The Patristic Period

The end for which Jesus Christ established his Church was the sanctification and salvation of souls. This end the Church was to obtain chiefly by preaching the Gospel which her Founder had revealed and by administering the sacraments which he had instituted.¹ Men were to be sanctified and prepared for eternity by holy living through the grace of God communicated to them principally by means of the sacraments. The Gospels contain a short summary of the general teaching of Jesus Christ; this is developed somewhat in certain directions in the other writings of the New Testament, but the preachers of the Word soon found it convenient to have by them brief summaries of the moral teaching of our Lord by itself. This need was met by such works as the Didaché, or Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, composed about the end of the first century, and the Pastor of Hermas, written a little later. It would be utterly impossible to give even an outline of the ethical works of all the Fathers of the Church. Together they form a very voluminous and complete course of moral theology, and more than one such course has been put together by simply printing a consecutive selection of their works. Thus in 1791 an Italian priest, Angelo Cigheri, published at Florence his Veterum Patrum Theologia Universa, in thirteen volumes quarto, of which the three last are devoted to morals. A fairly complete catalogue of ethical works by the Fathers will be found in the indices of Migne’s Patrology, arranged under the separate headings which figure in our modern manuals of moral theology. All that we can do here is to select a few typical works which exhibit the gradual development of the science of Christian ethics. The Didaché may be looked upon as the first handbook of morals which has come down to us, and it will be worth while to give a short analysis of its contents.

¹ Matt. xxviii 19, 20.

This first handbook of moral theology begins with the first general principle of ethics. All righteousness is summed up in the general precept to avoid evil and do good. The doing of good consists in the observance of the two great commandments of love for our God and for our neighbour. The golden tule is added to the statement of the general first principles of morality. ‘‘ There are two ways,” we read, “one of life and one of death; and there is much difference between the two ways. Now the way of life is this: First thou shalt love God that made thee; secondly, thy neighbour as thyself; and all things whatsoever thou wouldest should not happen to thee, neither do thou to another.” The rest of the first chapter is occupied with a development of the precept of love for our neighbour, expressed for the most part in the language of the Sermon on the Mount. The second chapter enumerates some of the principal negative duties toward our neighbour. A similar enumeration occupies the third chapter, but here there is an attempt to give the reason for the different prohibitions, as, for example: ‘“‘ Be not prone to anger, for anger leads to murder; neither a zealot, nor contentious, nor passionate, for from all these things murders are begotten.” In the fourth chapter are set down the duties towards preachers of the Gospel, of making peace, of judging righteously, of almsgiving; duties toward parents, children, servants; of avoiding hypocrisy, and not adding to or taking away from the precepts of the Lord which they had been taught. The chapter concludes with, “ This is the way of life.”

The fifth chapter consists of a long enumeration of sins, and ends with the prayer, “ May ye be delivered, children, from all these.”

In the sixth chapter there is a warning against being led away from this teaching by anyone, for such a one would not teach according to God. A distinction is drawn between what is required for perfection and what is morally possible. The faithful are bidden specially to beware of what has been sacrificed to idols.

A brief instruction on Baptism occupies the seventh chapter, and in the eighth Christians are taught to fast on Wednesdays and Fridays, so that their fasting-days may be different from those of the Jews, who fasted on Mondays and Thursdays, They are told to say the Our Father three times a day. The ninth and tenth chapters give instructions on the celebration of the Eucharist, while the two following deal with the way in which prophets and strangers should be received. The thirteenth chapter prescribes the offering of firstfruits. In the next chapter the faithful are instructed to meet together on every Lord’s Day, to offer the eucharistic sacrifice, after confessing their sins, so that their sacrifice may be pure. Enemies, too, should be reconciled lest the sacrifice be defiled. It was of this sacrifice that Malachias prophesied. The fifteenth chapter deals with the election of bishops and deacons and the respect which is due to them. The duties of fraternal correction, of prayer and almsdeeds, are enjoined as they are contained in the Gospel of our Lord. The last chapter contains an exhortation to watch, and inculcates the necessity of faith and perseverance, for Antichrist will appear and seduce many. The treatise concludes with a short description of the signs of the last day.

The whole of the second book of the Pastor of Hermas is a document of early Christian moral teaching very similar to the Didaché, but more attempt may be observed in it to show the connection between one prohibition and another, and to give reasons and motives for their observance.

A great advance is observable in the catechetical works of Clement of Alexandria. They are almost exclusively devoted to moral teaching, which their learned author illustrates and confirms by constant quotations from the Greek classical authors, With an enthusiastic and personal love for Jesus Christ, and faith in his teaching as a divine and full revelation of the truth to men, he combines a high esteem for reason and philosophy. According to Clement, philosophy was the pedagogue of the pagan world, preparing it for Christ and leading it to him, as the law did the Jews. Philosophy is the handmaid of theology, he says, and the dictates of reason are but the promptings of the Word .which illuminates every man that cometh into the world. This, of course, is but a development of ideas which we find in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, and it is a natural consequence of Christian teaching concerning God and his relation to man and to the world. It is a very superficial view which regards the action of Clement and other Fathers in the use they made of reason and philosophy as a corrupting influence in Christian teaching. With them, as with the scholastics in the Middle Ages, that action was the necessary result of a firm faith in the Gospel message, and the natural desire to understand it and penetrate its full meaning as far as possible. It was Fides quaerens intellectum, the moving spirit of Catholic theology from the beginning. Better than any lengthy-exposition, an extract or two from Clement will show how far the science of moral theology had progressed at the end of the second century. The following extract is taken from an apologetic work entitled An Exhortation to the Heathen.

“Wherefore, since the Word himself has come to us from heaven, we need not, I reckon, go any more in search of human learning to Athens and the rest of Greece, and to Ionia. For if we have as our teacher him that filled the universe with his holy energies in creation, salvation, beneficence, legislation, prophecy, teaching, we have the Teacher from whom all instruction comes; and the whole world, with Athens and Greece, has already become the domain of the Word. For you, who believed the poetical fable which designated Minos the Cretan as the bosom friend of Zeus, will not refuse to believe that we who have become the disciples of God have received the only true wisdom; and that which the chiefs of philosophy only guessed at, the disciples of Christ have both apprehended and proclaimed.”¹

¹ Exhortation to the Heathen, c. 11.

The next extract, from the Pedagogus, a work containing instructions for recent converts, shows the place which reason or conscience holds in Christian ethics. “ Everything that is contrary to right reason is sin. Accordingly, therefore, the philosophers think fit to define the most generic passions thus: lust, as desire disobedient to reason; fear, as weakness disobedient to reason; pleasure, as an elation of the spirit disobedient to reason. If, then, disobedience in reference to reason is the generating cause of sin, how shall we escape the conclusion that obedience to reason—the Word— which we call Faith, will of necessity be the efficacious cause of duty? For virtue itself is a state of the soul rendered harmonious by reason in respect to the whole life. Nay, to crown all, philosophy itself is pronounced to be the cultivation of right reason; so that, necessarily, whatever is done through error of reason is transgression, and is rightly called sin.”¹

¹ Pædagogus, i, c. 13.

The Stromata, or Miscellanies, are a collection of materials for the ethical instruction and training of the Christian theologian. The philosophical and theological detail to which Clement descends in the treatment of his subject may be illustrated by an extract from the fourteenth chapter of the second book of the Stromata, on the different ways in which an act may be involuntary. The matter, of course, belongs to the treatise on Human Acts, sometimes said to be the last treatise which was added to our manuals of morals. “What is involuntary is not matter for judgement, But this is twofold—what is done in ignorance, and what is done through necessity. For how will you judge concerning those who are said to sin in involuntary modes? For either one knew not himself, as Cleomenes and Athamas, who were mad; or the thing which he does, as Aeschylus, who divulged the mysteries on the stage, who being tried in the Areopagus was absolved on his showing that he had never been initiated. Or one knows not what is done, as he who has let off his antagonist, and slain his domestic instead of his enemy; or that by which it is done as he who in exercising with spears having buttons on them, has killed someone in consequence of the spear throwing off the button; or knows not the manner how, as he who has killed his antagonist in the stadium, for it was not for his death but for victory that he contended; or knows not the reason why it is done, as the physician who gave a salutary antidote and killed, for it was not for this purpose that he gave it, but to save.”¹

¹ Stromata, ii, c. 14.

As yet no attempt had been made in the Church to write a systematic treatise of morals by reducing the various virtues and vices to logical order under appropriate general principles. This step was taken by St Ambrose at the end of the fourth century. This great Father and Doctor of the Church com posed his work De Offictis for the instruction of the clergy of his church of Milan. He expressly tells us that he followed Cicero’s work with the same title as his pattern. Cicero wrote his book for the instruction of his son; St Ambrose desired to write for the instruction of his spiritual children. Although he followed Cicero closely in the arrangement and treatment of the matter, yet he never loses sight of what appears to have been the chief motive that he had in view in the composition of his work—namely, to demonstrate the superiority of Christian over pagan ethics.

The work is divided, like Cicero’s, into three Books. In the first he treats of what is honourable and dishonourable. He points out that the philosophic distinction between ordinary and perfect virtue has its counterpart in the Gospel, which distinguishes between what is matter of strict precept and of counsel. Certain elementary duties, as those toward parents and elders, are touched on, and then follows a discussion on the four cardinal virtues. The second Book treats of what is expedient with reference to eternal life. The third Book treats of what is honourable and expedient in conjunction, and the author has no difficulty in reconciling these conflicting principles according to Christian teaching. “ For,” he writes, “T said that nothing can be virtuous but what is useful, and nothing can be useful but what is virtuous. For we do not follow the wisdom of the flesh, whereby the usefulness that consists in an abundance of money is held to be of most value, but we follow the wisdom which is of God, whereby those things which are greatly valued in this world are counted but as loss. For this κατόρθωμα, which is duty carried out entirely and in perfection, starts from the true source of virtue. On this follows another or ordinary duty. This shows by its name that no hard or extraordinary practice of virtue is involved, for it can be common to very many.” This principle of perfection is then applied to the pursuit of gain and other questions, A very famous book on morals, somewhat more restricted in scope than the De Officus of St Ambrose, is the Pastoral Care of St Gregory the Great. This, together with the same author’s Morals on Job, was a favourite textbook in the Middle Ages. It lays down the qualities required in those who have the cure of souls, how they themselves should live, how they should instruct and admonish those subject to their authority. The book was brought to England by St Augustine and translated into English¹ by King Alfred for the benefit of the bishops and priests of his kingdom.

¹ De Officiis, iii, c. 2.

A word must here be said on Christian asceticism, which has been so utterly misunderstood and misrepresented by such writers as Lecky and Harnack, and whose true relation to Christian morals is so seldom perceived by non-Catholic authors.

