio (1495), whose Summa was called the Angelica, and Silvester Prierias (1523), who wrote the Summa Silvestrina, honored casuistic moral theology.

¹ Cf. Bouquillon, n. 104.

Moral theology knew a golden age from the Pseudo-Reformation down to Jansenism, with Doctors who began in the schools, in place of the Books of Sentences, to expound and illustrate the Summa of St. Thomas. "Then monuments of science are erected, incomparable in solidity, amplitude, and beauty" ¹.

Some Doctors elucidate more strictly the text of St. Thomas; Cajetan (1534) did this in his very well-known commentary, and Francis Toletus (1596), S.J. Others, after giving a brief explanation of St. Thomas, append ample disputations to the individual articles of St. Thomas; this is the method of Suarez (1617) and Vasquez (1604). In these works dogmatic matters are proposed and discussed together with moral matters. Suarez uses the scholastic method more strictly in his renowned disputations, since, before his own solution, he accurately proposes and weighs the contrary reasons. Besides those supreme men, Louis Molina, S.J. (1600), Gregory of Valencia, S.J. (1603), Bannez, O.Pr. (1604), and Lezana, O.Carm. (1659), must also be cited.

To the works which strictly or broadly expound a part of St. Thomas's Summa there are also added outstanding treatises independent of the praised Summa, and this in a twofold way. Some, being destined for special parts of moral theology, more easily preserve the scholastic method. Thus L. Molina, On Justice and Law; Lessius, S.J. (1623), On the Four Cardinal Virtues; D. Soto, O.Pr. (1560), On Justice and Law; Suarez, S.J., On Laws (a classic work), On the Threefold Theological Virtue, On the Virtue of Religion, Five Treatises on the Prima Secundae; Thomas Sanchez, S.J. (1610), On the Sacrament of Matrimony, On the Precepts of the Decalogue (which work remained incomplete); Bonacina (bishop, 1631), On Laws; Coninck, S.J. (1633), On the Sacraments and Censures, On the Virtues; and John de Lugo, S.J. (1660), On Divine Faith, On Justice and Law, On the Sacraments. He, by Cardinal d'Annibale, confirming a similar judgment of St. Alphonsus (Theol. mor. III, 552), although sometimes more subtle, is presented as "the greatest of all Moralists before, excepting the one Angelic Doctor, and after." Others treat the whole of moral theology solidly indeed, but less scholastically: Azor, S.J. (1603); Castropalao, S.J. (1633); P. Laymann, S.J. (1635); Candidus, O.Pr. (1654); Sayrus, O.S.B. (1602); Bonacina, who wrote a most complete treatise on censures.

Works of smaller bulk are also composed, whose writers, being more intent on immediately practical utility, are called casuists. Among them stand out Martin Azpilcueta (the Navarrese Doctor, 1586), who wrote the Manual for Confessors; add Cajetan, O.Pr. (1534), whose work is the Summula of Cases; E. Sa, S.J. (1596), whose work is the Aphorisms of Confessors; Toletus, S.J. (1596), whose work is the Summa of Cases of Conscience. Especially the Medulla of Moral Theology of Father Busembaum, S.J. (1668), must be alleged; it had innumerable editions, and to it St. Alphonsus himself joined his Moral Theology, almost as the Scholastics joined their works to the Master of the Sentences or to St. Thomas.

At the same time Lychetus (1520), from the school of Scotus, illustrated that Doctor with learned notes.

The golden age did not lack mystical or ascetical writers. We shall cite Louis of Blois (1556); Louis of Granada (1588); St. Teresa (1589); St. John of the Cross (1591); L. Scupoli, O.Theat. (1610); Alphonsus Rodriguez, S.J. (1616); Bellarmine (1621); St. Francis de Sales (1622).

The same Bellarmine becomes in that age the prince of polemical theology by his classic work of the Controversies.

The division which previously, in the question of the helps of grace, separated the Society of Jesus from the illustrious Order of St. Dominic, passed into the practical order in the question of probabilism, after most of the Friars Preachers, with Billuart, adhered to the doctrines of probabiliorism. And thus there exists a school which uses stricter principles, opposed to another more benign school. On the stricter side stand, together with the Friars Preachers, the Carmelites; while the Order of St. Francis, with the Society of Jesus, defends the more benign views.

