Section — Wouters, Manual of Moral Theology
III. History
In the history of moral theology three principal epochs can be distinguished.
The first runs from the beginnings of the Church up to the Middle Ages. The Fathers of the first century, or the Apostolic Fathers (St. Clement of Rome, St. Ignatius, St. Polycarp, Hermas, and others), discussed many things concerning Christian ethics, especially commending faith, charity toward neighbor and toward God, and also patience. The apologists of the second and third centuries, opposing the practice of Christian life to pagan morals, preached contempt of the world, beneficence, virginity, and martyrdom. Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Tertullian, and St. Cyprian excellently developed Christian practice. They are followed by Sts. Ambrose and Augustine, whose works contain the first rudiments of a systematic exposition of Christian ethics. You will find many moral matters in the works of St. Jerome, St. Basil, St. Gregory of Nyssa and St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. John Chrysostom, St. Ephrem, and St. Cyril of Jerusalem. Finally, St. Gregory the Great, in the thirty-five books of the Moralia and in the Book of the Pastoral Rule, left to the Church something like a repertory of moral and pastoral theology.
The second epoch extends from the Middle Ages up to the Council of Trent. At the beginning of this age, once the moral documents of the Holy Fathers and the penitential canons had been collected, St. Isidore of Spain, St. Bede the Venerable, St. John Damascene, and others brought forth little from their own store. From the eleventh century, moral science began to be handed down scholastically as a part of all theology by very great doctors; among these, after Peter Lombard, St. Albert the Great, and Alexander of Hales, the Angelic Doctor Aquinas especially stands out, chiefly in the second part of the Summa Theologica. After others, St. Raymond of Pennafort (d. 1275) and others greatly promoted casuistry. St. Antoninus (d. 1459) treated moral theology separately from dogmatic theology.
The third epoch was opened after the Council of Trent. From that time moral doctrine was set forth and developed in very ample treatises, either joined with dogmatic theology or - from the end of the sixteenth century - separated from it. Some illustrated the moral doctrine of St. Thomas with commentaries; others treated the entire abundance of moral theology by a scholastic-casuistic method; or they also commented on particular matters in a fuller style. This was a golden age, which lasted almost to the middle of the eighteenth century. From that time both the excessive benignity of many theologians in moral matters, and the immoderate rigor of others, and the very sharp controversies which blazed up from these things, with the Jansenists applauding and instigating, long obscured the splendor of moral theology. Meanwhile the Supreme Pontiffs tried to bring a remedy to this, whether by condemning exaggerated propositions or by indicating the way to be followed in moral matters. Finally St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori (1696-1787) "not without a most provident counsel of God undertook to compose moral theology, so that he might accurately and solidly set forth a truly Catholic doctrine of morals, holding the middle between excessive severity and excessive benignity,"1 in such a way that through it "the directors of the souls of Christ's faithful could walk with unoffending foot."2
After the accusations of laxity against the doctrine of St. Alphonsus had died away in the earlier decades of the last century, all who wrote on moral matters professed to teach at least according to the mind of St. Alphonsus; so that, as a doctor whose authority is not suspect testifies, "the moral theology of today can be called Alphonsian."3 To this result, besides the internal character of Alphonsian doctrine, the continued commendation of his doctrine by the Supreme Pontiffs and the honors of Doctor of the Church conferred upon the Saint contributed much.
Especially in recent decades, serious detractions and calumnies have been raised almost everywhere on earth against Catholic moral theology. The Holy Fathers of the Church, as though anticipating these, already answered them by demonstrating to their contemporaries both the precepts and the practice of the Christian life. St. Augustine did this most beautifully in the book On the Morals of the Church, addressing the Catholic Church;4 likewise in the book The City of God;5 and finally in his Letter to Marcellinus.6 "Those who say that the doctrine of Christ is opposed to the republic, let them give such an army as the doctrine of Christ has ordered soldiers to be; let them give such provincials, such husbands, such wives, such parents, such children, such masters, such servants, such kings, such judges, and finally such payers and collectors of the taxes of the treasury itself, as Christian doctrine commands them to be, and let them dare to say that it is opposed to the republic; or rather, let them not hesitate to confess that, if it is obeyed, it is a great salvation of the republic."
1 Thus E. Muller, Theologia moralis, I, p. 55.
2 Pius IX, Apostolic Letter concerning St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori being honored with the title Doctor of the Church, 7 July 1871.
3 Bouquillon, Theologia moralis fundamentalis, Introduction, number 137.
4 Book I, chapter 30, numbers 62-63.
5 Book XIX, chapter 17.
6 Letter 138.