Christ our Lord expressly taught that renunciation of self, of the world with its riches and pleasures, was in a certain sense a necessary condition of discipleship. This renunciation, however, admitted of different degrees, as is also plain from the Gospels. Some were called only to spiritual poverty and detachment, and these hoped to save their souls by remaining in the world without being of it. Outwardly they lived much like other people, but their affections were detached from this world and centred on God and eternity. They went to heaven by the way of the commandments. Others, on the contrary, voluntarily embraced the counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience, given by our Lord to those who were called, and who felt that they had the spiritual strength to follow the call. They made a special profession of following the counsels, and were assigned a place of honour in the Christian assemblies, but at first they seem to have lived in the bosom of their families. They soon, however, began to find it very difficult to persevere in their adopted form of. life while exposed to the distractions and temptations of the world, and this, together with the violence of the persecutions, drove them into the desert. There they lived at first solitary lives as hermits, but before long they began to come together and put themselves under the authority of some ancient Father of the desert renowned for his prudence and sanctity. Their aim was to subdue their passions and ascend the heights of Christian perfection. The task is notoriously difficult both in theory and in practice, and many mistakes were made. The Church had not yet drawn up her minute code of laws for the regulation of religious life. Those writers, however, who industriously pick out the mistakes and the exaggerations of indiscreet fervour, and piece them together to produce a picture of Christian monachism and asceticism, only succeed in producing a caricature. ‘To convince one’s self of this it is sufficient to dip into the Institutes of Monasteries and the Conferences of Cassian, who was in the middle of a long life in the year 400, In the twelve Books of his Institutes Cassian describes the dress of the monks, their method of singing the divine office, the training of postulants and novices, and then he devotes the last eight Books to a minute account of the nature, causes, and remedies of the eight principal vices which bar the way to the summit of Christian perfection. He maps out every portion of the pilgrim’s progress to his heavenly country, and shows what dangers and obstacles he will meet by the way. In brief, he says, progress toward perfection begins with the fear of God, from which arises a salutary sorrow for sin, which leads to renunciation and contempt of the world; this begets humility, from which springs mortification of the will, and by this all vices are subdued and extirpated. Then all virtues begin to flourish in the soul, which thus arrives at purity of heart and the perfection of apostolic charity.¹ The vices to be overcome are classed under eight different heads by Cassian, and he says that the classification was admitted by all.² These principal or capital vices are typified by the seven people, whom the Israelites were commanded by God to extirpate when they came into the land of promise. Egypt makes the eighth, from which they had been delivered, and which, Cassian says, typifies gluttony. From this vice the monk is indeed delivered by his abandoning the world for the desert, but he may not extirpate it altogether; he should aim only at curbing its excesses. Gregory the Great adopted in substance the teaching of Cassian on the capital vices, but by making pride the queen of all the rest, and placing it in a category by itself, the other seven became the seven deadly sins which with their daughter vices were so famous in the literature of the Middle Ages, and figure in the books of morals and in the catechisms of Christian doctrine to the present day.

¹ De Cenobiorum Institutis, lib. iv, c. 43.

² Collatio v, c. 18.

To show how conservative the Catholic tradition has been, even in the expression of doctrine, I will give the following passage in St Gregory's own words: " Ipsa namque vitiorum regina superbia cum devictum plene cor ceperit, mox illud septem principalibus vitiis, quasi quibusdam suis ducibus devastandum tradit. Quos videlicet duces exercitus sequitur, quia ex eis proculdubio importunae vitiorum multitudines oriuntur. Quod melius ostendimus, si ipsos duces atque exercitum specialiter, ut possumus, enumerando proferamus. Radix quippe cuncti mali superbia est, de qua, Scriptura attestante, dicitur: Initium omnis peccati est superbia (Ecclus. *("For pride, the very queen of the vices, when it has fully seized a conquered heart, straightway hands it over to be laid waste by the seven principal vices, as though by certain generals of its own. And an army follows these generals, because from them, without doubt, importunate multitudes of vices arise. This we shall show better if we set forth the generals themselves and the army, enumerating them particularly, as we are able. For the root of all evil is pride, of which, as Scripture testifies, it is said: Pride is the beginning of all sin.)*x 15). Primae autem ejus soboles, septem nimirum principalia vitia, de hac virulenta radice proferuntur, scilicet (And its first offspring, namely the seven principal vices, spring from this venomous root, that is to say) gloria, invidia, ira, tristitia, avaritia, ventris ingluvies, luxuria. Nam quia his septem superbiae vitiis nos captos doluit, idcirco Redemptor noster ad spirituale liberationis proelium spiritu septiformis gratiae plenus venit.

"Sed habent contra nos haec singula exercitum suum. Nam de inani gloria inobedientia, jactantia, hypocrisis, contentiones, pertinaciae, discordiae, et novitatum praesumptiones oriuntur. De invidia, odium, susurratio, detractio, exsultatio in adversis proximi, afflictio autem in prosperis nascitur. ira, rixae, tumor mentis, contumeliae, clamor, De indignatio, blasphemiae proferuntur. De tristitia, malitia, rancor, pusillanimitas, desperatio, torpor circa praecepta, vagatio mentis erga illicita nascitur. perjuria, inquietudo, obdurationes laetitia, cordis scurrilitas, De avaritia, proditio, violentiae, et contra oriuntur. De immunditia, ventris inconsideratio, inconstantia, ingluvie, multiloquium, sensus circa intelligentiam propagantur. mentis, fraus, fallacia, misericordiam inepta hebetudo De luxuria, caecitas praecipitatio, amor sui, odium Dei, affectus praesentis seculi, horror autem vel desperatio futuri generantur. Quia ergo septem principalia vitia tantam de se vitiorum multitudinem proferunt, cum ad cor veniunt, quasi subsequentis exercitus catervas trahunt. (For because he grieved that we were held captive by these seven vices of pride, therefore our Redeemer came, full of the spirit of sevenfold grace, to the spiritual battle of our deliverance. “But each of these has its own army against us. For from vainglory there arise disobedience, boasting, hypocrisy, contentions, obstinacies, discords, and the presumption of novelties. From envy are born hatred, whispering, detraction, exultation at a neighbour’s adversity, and affliction at his prosperity. From anger are put forth quarrels, swelling of mind, insults, outcry, indignation, and blasphemies. From sloth are born malice, rancour, faint-heartedness, despair, torpor concerning the commandments, and a wandering of the mind after what is unlawful. From avarice arise treachery, fraud, deceit, perjuries, restlessness, violence, and hardness of heart against mercy. From gluttony are propagated foolish mirth, scurrility, uncleanness, heedlessness of speech, and dullness of sense regarding understanding. From lust are begotten blindness of mind, precipitation, inconstancy, self-love, hatred of God, attachment to the present world, and horror or despair of the world to come. Since therefore the seven principal vices bring forth so great a multitude of vices from themselves, when they come to the heart they draw after them, as it were, the troops of a following army.) Ex quibus videlicet septem quinque spiritalia, duoque carnalia sunt," The Conferences of Cassian are represented by him as the teachings of celebrated abbots on various questions of the spiritual life. They are partly speculative, partly practical. There are twenty-four in all, each being divided into a greater or less number of chapters. These two works have provided an ample store of moral and ascetical doctrine for all subsequent Catholic writers on the subjects treated in them.

A large portion of moral theology is taken up with the duties arising from the positive legislation of the Church. In this legislation we have the practical application of Christian moral principles to the varying requirements of time and place, and change and variety are here conspicuous. With the establishment of the Christian religion the positive precepts of the Mosaic law ceased to be binding, but the Church received from her divine Founder authority to make new laws for the sanctification and salvation of her children, The Apostles used this legislative authority, as we see from the Epistles of St Paul, especially from those to Timothy and Titus, and within twenty years after the Ascension we find them legislating¹ in the Council of Jerusalem on the disputed question of legal observances. The decree which we have in the Acts² was a true positive law imposing a new obligation on the faithful concerned, as long as the peculiar circumstances of the time rendered its observance desirable and necessary.2 This council of the Apostles formed the type and pattern for the oecumenical and provincial councils of the Church which were to be held in the future. Innumerable laws and regulations have been enacted by these, affecting Catholic life, discipline, and worship. The bishops, too, as successors of the Apostles, have continued in all ages to exercise the legislative authority committed by them to God and the Church. The Roman . Pontiffs, especially, in the exercise of their jurisdiction over the whole Church in succession to Blessed Peter, have in all ages made wise laws for the peace and prosperity of the Christian people. As instances of this action of the Popes in the early centuries may be mentioned St Clement’s first epistle to the Corinthians in the first century, St Victor’s decision about the observance of Easter in the second century, St Stephen’s about the baptism of heretics in the third, and similar action on the part of Popes Liberius, Damasus, and Siricius. Subsequently papal decisions became frequent and notorious. Collections of the decisions issuing from all these sources of positive law began to be made in very early times.. Of these some have survived the ravages of time. The Didascalia of the Apostles may, in the judgement of the learned, be ascribed to the first half of the third century, and the so-called Constitutions of the Apostles, together with the Canons of the Apostles, to the early part of the fifth century. The materials of which these collections are composed are, of course, still more ancient. At the beginning of the fourth century the decrees of the councils were collected and arranged at first in chronological order in the East. At the beginning of the sixth century systematic collections arranged under suitable titles began to appear. Of these early collections of canons the most celebrated is that of John the Scholastic. In the West, Dionysius Exiguus made his translation of Greek canons into Latin about the year 500. A copy of this collection was presented by the Pope to Charlemagne when he was in Rome, and he caused it to be received and approved by the clergy of his empire in 802 at the great Council of Aix la Chapelle. Collections of Church laws continued to grow in number and 2 It ceased to bind in the Latin Church about the ninth century. in bulk twelfth century the monk Gratian issued his Decretum, which became the most famous of them all, and still forms the first volume of the Corpus Juris Canonici. It contains some 4,000 decisions on law and morals taken from the decrees of Popes, the canons of councils both general and particular, the opinions of the Fathers, and even from the civil law.

¹ Moralium, lib. xxxi, c. 45.

² Acts xv 28, 29.

No attempt, of course, can be made in this short sketch to trace the varying phases through which the innumerable positive laws of the Church have passed. It will be sufficient for our purpose to trace in outline those chief precepts which bind all Catholics and which are specially known as the precepts of the Church. They are usually reckoned six in number: the due observance of Sundays and feast-days, the days of fasting and abstinence, confession and Communion, the support of pastors, and the prohibition of marriage within certain degrees of kindred and of its solemnization at certain times of the year.

The observance of the Sunday and its substitution for the Sabbath appears to be due to apostolic institution. There are traces of it in the New Testament; in the Didaché the faithful are bidden to come together on the Lord’s Day, as it was called even then in honour of the Resurrection, and offer the eucharistic sacrifice after confessing their sins. In the second century the custom of observing the Lord’s Day was universal throughout the Church. The chief duty to be performed on that day was to hear Mass. Very soon particular provincial laws began to be enacted urging the obligation and imposing penalties on transgressors. At the beginning of the fourth century the Council of Illiberis in Spain decreed that anyone who might be absent from Mass on three successive Sundays should be deprived of Communion. The Council of Agde at the beginning of the sixth century prescribed that all were to hear an entire Mass on Sunday and not leave until after the blessing of the priest on pain of a public reprehension by the bishop.

It was natural that when Sunday became the Christian Sabbath it should be kept much in the same way as the Jews kept their Sabbath. While knowing from the teaching of our Lord himself that pharisaic exaggeration was to be avoided in this matter, and from St Paul that the sabbatical rest was no longer of obligation, still St Caesarius of Arles in the sixth century expressly says that the Doctors of the Church decreed to transfer all the honour of the Sabbath to the Lord’s Day. The very necessity of hearing Mass on that day made a certain abstention from work also necessary. Tertullian testifies to the Christian custom of his day in this respect. Constantine prescribed that judges and artisans in towns should abstain from work on the Sunday, but that agriculture should be allowed on account of necessity. The strictness with which the Sunday repose was observed varied somewhat according to time and place in the period with which we are dealing.