But certain abuses, by which the genuine doctrine of probabilism was adulterated, together with the Jansenist heresy and Thomistic philosophy abandoned for Cartesian philosophy, paved the way to the morbid age, or the age of languor.

¹ Bouquillon, Theol. fundament., n. 117.

Nor through that age, which we have called morbid, were distinguished theologians lacking. Tamburini, S.J. (1675), can be cited, both in his more extended work and in his practice of ready confession and communion; Gobat, S.J. (1679); Viva, S.J. (1726); Voit, S.J. (1780); Lacroix, S.J. (1714); Reuter, S.J. (1762); the Carmelite Salmanticenses, whose course, consisting of six volumes, begun in the year 1665, was not completed until about the year 1725; Bordonius, Tert. O.S.Fr. (1671); Sporer, O.M. (1683); Elbel, O.M. (1756); Struggl, O.Serv. B.M.V. (1760); Caramuel, O.Cist. (1682); Roncaglia, O.M.Dei (1737); Amort (1775); D. Concina, O.Pr. (1756); Passerinus, O.Pr. (1677); Collet (1770).

On pastoral theology many works were written, for example, by M. Wigandt, O.B. (1708), and J. Reuter, S.J. (1769).

Liturgy had excellent expositors, such as Merati, O.Theat. (1744), and Cavalieri, O.S.Aug. (1757); or editors of texts, such as Mabillon, O.S.B. (1707), Martene, O.S.B. (1739) ¹, and both brothers Assemani (1768 and 1780), of whom the younger edited the liturgical Code of the universal Church.

Nevertheless, the scholastic method having been abandoned for Cartesian reasoning, and the Jansenist plague raging, great confusion was brought into the theological disciplines. The sufficiency of attrition in the sacrament of penance was disputed, whether absolution was to be given or deferred; but especially the epoch is full of disputations on probabilism: which cause, well defended by not a few, knew friends who by their laxism harmed it. Not a few laxer or "ill-sounding" propositions were reproved. Thence those who followed the stricter side gained strength, although these also were more than once condemned by the Holy See ¹, when divine Providence provided for the Church the great moral Doctor, St. Alphonsus de Liguori (1696-1787), who, not without the opposition and envy of many, vindicated its rights and place for the solidly probable opinion. Koch also observes ² that, after the middle of the eighteenth century, in Germany and elsewhere, moral theology was almost confused with natural ethics, so that it had nearly lost the supernatural regard.

Moral theology was contained especially in courses and compendia. Gradually St. Alphonsus obtained the principal place in Catholic schools.

¹ He also excellently explains Liturgy in the work On the Ancient Rites of the Church.

¹ d'Annibale, Summula, I, 11, writes: "It was all over for probabilism... had not St. Alphonsus happened..." Yet this seems excessive.

² Lehrbuch, etc.

Therefore, by the authority of St. Alphonsus it was brought about that excessive severity and excessive benignity were excluded from Catholic schools.

At the same time also the political regime was changed almost everywhere from the foundations.

For then, prepared through the heresies of the sixteenth century, the public apostasy of Christian nations was formally consummated, so that civil society began to rest on another foundation, and that a human one rather than an evangelical one.

This condition of affairs is deplored by some as the beginning of an ever-increasing disturbance, while for others "a great order of the ages is born anew." That is, just as, through various stages, the first of which was marked by the bloody sufferings of the martyrs, the religion of Christ raised human society from paganism to Christianity, so now divine Providence, in no way unmindful of the promises made to Christ, reserves, through a new series of ages, another and more glorious triumph for the Catholic Church, which it will win over apostasy itself, and by which it will lead society back from neo-paganism, worse than the former paganism was, to a Christianity or Catholicism more perfect than the former one was.

However these things will turn out - for who knows the counsels of God - the ways to a new prosperity of moral science seem to lie open. Jansenism and Gallicanism have been overthrown; Josephinism, with the very princes who used to call ecclesiastical matters back to themselves, has vanished. Catholic theologians, by the diligent prudence of the Holy See procuring this, have gratefully recovered the Angelic Doctor, and have received St. Alphonsus as a safe guide, especially in circumspectly defining practical matters. More accurate editions of the Holy Fathers and ecclesiastical writers, and the advances of a more refined cultivation of history, bring no slight aids to theologians. And in not a few questions themselves which today must be weighed, an opportunity is offered to minds for exercising their keenness. Therefore nothing seems to be lacking which is necessary or useful for the new vigor of moral theology.