Besides the Sunday other feast-days began gradually to be observed in the same manner by hearing Mass and abstaining from servile work. Easter and Pentecost were assigned to movable Sundays, but the days on which renowned martyrs suffered for the Faith, those on which churches were dedicated, Ascension Day, Christmas Day, and the Epiphany, were soon added to the list. The letter of the Church of Smyrna concerning the martyrdom of St Polycarp in the middle of the second century expresses the intention of celebrating the anniversary of the day of martyrdom with joy, both in memory of those who had suffered and as a preparation for those who survived.¹ As the Christian Church took over the Jewish Sabbath but changed the day on which it was observed and rejected the exaggerations of the Pharisees in its observance, so, too, it adopted the Jewish practice of fasting at stated times. As we have seen from the Didaché, the fast of Monday and Thursday was changed into one on Wednesday and Friday. The obligation of fasting on all Wednesdays and Fridays ceased almost entirely about the tenth century, but the fixing of those days by ecclesiastical authority for fasting, and the desire to substitute a Christian observance at Rome for certain pagan rites celebrated in connection with the seasons of the year, seem to have given rise to our Ember Days. In the time of St Leo, in the middle of the fifth century, the Ember Days were a settled institution, though the time at which they fell varied somewhat at different times and in different places.

¹ Cf. A. Villien, Histoire des Commandements de l’Eglise, 1909.

The earliest indication that we have of the fast of Lent is contained in a short extract from Irenaeus which has been preserved for us by Eusebius.¹ Writing to Pope Victor about the middle of the second century, St Irenaeus says that the controversy in the East was not merely about the proper time of celebrating Easter but also about the manner of fasting. “ For some think,” he says, “that they ought to fast only one day, some two, some more days; some compute their day as consisting of forty hours night and day; and this diversity existing among those that observe it is not a matter that has just sprung up in our times, but long ago among those before us, who, perhaps not having ruled with sufficient strictness, established the practice that arose from their simplicity and inexperience, and yet with all these maintained peace, and we have maintained peace with one another; and the very difference in our fasting establishes the unanimity of our faith.” At the time this was written the Lenten fast was obviously very short, and there was no uniformity even in its duration. Tertullian,. fifty years later, refers to the Lenten observance as the fulfilment of the words of our Lord: “ But the days will come when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them; then shall they fast in those days.”

¹ Historia Ecclesiastica, v, c. 24.

The first allusion to a period of forty days’ fast occurs in the fifth canon of the Council of Nicaea (325). In the time of St Leo in the fifth century the period was sufficiently well established to be referred by him to apostolic institution. The period was six weeks, but omitting Sundays the actual fasting days were only thirty-six in number. The four days before the first Sunday of Lent were added sometime in the seventh century. The fasts assigned to certain vigils arose from the practice of the early Christians of assembling on the eve of a feast and spending the night in prayer, fasting, and reading the Scriptures. By degrees Matins took the place of the night office, and the vigil office was moved back to the Saturday morning, as. we see to this day from the morning office of Holy Saturday. The fast was thus prolonged through the Saturday till after the morning office of the feast of the next day.

The fast which used to. be observed on the rogation days took its rise in France at the close of the fifth century, and by degrees spread to other Churches. The interrupted fast of Advent was introduced as a preparation for Christmas toward the end of the fourth century. The manner of fasting has varied greatly at different times and in different places, At first the fast seems to have been absolute and continuous. During the days of the bridegroom’s absence the faithful neither ate nor drank anything. When the period was lengthened such a total fast became impossible, but at least in the East food was restricted on fast days to one meal of bread, salt, and water, taken in the evening, or three in the afternoon, at least not before In the time of St Gregory fish was allowed at the single meal in the West. Flesh meat was never allowed on fasting days.

The essence of fasting is still placed by theologians in the single meal, but many relaxations have crept in by degrees. The monks while listening to a Collatio of Cassian before going to bed introduced the practice of drinking an acidulated liquor called posca. By degrees fruits and lighter kinds of food in limited quantity were added, and when about the thirteenth century the full meal began to be taken at twelve midday, the evening collation became an established practice.

In the thirteenth century it was an accepted principle that liquid does not break the fast, and this became the source of another relaxation. A little wine, or coffee, or chocolate, was taken sometimes in the morning, with candied fruits (electwaria) on occasion. The practice was not condemned when the Sacred Penitentiary was asked about it in 1843, provided that the solid food taken then did not exceed two ounces in weight.

At first all seem to have fasted except children and those who were sick. St Thomas’s opinion that those who are still growing are not bound to fast, and that in general the period of growth lasts till the completion of the twenty-first year, has prevailed. Exemptions in favour of workmen and others were soon admitted, and toward the close of the Middle Ages dispensations from the law of fasting began to be granted. The Lenten indult was an established custom before the new Code came into force.

The precept of abstinence from flesh meat which is still observed on Fridays is a survival of the obligation of fasting on that day which obtained in the primitive Church. As we have seen, the Didaché prescribed fasting on all Wednesdays and Fridays, and to this fast all the faithful except mere children and the sick were formerly bound. About the tenth century the obligation of the Friday fast was reduced to one of abstinence from flesh meat, and the Wednesday fast, after being similarly mitigated, gradually disappeared altogether.

While in the East Saturday was observed as a festival in honour of the creation,¹ at Rome and in other Churches of the West it began in early times to be observed as a fasting day On account of the difference of discipline on this point great difficulties arose in the fourth century, as we know from the correspondence of St Augustine and St Jerome. St Ambrose said that he kept festival on Saturday when he was at Milan and a fast when at Rome, and he advised St Augustine to follow the same rule. About the eleventh century the Saturday fast was reduced to an obligation of abstinence, and this was the common law of the Church until the new Code of Canon Law came into force. A dispensation from abstinence on Saturdays, the feast of St Mark, and on Rogation Days was granted for England by a rescript of Propaganda, May 29, 1830.

¹ Apostolic Constitutions, vii, 23.

The Sundays in Lent were never observed as fasting days, but they early became days of abstinence as they remained till the new Code came into force on May 19, 1918.

Annual confession and Communion was first made a positive universal law of the Catholic Church in the Fourth Lateran Council (1215). As we know from the Gospel of St John,¹ both confession and Communion were prescribed by our Lord, but he determined neither precept in detail. The practice of the different Churches in the early ages was various in respect to both precepts. We will first trace in outline the history regarding the precept of annual Communion.

¹ John vi 54.

From the earliest times, as we have seen, Mass was celebrated for the assembled faithful on Sundays, and all who were present appear to have received Holy Communion. In some places it was the practice for the faithful to take home with them consecrated particles and communicate themselves therewith out of Mass. Many at Rome, in Spain, and in Africa received Communion daily. This was a common practice at the end of the fourth century, as we learn from the letters of St Jerome and St Augustine. The latter interprets the daily bread for which we ask in the Lord’s Prayer as Holy Communion. The Council of Agde (506) decreed that those who did not communicate at least on the feasts of the Nativity, Easter, and Whit-Sunday were not to be reckoned as Catholics. In subsequent centuries this became a general rule in the Western Church; in the East, according to Theodore of Canterbury, the law was much stricter. The Greeks, he says, both laity and clerics, communicate every Sunday, and anyone who omits to do so on three Sundays is excommunicated. A synod held (747) at Cloveshoe in England prescribed that innocent youths and those in whom years had cooled the ardour of passion should be exhorted to communicate very frequently, A synod held under St Patrick in the fifth century decreed that the Eucharist was to be received at all events at Easter, and that anyone who neglected this duty was not a member of the Church. Robert Pullen, an Englishman who wrote in the middle of the twelfth century, tells us that in his day some communicated more frequently, others less so, but that even laymen followed the rule of the Fathers and communicated at least three times a year. So that when the Lateran Council established the universal law that all who had come to years of discretion were bound to communicate at least at Easter, it made no new rule; it merely enforced by universal statute the least that was expected of anyone who called himself a Catholic.

The precept of annual confession is intrinsically connected with that of Easter Communion both in the Church’s legislation and in its own nature. For, as the Catechism of the Council of Trent teaches,¹ the power of order, although primarily it refers to the consecration of the Eucharist, yet also comprises all that is necessary to dispose the faithful to receive the Eucharist worthily and profitably. It comprises, then, the power to forgive sins, inasmuch as no one who is conscious of mortal sin may receive Holy Communion without previous confession and absolution. The Council of Trent² teaches that the words of St Paul, “‘ Let a man prove himself,” have always been understood in the Church of the necessity of sacramental confession and absolution before Holy Communion when there is consciousness of mortal sin. The law of the Lateran concerning annual confession and Communion is thus one law, confession being ordinarily a necessary preparation for Holy Communion in those who rarely communicate. That the Church always understood this is witnessed to by Alcuin in the eighth century,³ by St Leo in the fifth,⁴ St Augustine in the fourth,⁵ and St Cyprian in the third.⁶ We have the same conjunction of confession and Communion in the sentence of the Didaché: “ But on the Lord’s day do ye assemble and break bread, and give thanks, after confessing your transgressions, in order that your sacrifice may be pure.”⁷ In all probability the confession here spoken of should be interpreted as meaning sacramental confession to a priest. The Council of Trent, then, was justified in saying that before receiving Holy Communion it had always been considered a duty to go to confession when there was consciousness of mortal sin. In the fifth or sixth century a practice sprang up which was the forerunner of the Lateran law of annual confession. At the beginning of Lent public penance was imposed on those who had been guilty of great and notorious crimes. In some of the Penitential Books⁸ the priest is bidden to invite all who are conscious of mortal sin, and even all who by any sin whatever have soiled their baptismal robe, to make humble confession to their own priest on Ash Wednesday, and accept the penance enjoined according to the canons. If there was any special reason for granting absolution at once, that was done, otherwise absolution was deferred till Maundy Thursday, when, the penance having been performed, the penitent was absolved and admitted to Communion. This was a mitigation of the earlier discipline of some Churches, especially in the East, according to which public penance sometimes lasted for years.⁹ The name of Shrove Tuesday and the custom of receiving ashes on the head on Ash Wednesday, still remind us of the old discipline of the Catholic Church, It was natural, then, that when the Church made it obligatory on all to receive Holy Communion at least every Easter, it should also impose the obligation of annual confession. The law indeed does not indicate Easter as necessarily the time for the annual confession, but in practice it follows the time for the annual Communion. Originally the annual confession had by law to be made to the parish priest or to the bishop of the penitent, but for centuries it has been lawful to make it to any priest who has faculties for hearing confessions in the place.

¹ Pt. ii, c. 7, q. 6.

² Supra, p. 102.

³ De Psalmorum Usu, P.L., ci, 499.

⁴ Epist. 108, P.L., liv, 1011.

⁵ Serm. 278, P.L., xxxviii, 2273.

⁶ Epist. 10, P.L., iv, 254; Epist. ii, ib. 257; De Lapsis, xvi, ib. 479.

⁷ C. xiv.

⁸ Schmitz, Bussbücher, i, 775.

⁹ Duchesne, Christian Worship, p. 435.

The faithful are bound by natural and divine law according to the teaching of St Paul¹ to contribute to the support of their pastors. For some centuries the revenues of the Church derived from the offerings of the faithful and from other sources constituted one fund, and this was administered by the bishop. The support of the poor, the maintenance of public worship, as well as the support of the clergy and other needs, were all supplied from the common fund. According to a decretal of Pope Gelasius (501) the Church revenues were to be divided into four portions, one for the bishop, another for the clergy, a third for the relief of the poor and strangers, the fourth for the Church fabrics. In his celebrated answers to St Augustine, Gregory the Great tells the first Archbishop of Canterbury that as he was a monk he did not need a separate portion, and should be content to share in - common with his clergy. For several centuries no positive law of the Church was needed to compel the faithful to do their duty in this matter. The Fathers who occasionally urge the obligation are content to appeal in support of it to the teaching of St Paul or to the law of tithes under the Mosaic dispensation.

¹ 1 Cor. ix; Gal. vi 6.

The Penitential attributed to St Theodore enjoins that the custom of the province should be observed relative to contributions to the Church, but that the poor were not to be subjected to violence for the sake of tithes or other matters.

Positive ecclesiastical laws, however, began to appear both on the Continent and in England in the eighth century. Thus the seventeenth article of the legatine council held in England by the authority of Pope Adrian I (785-787) contained the following provision: ‘‘ Wherefore also we solemnly lay upon you this precept, that all be careful to give tithes of all that they possess, because that is the special part of the Lord God; and let a man live on the nine parts, and give alms.” At first there was some variety in the appropriation of tithes, but when the parochial system was introduced, between the tenth and thirteenth century, the appropriation of tithes to the parish priest became the settled rule. In modern times, at least in English-speaking countries, the offerings of the faithful constitute almost the only source of Church revenues as they did in the early ages of Christianity, and their apportionment and distribution are regulated by special laws.¹ As marriage was raised to the dignity of a sacrament by Christ our Lord, and the Church alone has jurisdiction over the administration of the sacraments, it follows that Christian marriage is subject exclusively to the laws of God and of the Church. There are several passages in the Epistles of St Paul² which show that the Church was conscious of her authority in this matter, and that she used it from the earliest times. St Ignatius in his letter to St Polycarp says that it is proper that Christians should contract marriage according to the judgement of the bishop, and Tertullian asserts that marriages which were contracted without being previously notified to the Church were in danger of being considered as no better than adulteries and fornications. The history of the many laws relating to Christian marriage is too large a subject to be treated here even in outline.

¹ Constitution of Leo XIII, Romanos Ponitifices.

² 1 Cor. v, vii; 2 Cor. vi 14.

We will confine ourselves to the impediments of consanguinity and close time.

The natural and divine law prohibits marriage in the first degree of the direct line, and most probably in all degrees indefinitely in the same line. In the collateral line, also, it most probably forbids marriage at least in the first degree. With respect to further degrees in the collateral line the Church adopted the Mosaic legislation, and there are no traces of her having exercised further the independent power which she certainly possessed to enlarge or restrict the limits of kindred before the fourth or fifth century. The Council of Epaon (517) forbade marriages between second cousins, Gregory II (721) prohibited marriage with relations in general, and from the eighth to the eleventh century the prohibition was extended to the seventh degree according to the canonical mode of reckoning. The Fourth Council of Lateran (1215) restricted the prohibition to the fourth degree, and the new Code restricts it to the third.

As the solemn celebration of marriage is not in keeping with penitential exercises, a council of Laodicea in the fourth century forbade the celebration of marriage during Lent. Subsequently the solemnization of marriage was forbidden from Septuagesima Sunday till the octave of Easter, during three weeks before the feast of St John Baptist, and from Advent till after the Epiphany. There was a dispute as to the three weeks before the feast of St John Baptist, and Clement III, at the end of the twelfth century, decided that the period was to be interpreted as extending from the Rogation Days till the Sunday after Pentecost. The Council of Trent¹ decreed that close time for the solemnization of marriage was to extend from Advent till after the Epiphany, and from Ash Wednesday till after Low Sunday, which the Code has altered as above (p. 212).

¹ Sess. xxiv, c. 10.

We must not leave this first period in the history of moral theology without saying something about the penitential books which began to appear in the sixth century and subsequently became very numerous. They were intended as a help to bishops and priests in their duty of imposing canonical penances on sinners and reconciling them to God and the Church. At first they were little more than lists of sins with the appropriate canonical penance annexed to each sin. The quality and length of penance assigned were derived from the councils or from the canonical letters of St Basil, St Peter of Alexandria, St Athanasius, and other Fathers of the Church. Afterward chapters were added containing short moral rules on a great variety of subjects, the method of receiving and dealing with penitents, and the method of reconciling them. They are of importance in the history of moral theology as furnishing a standard by which the malice of various transgressions was measured according to a great variety of circumstances. They fell into disuse with the gradual cessation of public penance in the Church.

14. In the age of the Fathers, Moral Theology is more positive, apologetic, and polemical than speculative and scientific; more paraenetic or exhortatory than casuistic; it does not embrace an integral and systematic exposition of all ethics, but only particular treatises, or a brief and incomplete synopsis of duties. - In this age, three epochs are usually distinguished: the first, from the beginning to the Council of Nicaea; the second, from the Council of Nicaea to St. Gregory the Great (+ 604); the third, from St. Gregory to St. Bernard (1120).

² Cf. Le Nain de Tillemont, Memoires pour servir a l'Hist. ecclesiastique, Paris, 1701; Dom Ceillier, Hist. des auteurs ecclesiastiques, 1758; Fessler, Institut. Patrologicae, Innsbruck, 1850; O. Bardenhewer, Les Peres de l'Eglise, French translation by Godet and Verschaffel, Paris, 1898.

15. 1° In the first epoch, the principles of morals are not unfolded in a systematic manner, but, as occasion is given, are set forth compendiously in epistles, homilies, commentaries, or particular treatises.

(A) Among the Apostolic Fathers who wrote especially concerning moral matters: - (a) the author of the work Didache, or Doctrine of the Twelve Apostles (around the end of the first century), hands down a compendium of Christian ethics: there are three principal commandments, namely love of God and neighbor, and also the golden rule that one should not do to another what he would not wish to be done to himself; the graver sins are murder, fornication and adultery, idolatry, theft, blasphemy; finally particular duties toward oneself, the Church, the poor, and the family are described.¹ (b) St. Clement, Pope, in the Epistle to the Corinthians (around the year 97), especially commends concord and fraternal charity; envy and jealousy stand in the way of this; these vices must be eradicated through penance, obedience, and humility; just as in the body some members minister to others and all to the head, so the faithful of the Church ought to minister one to another, and all to legitimate superiors; therefore those who dissent should confess their sin, subject themselves to the presbyters, and return to peace and unity.² (c) Hermas, in the work entitled Pastor (around the year 140), sets forth the chief commandments in the second part of his book: for the Shepherd, or angel of penance, commands that Christ's disciple believe in God, flee detraction, and bestow alms; that he cultivate truth and chastity, and also justice, patience, and penance; that he flee sadness, avoid pseudo-prophets, and remove from himself every evil desire; the devil is not to be feared, but God, who can save and destroy. Other things are handed down here and there concerning divorce in the case of adultery, concerning the use of riches, concerning fasting, and finally concerning the way of salvation.³

¹ Funk, Patres Apostolici, 2nd ed., Tubingen, 1901, t. I, p. VI-XIX and p. 2-37.

² Funk, op. cit., p. XXXII and 98-184.

³ Funk, op. cit., p. CXXII and 414-639.

16. (B) In the second and third century, besides many Fathers who incidentally, in apologetic books against pagans or polemical books against heretics, vindicated the principles of Christian ethics, certain men wrote entire treatises concerning the chief virtues.

(a) Thus, in the Greek Church, Clement of Alexandria elegantly set forth a brief summary of moral doctrine in the Paedagogus, and a more profound exposition in the books of the Stromata.⁴ The Pedagogue is Christ Himself, always like His eternal Father, who teaches us with meekness what a Christian ought to be like: how we ought to use foods not for pleasure, but for the conservation of our life; how carefully obscene speech and acts, and also luxury and ostentation, are to be avoided; afterward he treats of Christian marriage, which ought to be ordered not to pleasure, but to the procreation of children; of the true beauty of man, which consists not in comeliness or external adornment, but in charity; of riches, which we ought to communicate to others not arrogantly and sparingly, but kindly and liberally;¹ of baths and bodily exercise. In the books of the Stromata, among other things, he sets forth that the Christian gnostic or philosopher ought to be adorned especially with two virtues, Stoic insensibility and Christian charity.

⁴ Migne, P.G., t. VIII and IX; in t. IX, p. 798 sq., there is to be found the excellent dissertation of Nicolas Le Nourry concerning the works and doctrine of Clement; cf. E. de Faye, Clement d'Alexandrie, Paris, 1898; W. Capitaine, Die Moral des Clemens von Alexandrien, Paderborn, 1903; Vac.-Mangenot, Dict. de Theol., t. III, p. 137.

¹ Concerning this argument he treats more fully in the little work whose title is Quis dives salvetur, P.G., IX, 603-652.

17. Origen wrote many things about ethics, not indeed in an ordered and systematic manner, but incidentally in homilies, commentaries, and various treatises, from which a summary of moral science has been excerpted.² For there he sets forth the origin of sin, which had already been committed by spirits and human souls before these were joined to bodies; Christ indeed satisfied for our sins, but the free will of man must cooperate with grace in order that he may obtain sanctification. Actual sins must be expiated in various ways, but especially by penance, which supposes the confession of sins. Moreover there are two classes of Christians: the perfect and the imperfect. The former, or gnostics, ought to cultivate continence and virginity, and to withdraw from the world. But Origen erred concerning the eternity of punishments.

² The works of Origen which survive you will find in Migne, P.G., t. XI-XVII; concerning his moral doctrine Capitaine wrote De Origenis ethica, Munster in Westphalia, 1898; cf. Huet's Origeniana, P.G., XVII, p. 697-1114.

St. Methodius, about + 311, carefully avoided these errors. Moreover he taught that faith, as well as good works and the observance of the commandments, is necessary for salvation; if we sin, recourse must confidently be had to penance, since God is merciful and ready to pardon. He established the distinction between precepts and counsels, and especially commends virginity, yet without in any way reprobating marriage.³

³ The chief work of St. Methodius, Convivium decem virginum, you will find in Migne, P.G., XVIII, 27-228; as to his other works, cf. G. N. Bonwetsch, Methodius von Olympus, I, Schriften, Erlangen and Leipzig, 1891.

18. (b) In the Latin Church, Tertullian and St. Cyprian especially wrote concerning moral matters. The former favors excessive rigorism, even before he embraced the errors of the Montanists;⁴ nevertheless he describes certain duties clearly and eloquently. He treats of civil and public life especially in his little works De spectaculis, De idololatria, De corona, and there he urges the principles of cooperation too strictly, not distinguishing sufficiently between precepts and counsels. He excellently sets forth the virtue of fortitude in the books Ad martyres, De patientia, and De fuga; he treats of temperance in the Exhortatio castitatis, De virginibus velandis, Ad uxorem, De monogamia, De cultu feminarum, De jejuniis, but there he censures second marriages too bitterly.

⁴ The works of Tertullian you will find in Migne, P.L., t. I-II; Oehler made the best edition public, Leipzig, 1853-1854; cf. P. Monceaux, Histoire litteraire de l'Afrique chret., t. I, 1901; A. d'Ales, La Theologie de Tertullien, Paris, 1905; Turmel, Tertullien, 1905.

St. Cyprian, although a disciple of Tertullian, tempered his severity.¹ He carefully distinguishes between precepts and counsels. One of the chief virtues is faith, which is truly free, and makes us capable of good works. By good works we truly merit, while by evil works we are made debtors of God; nevertheless we can satisfy God by just works, and do penance for sins. He treats especially De habitu virginum, De dominica oratione, De opere et eleemosynis, De bono patientiae, De zelo et livore, De lapsis, and, in his letters, of penance, where he asserts the necessity of confession. - He erred concerning the necessity of rebaptizing heretics.

¹ Read the works of St. Cyprian in Migne, P.L., t. IV; nevertheless the best edition is that which G. Hartel edited, Vienna, 1868-1871; cf. E. W. Benson, Cyprian, his life, his times, his work, London, 1897; P. Monceaux, Hist. lit. de l'Afrique chret., t. II, 1902.