Yet it must be confessed that, in the nineteenth century, after some breath had been taken from political disturbances, almost nothing was published except Manuals and Compendia; among these, to speak only of the dead, Gury-Ballerini, S.J., Bishop Simar, Cardinal d'Annibale, Aertnys, C.SS.R., Cl. Marc, C.SS.R., Lehmkuhl, S.J., and Genicot, S.J., rightly excel. Indeed certain works, for example the very celebrated compendium of Gury, by the very catechetical form of questions and answers seemed to profess a less adult age of science. For we prefer to ascribe the smallness of most works to a new beginning of life rather than, as d'Annibale thinks ¹, to powers failing from old age. Moreover, more notable special treatises appeared, such as those on the cardinal virtues written by the illustrious Bishop of Bruges, Waffelaert, and those on justice and contracts by Carriere in France and by Crolly in Ireland. Indeed, both by abundance of matters and by force of speaking and arguing, the Moral Theological Work of Ballerini approached the classic works of the golden age; after the death of the illustrious professor, the very learned Palmieri, S.J., edited and completed it.

And as signs of new vigor we joyfully regard as auspicious the lesser esteem in which merely casuistic treatises are now held, especially those which consist almost solely in the negative parts of moral theology, or in weighing sins and vices; and the fervor with which ascetical studies have begun to be cultivated.

Besides, by the Constitution Providentissima Mater, on 27 May 1917, the Code of Canon Law was promulgated. It not only embraces the disciplinary laws of the Church with wonderful brevity and arrangement, but also supplies to moral theology, concerning justice, the sacraments, and censures, many certain and entirely secure rules, since they emanate from the supreme legislative power of the Church, which in ordering matters of faith and morals is infallible.

¹ Summula, I, 7.

Present-Day Requirements. Moreover, it seems necessary that present-day writers of moral theology satisfy these desires: 1) that they strive to perfect the rational investigation of questions which do not surpass the powers of reason, so that the intrinsic reason of conclusions may become more manifest; 2) that the positive part of Christian justice, which consists in pursuing honorable and better parts, may obtain greater honor in moral treatises, and that the sublime perfection of the Gospel may be preached more openly and boldly; 3) that present-day difficulties and obscurities of cases, psychological, political, and social, which arise daily, may be examined with a more confident mind and more generous labor by men to whom present-day facts and juridical regimes are not unknown, and may be dispelled as far as possible. Thus it will happen that practical norms are truly brought down to the use of our contemporaries, and assertions are not now merely repeated from the most illustrious Doctors, which they, for their own age, discovered and proposed with admirable genius and erudition. Thus present-day moralists will be able to be called imitators rather than copyists of their illustrious predecessors; thus also by their own lucubrations they will confirm the hope of a new golden age.

I. On moral controversies. To know the controversies themselves is of no little profit to him who wishes to penetrate doctrinal history more deeply. For although their occasion not rarely is error in faith or morals, so that they end in apostasies or in the cutting off of rotten members, and although their excessive fervor is wont to injure charity, nevertheless at the same time they prepare more accurate concepts and a more conscious possession of truth. Thus, in our matter, how much the controversies concerning the Most Holy Eucharist and concerning the cult of the Sacred Heart have profited devotion itself. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, in which there was so great a struggle against the usurpations of laymen in the conferral of benefices, those usurpations spread simony; thence the question was moved concerning the value of ordinations obtained simoniacally; thence the theology of the sacraments was perfected.

To indicate certain principal controversies: in the first age, the value of baptism conferred by heretics, the reconciliation of those who had fallen away from the faith, martyrdom voluntarily undertaken, virginity, and second marriages were controverted; and the rigor of the Montanists had to be opposed.

In the second age of the Fathers, Manichaeism had to be overthrown; and in the Middle Ages itself the sects of the Manichaeans infested Europe and induced the more severe discipline of the Inquisition.

In the ninth century, in the East, there was a struggle concerning the cult of the holy images.