19. (c) In the same age, certain particular Councils issued decrees concerning practical questions pertaining to the Christian life; thus the First Council of Carthage, about the year 215, established laws concerning heretics to be rebaptized; the Council of Elvira, about the year 300, concerning idolatry, sorceries, adultery, divorce, usury, times of fasts, the excommunicated and energumens, and many other matters; the Council of Arles, in the year 314, concerning the faithful who wish to administer public affairs, concerning the baptism of heretics, divorce, marriage with Gentiles, clerics who take interest, those who hand over the sacred Scriptures or the vessels of the Lord to pagans, etc.² Likewise the Canonical Epistle of St. Gregory Thaumaturgus³ (253-258), which hands down the penitential discipline of this age, ought to be read attentively.

² Hefele treats learnedly of these councils, Histoire des Conciles, t. I, § I-XVII. Cf. Mansi, Concilia, t. I; Th. Bruns, Canones Apostolorum et Conciliorum, Berlin, 1839, t. I.

³ Migne, P.G., t. X, p. 1019-1047.

20. 2° The second epoch, from the fourth to the sixth century, is deservedly called the golden age of the Fathers. Moral works were then published not only more numerous in number, but also more profound in doctrine and erudition. On the occasion of rising heresies, the foundations of Christian ethics are more firmly established; from the progress of monastic life there arises a more perfect exposition of ascetical and mystical theology; on the other hand, moral principles are more specifically adapted to the various changes which occur in civil life; thus there is more often treatment of the acquisition, use, and abuse of riches, of usury, of alms, etc. Questions of this kind

questions are weighed not only in epistles, in homilies and sermons, but also in commentaries on Scripture, or in various treatises concerning the chief virtues. At the same time, the letters of the Roman Pontiffs and collections of canons exhibit ecclesiastical discipline and authentic rules of morals.

21. (A) Among the Greeks, there flourished especially:

(a) St. Cyril of Jerusalem, who in the Catecheses (347) lucidly treats of the dignity, necessity, and illustrious effects of baptism; of sacred chrism or confirmation; of the Eucharist, of the Mass and its utility not only for the living, but also for the dead; of confession and penance for obtaining the remission of sins.¹

¹ Migne, P.G., t. XXXIII; cf. J. Marquardt, S. Cyrillus baptismi, chrismatis, eucharistiae mysteriorum interpres, Leipzig, 1882.

(b) St. Basil the Great, who flourished in the year 365: he wrote concerning moral and ascetical matters. In the Moralia he treats of virtues and vices, whether common or proper to each state; in the homilies, of certain capital vices, avarice, anger, drunkenness, and also of the contrary virtues, alms, humility, fasting. He was also a legislator of the monastic life, both in the Ascetical Treatises and in the Longer or Shorter Rules.²

² Migne, P.G., t. XXXI; cf. Vasson, S. Basile le Grand, ses oeuvres oratoires et ascetiques, Paris, 1894.

(c) St. Gregory Nazianzen (330-390) wrote moral poems in which, after setting forth the nature of virtue, he inculcates the individual virtues, especially patience and equanimity in adversities, chastity, poverty, liberality, and humanity toward the poor; but especially he instructs adolescents devoted to the study of letters with salutary admonitions, and afterward the unmarried and monks, excellently commending virginity.³

³ Migne, P.G., t. XXXVII; cf. Benoit, S. Gregoire de Nazianze, Paris, 1876; C. Cavalier, S. Greg. de Naz., Montpellier, 1886.

(d) St. Gregory of Nyssa, who flourished in the year 371, wrote three Treatises concerning Christian and religious perfection, where he shows that Christian profession properly consists in the imitation of Christ, in purification from sins, abnegation of one's own will, assiduous prayer, charity, humility, and modesty. Besides, in a special book, he treats of virginity; in the Orations, he especially commends love of the poor and beneficence.⁴

⁴ Migne, P.G., t. XLVI; cf. Diekamp, La Theologie de S. Greg. de Nysse, 1896.

22. (e) St. Ephrem, the Syrian (+ 362), after demonstrating free will, declares how man's true beatitude consists in virtue; afterward he treats of the individual virtues, especially of the fear of God joined with confidence, of charity and humility, of obedience and abnegation of oneself, of patience, meekness, and chastity. For cultivating these virtues, spiritual combat is necessary, so that the devil and one's own concupiscence may be overcome. He likewise wrote a little book on the priesthood and very many sermons concerning the perfection of the monastic life.¹

¹ S. Ephraem Opera, Rome, 1732-46, t. II and III; cf. A. Haase, S. Ephraemi Syri theologia, Halle, 1869.

23. (f) St. Chrysostom (+ 398), in his homilies, eloquently sets forth almost all the duties of the Christian life. Among virtues, he most greatly commends charity, the love of enemies, and alms; among vices, he strictly reprehends drunkenness and avarice, the luxury of the rich, impurity, and the custom of frequenting theaters and circus games. Afterward he urges penance, to be manifested by confession, tears, humility, and alms. He also wrote many moral little works, especially six books On the Priesthood, a book On Virginity, two books To the Younger Widow, and the book That No One Is Harmed Except by Himself.²

² Migne, P.G., t. XLVII-LXIV; cf. A. Puech, S. Jean Chrysostome et les Moeurs de son temps, Paris, Hachette, 1891; Ph. Schaff, Saint Chrysostom and Saint Augustin, London, 1891.

(g) St. John Climacus, born at the beginning of the sixth century, excellently described the perfection proper to monks in the Ladder of Paradise, which embraces thirty steps. There he ingeniously proposes the means for obtaining virtues and eradicating vices. First indeed he commends abnegation of the world, so that we may be able to adhere wholly to God; afterward obedience, penance, meekness, silence, fasting, chastity, humility, and he describes the vices contrary to the aforesaid virtues. By the practice of virtues and by prayer we can attain full perfection, or apathy, that is, a state free from vices and passions.³

³ Migne, P.G., t. LXXXVIII, 631-1164.

24. (B) At the same time, in the Latin Church, there flourished:

(a) St. Ambrose (+ 397), who wrote three books On the Duties of Ministers, in which he proposed to himself to follow Cicero's treatise On Duties, yet correcting errors and at the same time completing Stoic ethics by the precepts and counsels of Christ. First of all, he demonstrates that divine retribution is one of the chief motives for fulfilling duties. Afterward he describes various virtues, especially the four cardinal virtues; he declares how it is useful for clerics to win for themselves the love, confidence, and good estimation of others; likewise why one should seek not what profits individuals, but what profits many or all; finally he establishes that nothing is to be sought except what is honorable: therefore let not only utility, but life and friendship, yield to honesty. Elsewhere he treats of virginity, widowhood, flight from the world, the good of death, and the holy Patriarchs, whom he exhibits as models of the virtues.⁴

⁴ Migne, P.L., t. XIV-XVI; nevertheless the Vienna edition is better; cf. Pruner, Die Theologie des H. Ambrosius, Eichstaedt, 1862; Duc de Broglie, L'Eglise et l'Empire romain, t. 5-6; Thamin, S. Ambroise et la morale chretienne au IVe s., Paris, 1895.

(b) St. Jerome (+ about 385), in his Commentaries and especially in his Letters, hands down many things concerning contempt of the world and Christian perfection, concerning the virtues which are necessary for bishops, clerics, and virgins, concerning monastic life and perfection, etc.

25. (c) St. Augustine (+ 429), easily the chief of the Fathers of the Western Church, wrote many excellent things concerning almost all questions of ethics, although he did not arrange his doctrine into one body. Before all things, he establishes the foundations of ethics: God is the supreme good, the good of all goods, the good from which all goods are, and therefore the ultimate end toward which we ought to tend; wherefore the ultimate norm of morality is the eternal law, or divine reason and will; therefore the source of moral obligation is the supreme dominion of God.¹ We tend toward the end through free and meritorious acts: therefore it does not suffice to believe, but it is necessary to perform good works.² Among these the works of charity stand forth, to which the rest are referred: the love of God even to contempt of self builds the heavenly city; the love of self even to contempt of God builds the earthly city.³ In various works he describes the duties of individual, familial, and social life. Nor does he pass over the various degrees of perfection: "Charity begun, therefore," he says, "is justice begun; charity advanced is justice advanced; great charity is great justice; perfect charity is perfect justice."⁴ Augustine did not cease to enjoy very great authority among the later Fathers and the Scholastics, so that he deserved to be called the father of Western theology.⁵

¹ De Beata vita, De Moribus Ecclesiae, Confessiones, P.L., t. XXXII; De doctrina christiana, P.L., t. XXXIV.

² De libero arbitrio, P.L., t. XXXII; De fide et operibus, P.L., t. XL; De spiritu et littera, P.L., t. XLIV.

³ De Civ. Dei, P.L., t. XLI, 439; Enchiridion, P.L., t. XL.

⁴ De nat. et gratia, P.L., t. XLIV, 290.

⁵ Grou, Morale de S. Augustin, Paris, 1786; Nourrisson, La Philosophie de S. Augustin, Paris, 1869; Dorner, Augustinus, Berlin, 1873; Vac.-Mangenot, Dict. de Theol., I, 2432.

26. (d) Cassian (+ about 416), in the Institutes of the Coenobia and the Conferences, gathered the marrow of spiritual doctrine which had been handed down by the monks of Egypt. The end of the monastic life is to promote the kingdom of God, but its aim is to attain purity of heart, or charity. To accomplish this, it is necessary to renounce the threefold concupiscence and to eradicate the eight capital vices. God indeed permits the just to be troubled by diverse calamities and temptations, but all these things can be overcome by prayer. For perfection there are desired perfect chastity, which cannot be cultivated without the grace of God, spiritual knowledge of the Scriptures, fraternal charity toward all, and the right use of the tongue. - Yet it is to be regretted that the author fell into semi-Pelagianism.⁶

⁶ The works of Cassian you will find in Migne, P.L., t. XLIX-L; nevertheless the Vienna edition is better, edited by Petschenig, 1886-1888; cf. Lombard, Jean Cassien, sa vie, ses ecrits, sa doctrine, Strasbourg, 1863.

(e) Caesarius of Arles (+ 543), in Sermons and Letters, amplified the moral doctrine of the earlier Fathers, especially of Origen, Ambrose, and Augustine, and accommodated it to the morals of the sixth century. Worthy of note are the sermons concerning faith and the necessity of good works, concerning divine judgment and penance, concerning charity toward God and neighbor, where he treats brilliantly of the love of enemies, against impurity and drunkenness. He establishes the distinction between capital and minute sins; but at the same time he shows that the habit of often sinning lightly easily draws one to grave sins; thence he infers that it is a grave evil if progress in good works is neglected.¹

¹ His chief sermons are found among the works of St. Augustine, to whom they had long been ascribed, P.L., t. XXXV; other works were edited by Migne, P.L., LXVII; cf. A. Malnory, Saint Cesaire, ev. d'Arles, Paris, 1894; C. F. Arnold, Caesarius von Arelate, Leipzig, 1894; P. Lejay, Le role theologique de Cesaire d'Arles, in Rev. d'Hist. et de Litt. relig., t. X, 1905, p. 145 sq.; and Vac.-Mangenot, Dict. Theol., t. II, p. 2168.

27. (f) St. Gregory the Great (+ 604) wrote many things concerning morals, for the instruction of pastors and the faithful, but especially the Moralia in Job, where he explains allegorically this book of Scripture: Job is a type of Christ and the Church, who form one mystical body; the patriarch's wife designates carnal men; the three friends signify heretics; Leviathan is a figure of the devil. This allegorical exposition, however, provides him the occasion to declare at length almost all the rules of Christian ethics concerning vices and virtues. He also completes these in moral letters, so that a summa of moral theology could be excerpted from his works. Besides, in the excellent book Regula pastoralis, he excellently describes the duties of pastors of souls, by setting forth who can and ought to come to this office, how he should live, how he should teach, and how, while teaching, he should acknowledge his own infirmity.²

² Migne, P.L., t. LXXV-LXXIX; cf. Ed. Clausier, Saint Gregoire le Grand, sa vie, son pontificat, ses oeuvres, son temps, Paris, 1886-1891; V. Fevre, Etude des Morales de S. Gregoire (thesis), Paris, 1858; A. Snow, Saint Gregory the Great: his work and his spirit, London, 1892; Grisar, S. Gregorio Magno, in Civilta, 1890-1893.

28. (g) In the same age there are already found collections of canons, such as the Canons of the Apostles and the Constitutions of the Apostles, around the beginning of the fifth century; likewise there are many decrees of general and particular Councils concerning moral matters and penitential discipline;³ not a few decretal letters of the Roman Pontiffs, especially of St. Siricius, St. Innocent I, Zosimus, Boniface, St. Celestine, Hilary, St. Gelasius, Symmachus, St. Leo, and Gregory the Great.⁴

³ Concerning these, see Mansi, t. II-X; Hefele, t. I-IV; Bruns, op. cit., t. I-II.

⁴ Concerning these letters, see P. Coustant, Epistolae Rom. Pontificum, Paris, 1721; A. Thiel, Epist. Rom. Pontif., from St. Hilary to Hormisdas, Braunsberg, 1867; Ph. Jaffe, Regesta Pontificum Roman. from St. Peter to the year 1143, 2nd ed., Leipzig, 1885.

29. 3° In the third epoch of the Fathers, from St. Gregory to St. Bernard, on account of the bitterness of the times, there is scarcely any progress of theology; most authors are only collectors and compilers. For the most part theological science is cultivated in abbatial and episcopal schools, and gradually becomes scholastic. Hence there already begins a systematic exposition of ethics, and the way is prepared for the Summas of theology.

30. (A) Among the Greeks, John Damascene (+ 740) stands out. In the book De Orthodoxa fide, and in the little works De jejuniis, De Virtutibus et vitiis, he arranged the chief principles of ethics.¹ He attempted to accommodate Aristotelian philosophy to the Christian faith, and thus opened the way for the Scholastics. He establishes that there is a twofold law: the law of God manifested by the testimony of conscience, to which obedience must be given, and the law of sin, which we must resist. By fulfilling the law of God, we are made like Him. To God is owed adoration, or the worship of latria. We likewise glorify Him by exercising the virtues of faith, hope, and charity. Toward neighbor we ought to cultivate justice, charity, and beneficence. But for accomplishing this, two things are necessary: abnegation of oneself and prayer. - Elsewhere he treats brilliantly of the sacraments and the worship of images.

¹ His works were edited by Migne, P.G., t. XCIV and XCV; cf. Grundiener, Johannes Damascenus (thesis), Utrecht, 1876; Lupton, S. John of Damascus, London, 1884; V. Ermoni, S. Jean Damascene, Paris, 1904.

31. (B) Among the Latins, there flourished: (a) St. Isidore of Seville (+ 601), who, in the three books of the Sentences and in the two books De ecclesiasticis officiis, arranged the moral and ascetical doctrine of his predecessors; he was held by his contemporaries and by the Scholastics as an ornament of the Catholic Church.²

² See his works in Migne, P.L., t. LXXXI-LXXXIV; Fr. Menendez Pelayo, S. Isidore et l'importance de son role dans l'histoire intellectuelle de l'Espagne, in Annales de Philos. chret., new series, t. VII, 1882, p. 258-269.

(b) The Venerable Bede (+ 691), both in commentaries and in homilies, set forth moral doctrine in an exhortatory manner and in a fuller style;³ most studious and very learned in the Scriptures, he was called Venerable on account of the merits of his doctrine and virtues.

³ Migne, P.L., t. XC-XCV; cf. Gehle, De Bedae venerabilis vita et scriptis, Leyden, 1838; Dom Plaine, Le Venerable Bede, in Revue anglo-romaine, 1896, t. III, p. 49-96.

(c) Alcuin (+ 755), besides moral commentaries on Scripture, wrote books concerning the use of the Psalms, concerning the ceremonies of baptism, concerning confession, where he proves its necessity, concerning virtues and vices, concerning the reason of the soul, in which he gathered many useful and pious things.⁴

⁴ Migne, P.L., t. C-CI; cf. Monier, Alcuin et Charlemagne, 1864; Werner, Alcuin und sein Jahrhundert, Paderborn, 1876; Hamelin, Essai sur la vie et les oeuvres d'Alcuin (thesis), Paris, 1877.

(d) Hincmar, Archbishop of Reims (+ 845), wrote various little works concerning vices to be avoided and virtues to be exercised, concerning the restraining of the plunders of soldiers, concerning the restraining of the abduction of widows, girls, and nuns, etc.¹

¹ Migne, P.L., t. CXXV-CXXVI; cf. Vidieu, Histoire de Reims, etude sur le IXe s., Paris, 1875.

(e) Rabanus Maurus² (+ 847) wrote books concerning the praises of the Holy Cross, the instruction of clerics, marriages of blood relatives, the deceits of magicians and false divinations, sacred orders, ecclesiastical discipline, seeing God, purity of heart and the manner of penance, questions of penitential Canons, etc.

² Migne, P.L., t. CVII-CXII; cf. Dahl, Leben und Schriften des Erzbischofs R. Maurus von Mainz, Fulda, 1828.

32. (f) St. Peter Damian (+ 1057) published many little works concerning the duties of the faithful, clerics, and monks, concerning the sacraments administered by the impious, concerning the degrees of kinship and relationship, concerning the time of celebrating marriages, concerning Lent, concerning the fast of Saturday, concerning the celebration of vigils, concerning the canonical hours, concerning the celibacy of priests, concerning the common life of clerics, concerning the perfection of monks, etc. He likewise wrote histories of certain saints, so that he might confirm precepts by their examples.³

³ Migne, P.L., t. CXLIV-CXLV; cf. Vogel, Peter Damiani, Jena, 1856; Capecelatro, Storia di S. P. Damiano e del suo tempo, Florence, 1862.

(g) St. Bernard (+ 1120), "last among the Fathers, certainly not unequal to the first," says Mabillon, wrote concerning moral, ascetical, and mystical matters in such a way that he deserved to be called the Mellifluous Doctor. Besides sermons De tempore, De diversis, and De Cantico Canticorum, he wrote very many little works, especially De gradibus humilitatis et superbiae, De diligendo Deo, De gratia et libero arbitrio, De baptismo, De praecepto et dispensatione, and the five books De consideratione to Eugene III. Most devoted toward the Blessed Virgin, he salutes her as mediatrix to the Mediator and as aqueduct of grace; yet he does not acknowledge her immaculate conception. He lays the foundations of mystical theology, and treats brilliantly of the ecstatic love of God.⁴

⁴ Migne, P.L., t. CLXXXII-CLXXXV; cf. Neander, Der heilige Bernhard, Berlin, 1813; S. Huffer, Der heilige Bernhard von Clairvaux, Munster, 1886; Vacandard, Histoire de S. Bernard, Paris, 1895; Vac.-Mangenot, Dict. de Theol., t. II, p. 746-785.

33. (C) To the same epoch must be referred: (a) The penitential books, in which a catalogue is composed of grave sins and of the canonical punishments annexed to these. These books were edited: among the Greeks, by John the Faster, Theodore the Studite, Nicephorus of Constantinople;⁵ but among the Latins, by almost innumerable authors, such as St. Columbanus, Cummian, Egbert, Theodore of Canterbury, Rabanus.¹

⁵ You will find these in Migne, P.L., t. LXXXVIII, p. 1889-1918; t. XCIX, p. 1721-1734; t. C, p. 855-864.

¹ See them in Migne, P.L., t. LXXX, p. 228-230; t. LXXXVII, p. 979-998; t. LXXXIX, p. 401-436; t. XCIX, p. 927-938; t. CXII, p. 1397-1424. - Cf. J. Schmitz, Die Bussbucher und die Bussdisciplin der Kirche.

(b) Collections of canons and decrees, in which ecclesiastical laws are reported or arranged under various titles. Thus to St. Isidore of Seville is ascribed a very ancient collection, which is distributed into ten books: concerning the institutions of monasteries and monks and the orders of penitents; concerning the institutions of judgments; concerning the institutions of offices and the order of baptizing; concerning the diversities of marriages; concerning the general rules of clerics and of other Christians; concerning the honesty and affairs of princes; concerning God and those things which are to be believed about Him; concerning the abdication of heretics; concerning idolatry and its worshipers.² - There are many other collections, which were edited, among others, by Egbert of York, Isaac of Langres, Burchard of Worms, Anselm of Lucca, Ivo of Chartres, and especially by Gratian, whose Decretum was inserted into the Body of Canon Law.³

² In Migne, P.L., t. LXXXIV, p. 25-92; ibid., p. 849-914, there is found a historical-critical preface by C. de la Serna Santander.

³ The collections of Egbert and Isaac are to be found in Migne, P.L., t. LXXXIX, p. 379; t. CXXIV, p. 1075; cf. Ballerini, De antiquis collectionibus et collectoribus canonum.

1. Those who occupied themselves publicly with the moral teaching of Christianity in the first three centuries did so for a practical rather than a scientific purpose; they wrote to instruct the faithful in the principles of right living and to ward off pagan or heretical attacks. a) The so-called Apostolic Fathers¹ expound the moral teaching of the Church on the basis of Sacred Scripture and Tradition. They specially emphasize the three theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity as the core and kernel of Christian morality.

¹ Cfr. F. X. Funk, Patres Apostolici, Vol. I, 2nd ed., Tübingen 1901. —A cheap edition of the writings of these Fathers, with a fairly reliable English translation, is now available in the Loeb Classical Library (Kirsopp Lake, The Apostolic Fathers, 2 vols., London 1912 and 1913).

The Didache or Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, has been called "the first handbook of Moral Theology." It gives a synopsis of Christian ethics under the figure of two ways, the way of life and the way of death.²

² Διδαχὴ τῶν δώδεκα ἀποστόλων, Ch. I-VI. —On the Didache and its teaching see Bardenhewer-Shahan, Patrology, Freiburg and St. Louis 1908, pp. 19 sqq.; J. Tixeront, History of Dogmas, Vol. I, St. Louis 1910, pp. 135 sqq. —A synopsis of the Didache is given by Slater in his Short History of Moral Theology, pp. 9 sqq.

The same simile, in a slightly altered form, occurs in the Epistle ascribed to St. Barnabas.³

³ Ep. Barn., c. XVIII-XXI. —For a brief account of this letter and its contents see Bardenhewer-Shahan, Patrology, pp. 22 sqq.; Tixeront, Hist. of Dogmas, Vol. I, pp. 139 sqq.

St. Clement of Rome, who, according to St. Irenaeus, was the third successor of St. Peter, instructs the Corinthians in their duties, warns them against harboring envy and jealousy, recommends the practice of humility and obedience, and points to certain types and examples of these virtues contained in the Old Testament.⁴

⁴ 1 Ep. ad Cor., c. 1-36. —Cfr. Bardenhewer-Shahan, Patrology, pp. 25 sqq.; Tixeront, Hist. of Dogmas, Vol. I, pp. 107 sqq.; J. Gregg, The Epistle of St. Clement, London 1899.