In the eleventh and twelfth centuries simony had to be extirpated.

Through the Middle Ages, the ascetical question, already prepared by St. Augustine, and which returned in the mystical controversies of the eighteenth century, was moved, concerning the reconciliation of our love and the love of God ¹.

Already in the thirteenth century and then in the fourteenth, several ascetical questions concerning the religious life and poverty were sharply moved, even among religious.

In the eighteenth century mystical controversies troubled the Church after Molinos (1690). But the question concerning usury, already arisen in the fourth century, has not even today wholly ceased. From the sixteenth century the controversy became frequent both between Catholics and heretics (in which matter Jansenist rigorism rather adhered to non-Catholics), and among Catholics themselves. Benedict XIV, having convoked an assembly of theologians, wished to settle the matter by the Encyclical Letter Vix Pervenit, concerning whose value there was afterwards dispute, until in our days milder responses practically prevailed ¹.

From the seventeenth century there arose the great conflict concerning Probabilism, which some, a few years having elapsed, tried with little appropriateness to renew in Holland and Switzerland.

Besides that question, the so-called Americanism, about which Leo XIII wrote letters to Cardinal Gibbons; the spiritual method; the liturgical informing of piety; and the renewal of a certain suspect mysticism occupy minds not a little.

At the same time, sexual and conjugal questions demand most diligent studies from moral theologians. Add doubts concerning cooperation with "modern" liberties.

¹ On this matter it is useful to read Rousselot, S.J., Le probleme de l'amour au moyen-age, in Beitrage zur Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters, t. VI (Baumker and von Hertling).

¹ Cf. our Questions on Justice, n. 358-362.

II. Various conclusions or corollaries.

1. Shall we say that in the history of moral theology there have been various successions of ages which are distinguished in the life of a human person, so that childhood was followed by adolescence; to this succeeded the age of maturity or manhood, which would end in cold old age? Rather, in the individual epochs of the Fathers and of the Scholastics, there was a beginning, a noonday splendor, and then an evening twilight. But through the night itself a new day was being prepared, so that rather, after its beginnings, the age of moral theology - why should we not say the same of every science? - was one of perpetual and progressing adolescence, though not by a continuous motion. Not without merit did St. Paul join the perfect man with the age of the fullness of Christ (cf. Eph. 4, 13).

2. The completed science of moral theology requires the use of the sources of revelation; the aid of the principles of philosophy; the concrete examination of causes to which the principles must be applied. The age of the Fathers taught the use of revelation: it built a supernatural moral science; the age of the Scholastics of the Middle Ages contributed the aid of philosophy; the age of the Scholastics after the Middle Ages added a better examination of facts. Psychological investigation will be the work of the present age.

Moral theology needs both matters and an ordered disposition of matters. Prosperous periods contributed the matters; through more cloudy times the systematic disposition was prepared.

Therefore, if we wish to define by some principal quality the individual ages which we have distinguished, they seem able to be exhibited in order thus: the Apostolic age was paraenetic or hortatory; the following age of two centuries, both hortatory and apologetic; the golden age of the Fathers, theologically (with attention to the sources) doctrinal and censorial; the age of the Fathers less properly so called, collecting and ordering; the age of the Scholastics of the Middle Ages, philosophical or ratiocinative; the age of the Scholastics after the Middle Ages, because of the fullness of exposition, can be called moral by antonomasia; to this succeeded the contentious age; while the age after St. Alphonsus is more conciliatory and practical. With the accession now of psychological analysis, moral theology will receive a new complement.

3. In moral theology arguments from authority must be joined with arguments from reason. If you rely on authority alone, the force of authority is easily extended beyond what is right, and progress is impeded. Thus, in an age when men thought only of preserving doctrine, the Fathers were considered inspired, whence violent interpretations came about. If you neglect the revealed sources, either dialectical subtleties enervate the rules, or there is now proposed only a human and natural honesty, in place of the evangelical sublimity which was before the eyes of the first Christians.

False philosophy harms science more than the necessity of attacking heresies. This latter sharpens minds and polishes norms; the former destroys science while by error it perverts even the minds of good men.

4. In every age a certain rigorism had to be overthrown, which by its very severity turns men away from religion.