St. Ignatius of Antioch, of whose letters St. Polycarp says that they "contain faith, patience, and all the edification which pertains to our Lord," ⁵ calls faith and charity "the beginning and the end of life," 6 and describes the mutual relationship of these two virtues as follows: "The beginning is faith, the end is love; and when the two are joined together in unity, it is God, and all other noble things follow after them." ⁷ St. Polycarp as a rule confines himself to general admonitions; but now and then he exhorts his disciples to obey "the presbyters and deacons'' and emphasizes the three theological virtues together with love of one's neighbors.⁸

⁵ Polycarp, Ad Phil., XIII, 2. 6 the beginning and the end of life.

⁷ Ad Ephes., XIV, 1: The beginning is faith, the end is love; and when the two are joined together in unity, it is God, and all other noble things follow after them. —On St. Ignatius' teaching see E. Bruston, Ignace d'Antioche, ses Epitres, sa Vie, sa Theologie, Paris 1897.

⁸ Ad Phil., III, 2-3. —Cfr. Tixeront, History of Dogmas, Vol. I, pp. 132 sqq.

The twelve commandments (mandata) inculcated by the Shepherd of Hermas are a kind of compendium of Catholic moral teaching.⁹

⁹ Cfr. Bardenhewer-Shahan, Patrology, pp. 38 sq.; Tixeront, op. cit., I, 111 sqq.

The Letter to Diognetus describes the exemplary life led by the Christians of the third or fourth century.¹⁰ b) The Apologists of the second and third centuries,¹¹ without shutting their eyes to the commendable features of pagan civilization, contrast the pious life led by Christian believers with the depravity of the pagan masses, and extol the former for their unworldliness, their chastity and benevolence, their charity and heroism, which frequently culminated in martyrdom.

¹⁰ Ep. ad Diogn., c. V-VII. —On the authorship of this disputed letter see Bardenhewer-Shahan, Patrology, pp. 68 sq.

¹¹ V. Bardenhewer-Shahan, Patrology, pp. 44 sqq.

Though the early Christians constantly kept in view the essentials of morality, and recognized prayer and penance as the principal means of sanctification, their views and customs undeniably betray a certain rigorism. Thus they condemned play-acting and other diversions which are in themselves harmless.¹²

¹² Cfr. K. J. Hefele, Beiträge zur Kirchengeschichte, Vol. I, Tübingen 1864, pp. 16 sqq.; A. Bigelmair, Die Beteiligung der ersten Christen am offentlichen Leben, Munich 1902, pp. 172 sqq.

The development of Moral Theology was strongly advanced by Clement of Alexandria, whose trilogy (Protrepticus, Paedagogus, Stromata) is a graduated or progressive introduction to Christianity. The Protrepticus (Exhortation to the Heathen) opens with an eloquent invitation to listen to "the new song of the Logos going forth from Sion." The Paedagogus is a guide to Christian life for the use of converts. The Stromata (Miscellanies; strictly, Tapestries, a collection of materials for the instruction and training of theologians) presents a scientific account of "the true philosophy," i. e., the Christian religion. Another ethical treatise by the same learned author, Τίς ὁ σωζόμενος πλούσιος; is more commonly known by its Latin title, "Quis Dives Salvetur?" ¹³ Origen made valuable contributions to Moral Theology in his treatise on Prayer and the Exhortation to Martyrdom.¹⁴

¹³ Cfr. Bardenhewer-Shahan, Patrology, p. 129; Slater, A Short History of Moral Theology, pp. 11 sqq. —Clement's trilogy is reproduced in Migne, P. G., VIII and IX. Vol. VIII contains the Paedagogus and the first four Stromata; Vol. IX, the other works. —On his life and teaching see O. Stählin, Clemens Alexandrinus, 3 vols., Leipsic 1905-09; F. J. Winter, Die Ethik des Klemens von Alexandrien, Leipsic 1882; E. de Faye, Clement d'Alexandrie, Paris 1898; W. Capitaine, Die Moral des Klemens von Alexandrien, Paderborn 1903; F. X. Funk, "Klemens von Alexandrien über Familie und Eigentum," in Kirchengeschichtliche Abhandlungen und Untersuchungen, Vol. II, Paderborn 1899, pp. 45 sqq.; W. Wagner, Der Christ und die Welt nach Klemens von Alexandrien, Göttingen 1903; J. Kaye, Some Account of the Writings and Opinions of Clement of Alexandria, 2nd ed., London 1890; K. Ernesti, Die Ethik des T. Flavius Klemens von Alexandrien, Paderborn 1900.

¹⁴ Migne, P. G., XI, 416-561, 564-637.—Cfr. W. Capitaine, De Origenis Ethica, Münster 1898; Klein, Die Freiheitslehre des Origenes, Strassburg 1894.

Tertullian ¹⁵ and St. Cyprian are the leading representatives of what may be called the practical school of early Christian moralists. The orthodox writings of the former contain many profound reflections on ethical topics.¹⁶ Tertullian was the first writer who expressly taught that the will of God is the sovereign principle of morality.¹⁷ St. Cyprian has left us a number of excellent moral treatises distinguished by genuine piety.¹⁸

¹⁵ Tertullian's ethical writings are reprinted in Migne, P. L., I and in Gersdorf's Bibliotheca Patr. Eccles. Lat., ed. E. F. Leopold, Leipsic 1839, Vols. IV-VII, and in the Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, Vienna 1890-96, XX, 1 and 3. —On this writer's teaching see G. Ludwig, Tertullians Ethik, Leipsic 1885; W. Vollert, Tertullians dogmatische und ethische Grundanschauung, Gütersloh 1903; J. Turmel, Tertullien, 2nd ed., Paris 1905, pp. 146 sqq.; Adhémar d'Alès, Théologie de Tertullien, Paris 1905, pp. 262 sqq.; F. Nielsen, Tertullians Ethik, Schönberg 1879; J. Tixeront, History of Dogmas, Vol. I, pp. 304 sqq.

¹⁶ De Poenitentia, De Oratione, De Patientia, Ad Martyres, De Idololatria, De Spectaculis, Ad Uxorem. —On the character of these treatises and the various editions of them see Bardenhewer-Shahan, Patrology, 186 sq.

¹⁷ De Poenit., 4: "But for our part, within our limitations, we insist on this one thing: that what God commands is good and best. I consider it presumptuous to dispute concerning the goodness of a divine precept. For we ought to hearken, not because it is good, but because God commands it. For the rendering of obedience, the majesty of divine power comes first; the authority of the commander comes before the advantage of the servant." (Ed. Leopold, P. II, 52).

¹⁸ These treatises may be found in Migne, P. L., IV (cfr. II and V); a critical edition by G. Hartel in the Corpus Script. Eccles. Lat., III, 1-3, Vienna 1868-1871. —St. Cyprian's principal moral treatises are: De Catholicae Ecclesiae Unitate, De Lapsis, De Dominica Oratione, De Bono Patientiae, De Opere et Eleemosynis, De Habitu Virginum, De Mortalitate. —Cfr. Bardenhewer-Shahan, Patrology, pp. 192 sqq. —On the ethical teaching of Lactantius (Migne, P. L., VI-VII; Corpus Script. Eccl. Lat., Vols. XIX and XXVII, ed. S. Brandt and G. Laubmann, Vienna 1890-1897) see M. E. Heinig, Die Ethik des Lactantius, Grimma 1887.

In the fourth century the Fathers of both the East and the West labored hard to stem the tide of corruption that threatened to invade the Church. It was in the course of this period that St. Ambrose and St. Augustine laid the foundations of Moral Theology as a science. St. Augustine in particular deserves a place of honor in the Patristic history of our discipline on account of the masterful way in which he developed theological anthropology and expounded many ethical questions.

St. Ambrose's principal moral treatise, entitled De Officiis Ministrorum, is modelled on Cicero's De Officiis and may be described as a manual of instruction composed for the author's spiritual children, the ecclesiastics or ministers (ministri) of the Church. His chief motive seems to have been to demonstrate the superiority of Christian over pagan ethics. He also wrote several works in praise of virginity and the religious state. It has been justly observed that the ethical element predominates in all his writings.¹⁹

¹⁹ Cfr. Tixeront, History of Dogmas, Vol. II, pp. 251 sq. —Slater, A Short History of Moral Theology, pp. 14 sq. —St. Ambrose's moral writings in Migne, P. L., XIV-XVII.— On the relation of his De Officiis Ministrorum to Cicero's De Officiis see F. Bittner, Commentatio de Ciceronianis et Ambrosianis Officiorum Libris, Braunsberg 1849; J. E. Pruner, Die Theologie des hl. Ambrosius, Eichstätt 1862. —R. Thamin (S. Ambroise et la Morale Chrétienne au IVe Siècle, Paris 1895, ch. 5-8) underrates the influence of Sacred Scripture on the ethical teaching of St. Ambrose.

St. Augustine systematically expounded both the dogmatic and the moral teaching of the Church in his Enchiridion ad Laurentium, sive de Fide, Spe et Caritate. His treatise De Moribus Ecclesiae et de Moribus Manichaorum is devoted entirely to a defense of the moral teaching of the Church against the Manichaeans. He wrote separate monographs on lying, marriage, monasticism, continence, patience, virginity, and widowhood.²⁰ Besides, not a few of his letters deal with ethical topics.²¹ The fundamental principle of Christian morality, according to Augustine, is charity, from which all other virtues emanate, and with which they are substantially identical.²²

²⁰ De Mendacio, Contra Mendacium, De Bono Coniugali, De Opere Monachorum, De Continentia, De Patientia, De Sancta Virginitate, De Bono Viduitatis.—Bardenhewer-Shahan, Patrology, p. 492.

²¹ Reprinted from the Benedictine edition in Migne, P. L., XXXII-XLVII.—On the ethical teaching of St. Augustine see H. Reuter, Augustinische Studien, Gotha 1887, pp. 359 sqq.; C. Wolfsgruber, Augustinus, Paderborn 1898, pp. 360 sqq.; A. M. Tonna-Barthet, S. Augustini Doctrina Ascetica, Einsiedeln 1906; J. Mausbach, Die Ethik des hl. Augustinus, 2 vols., Freiburg 1909; Bardenhewer-Shahan, Patrology, pp. 488 sqq.; J. Tixeront, History of Dogmas, Vol. II, pp. 367 sqq., 432 sqq., 460 sqq.

²² Cfr. De Moribus Ecclesiae, 14, n. 24 (Migne, P. L., XXXII, 1321).

St. Augustine also laid the foundation of practical Mysticism. Speculatively, this science was profoundly influenced by the writings attributed (wrongly, as we now know) to Dionysius the Areopagite.²³

²³ Cfr. H. Koch, Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita in seinen Beziehungen zum Neuplatonismus und Mysterienwesen, Mayence 1900; Bardenhewer-Shahan, Patrology, pp. 535 sqq.; Tixeront, Hist. of Dogmas, Vol. III, pp. 5 sqq.

Other distinguished moralists of the Patristic age were St. Basil the Great,²⁴ St. Gregory of Nyssa, in whose writings the viewpoint of practical morality often asserts itself,²⁵ St. Gregory of Nazianzus,²⁶ and St. John Chrysostom. These writers treated ethical subjects mostly from the standpoint of the ascetic.²⁷

²⁴ Ethica, Ep. Canonicae (Migne, P. G., XXIX-XXXII).—Cfr. A. Kranich, Die Aszetik in ihren dogmatischen Grundlagen bei Basilius dem Grossen, Paderborn 1896.—Bardenhewer-Shahan, Patrology, p. 278.

²⁵ See his De Perfectione, and especially De Virginitate (Migne, P. G., XLIV-XLVI).—Cfr. Bardenhewer-Shahan, Patrology, p. 299.—On the ethical teaching of St. Gregory of Nyssa see F. Hilt, Des hl. Gregorius von Nyssa Lehre vom Menschen, Cologne 1890, pp. 103 sqq., 175 sqq.; W. Vollert, Die Lehre Gregors von Nyssa vom Guten und Bösen, Leipsic 1897; J. B. Aufhauser, Die Heilslehre des hl. Gregor von Nyssa, Munich 1910.

²⁶ Carmina, Orationes (Migne, P. G., XXXV-XXXVIII).—On Nazianzen's teaching see Fr. K. Hummer, Des hl. Gregor von Nazianz, des Theologen, Lehre von der Gnade, Kempten 1890; Th. Sommerlad, Das Wirtschaftsprogramm der Kirche im Mittelalter, Leipsic 1903, pp. 136 sqq.

²⁷ Chrysostom's ascetical and moral writings in Migne, P. G., XLVII-LXIV. —On his moral teaching see Somerlad, op. cit., pp. 142 sqq.; Bardenhewer-Shahan, Patrology, pp. 344 sq.

St. Ephraem Syrus in his orations and hymns is both scholastic and practical. Moralizing discourses, monitory or penitential, make up the greater part of his works.²⁸

²⁸ Cfr. Bardenhewer-Shahan, Patrology, pp. 390 sq.

St. Cyril of Jerusalem deals with sin, penance, and other moral topics in his famous Catecheses Mystagogicae.²⁹™ St. Macarius the Egyptian is regarded as the founder of ecclesiastical Mysticism.³⁰

²⁹ Migne, P. G., XXXIII. —On the moral doctrine of St. Cyril see A. Knappitsch, S. Cyrilli Catechesibus quae Principia et Praecepta Moralia Contineantur, Graz 1899.

³⁰ Bardenhewer-Shahan, Patrology, pp. 226 sq. —The Ὁμιλίαι πνευματικαί are reprinted in Migne, P. G., XXXIV, 449-822.—On the theological opinions of Macarius cfr. J. Stoffels, Die mystische Theologie Makarius des Aegypters und die ältesten Ansätze christlicher Mystik, Bonn 1908.

St. Methodius, Bishop of Olympus in Lycia, in his famous Symposion, enthusiastically chants the praises of virginity.³¹

³¹ Migne, P. G., XVIII, 9-408.— Cfr. N. Bonwetsch, Die Theologie des Methodius von Olympus, Berlin 1903, pp. 125 sqq.

The moral teaching of St. Gregory the Great is minute and practical. His Expositio in Librum Iob, more generally known as Moralium Libri XXXV, has justly been termed " a thesaurus of Moral Theology." ³² His famous Liber Regulae Pastoralis, written about 591 and dedicated to Archbishop John of Ravenna, is regarded as the first treatise on casuistry.³³

³² Bardenhewer-Shahan, Patrology, p. 653.

³³ Op. cit., pp. 652 sq. —Gregory's writings will be found in Migne, P. L., LXXV-LXXIX. —On his life and teaching cfr. C. Wolfsgruber, Gregor der Grosse, Saulgau 1890. —On the teaching of St. Jerome and Theodoret of Cyrus see Th. Sommerlad, Das Wirtschaftsprogramm der Kirche im Mittelalter, Leipsic 1903, pp. 165 sqq., 173 sqq.

READINGS. —R. Ceillier, Apologie de la Morale des Pères de l'Église, Paris 1718.—J. P. Charpentier, Études sur les Pères de l'Église, Paris 1853. —A. Rietter, Sittenlehre der kirchlichen Schriftsteller der ersten zwei Jahrhunderte, Ratisbon 1845. —E. von Dobschütz, Die urchristlichen Gemeinden, Leipsic 1902.—A. Harnack, Die Mission und Ausbreitung des Christentums, Vol. I, 2nd ed., Leipsic 1906, pp. 172 sqq. —Bardenhewer-Shahan, Patrology, pp. 15 sqq. —J. Schwane, Dogmengeschichte, Vol. I, 2nd ed., Freiburg 1892, pp. 289 sqq., 466 sqq.; Vol. II, 2nd ed., Freiburg 1895, pp. 418 sqq., 439 sqq., 725 sqq. —Thos. Slater, S.J., A Short History of Moral Theology, New York 1909, pp. 8-35. —Aug. Lehmkuhl, S.J., in the Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. XIV, pp. 604 sq.

10. In the first three centuries Moral Theology is not found handed down in a scholastic and systematic manner. Rather, the ascetical method is employed. The apostolic Fathers and the old writers, by their letters, sermons, and treatises, exhort the faithful to cultivate virtues and to avoid vices. But the most ancient writings which have come down to us treat rather of moral matters than of Dogmatics. The first place is held by the work which is called Didache, or "Doctrine of the Twelve Apostles," and which was more probably written by an unknown author at the end of the first century.³² In this work, which is cited rather often by the Fathers (also under the title: The Two Ways, namely, the way of life and the way of death), a compendious Moral Theology is found: the commandment of the love of God and neighbor is inculcated; as graver sins are enumerated murder, fornication, adultery, idolatry, theft, and blasphemy; there is also discussion concerning duties toward the poor, the family, the Church, etc. Moral admonitions are likewise contained in the Epistle of Barnabas, in the first Epistle of St. Clement the Pope to the Corinthians, and in the work whose title is The Shepherd of Hermas.³³ - Clement of Alexandria in his books, which are entitled Paedagogus and Stromata, hands down an almost complete Christian ethics; in some matters, however, he spoke less rightly, for example, concerning original sin, liberty, and Greek philosophy; and for this reason he is not found in the Roman Martyrology.³⁴ - Tertullian in moral matters put forward opinions somewhat more rigid, for example, concerning spectacles, monogamy, the adornment of women, etc.; he did not sufficiently distinguish between counsels and precepts. Concerning the licitness of second marriages he erred. - St. Cyprian also gave excellent exhortations concerning virtues when discoursing on the habit of virgins, on work and alms, on the good of patience, on zeal and envy. His little book De lapsis is of great importance for Moral Theology, because there several times, and especially in chapter 29,³⁵ there is a clear testimony concerning the necessity of sacramental confession; for St. Cyprian writes: "Let each one confess his offense, I beseech you, most beloved brothers, while he who has sinned is still in this world, while his confession can be admitted, while satisfaction and remission made through priests is pleasing before the Lord." - Lactantius also wrote not a few things on Morals.

From the fourth down to the sixth century, moral works are published not only more numerous in number, but also deeper in doctrine. For the Holy Fathers not only admonished the Christian faithful to the exercise of virtues and to the flight from vices, but also had to defend Catholic doctrine against the attacks of adversaries. It is possible here to enumerate only the more principal authors.³⁶ Among the Greeks treating of morality there flourished the three so-called Cappadocians: St. Basil the Great,³⁷ St. Gregory of Nyssa,³⁸ and St. Gregory Nazianzen,³⁹ then St. Cyril,⁴⁰ St. John Chrysostom, and St. Ephrem.⁴¹ Among the Latins, above the others, stand out: 1. St. Ambrose (+397), who, after the likeness of the ethics handed down by Cicero in the book De officiis, wrote a much higher Christian ethics in three books whose title is De officiis ministrorum.⁴² 2. St. Augustine (+430), deservedly called "Doctor of grace"; who not only explained most rightly and most profoundly against the Pelagians the Catholic doctrine concerning grace and predestination, but also published many excellent treatises on moral matters, for example, Enchiridion ad Laurentium, or On Faith, Hope, and Charity; On the Morals of the Catholic Church; On Lying; On Holy Virginity; On the Good of Marriage, etc. His best-known work De Civitate Dei treats of the twofold love, namely of the love of God even to contempt of self, which builds the city of God, and of love of self, which leads even to contempt of God and builds the city of Babylon, that is, of earthly pleasure. St. Augustine, with all his powers, and indeed in all his works, preaches the charity of God. "From charity the spiritual life begins and with it grows. Charity begun is justice begun; charity advanced is justice advanced; great charity is great justice; perfect charity is perfect justice."⁴³ St. Augustine is deservedly called the father of all scientific Theology. For all later writers venerate him as the greatest authority, and indeed both in Moral Theology and in dogmatic Theology. 3. St. Gregory the Great (+604), in the 45 books of the Moralia in Job, gives a very extensive moral treatise. He explains the book of Job allegorically. Job is a type of Christ and of the Church; the wife designates carnal men; the three friends are the figure of heretics; Leviathan designates the devil. This work of St. Gregory, throughout the whole Middle Age, was the primary source from which ascetical writers drew their works. For priests having care of souls the same St. Gregory wrote the book of the pastoral rule, which not undeservedly has been called the first pastoral and casuistic Theology, and which the Synod of Mainz (806) prescribed to all for use.

For the study and practice of Moral Theology, the diverse collections of Canons and the "Penitential Books" were also of great importance; their ordinances indeed chiefly had force for the external forum, yet in some measure they served in the internal forum.⁴⁴ Books of this kind were published among the Greeks by John the Faster, Theodore the Studite, Nicephorus of Constantinople,⁴⁵ etc. John the Faster gives a complete method of questioning and absolving the penitent and, in addition, instructs what penances are to be imposed for diverse sins. Among the Latins, however, many authors wrote books of this kind, for example, St. Columbanus,⁴⁶ Egbert,⁴⁷ and Rabanus Maurus.⁴⁸

³² Cf. Funk, Patres apostolici I, 2-37.

³³ Hermas lived around the year 140.

³⁴ Cf. Benedict XIV, Const. "Postquam intelleximus" n. 19-36, dated 1 July 1748. Several wrote special dissertations on the ethics or morality of Clement of Alexandria, for example, Winter, Die Ethik des Clemens von Alexandrien; Ernesti (same title); Capitaine, Die Moral des Clemens von Alexandrien (1903).

³⁵ Migne, Patr. lat. 4, 503.

³⁶ You may see a more perfect enumeration, although not an adequate one, in Bouquillon, Theol. mor. fund. n. 130 sqq.

³⁷ Ethica, canonical epistles.

³⁸ De perfectione, De virginitate.

³⁹ Poems, orations.

⁴⁰ Catecheses.

⁴¹ Orations and hymns.

⁴² Cf. Bittner, Commentatio de Ciceronianis et Ambrosianis offic. libris, Braunsberg in Prussia, 1849.

⁴³ De natura et gratia (Migne, Patr. lat. 44, 290).

⁴⁴ Cf. Sagmuller, Kirchenrecht I, § 37; Schmitz, Die Bussbucher und die Bussdisziplin der Kirche (Mainz 1883).

⁴⁵ Migne, Patr. graec. 88, 1889-1918; 99, 1721-1734.

⁴⁶ Migne, Patr. lat. 80, 228-230.

⁴⁷ Ibid. 89, 401-436.

⁴⁸ Ibid. 102, 1334-1424.

The end for which Jesus Christ established His Church was the sanctification and salvation of souls. This end the Church was to obtain chiefly by preaching the Gospel which her Founder had revealed and by administering the sacraments which He had instituted.¹ Men were to be sanctified and prepared for eternity by holy living through the grace of God communicated to them principally by means of the sacraments. The Gospels contain a short summary of the general teaching of Jesus Christ; this is developed somewhat in certain directions in the other writings of the New Testament, but the preachers of the Word soon found it convenient to have by them brief summaries of the moral teaching of Our Lord by itself. This need was met by such works as the “Didaché,” or “Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,” composed about the end of the first century, and the “Pastor” of Hermas, written a little later. It would be utterly impossible to give even an outline of the ethical works of all the Fathers of the Church. Together they form a very voluminous and complete course of moral theology, and more than one such course has been put together by simply printing a consecutive selection of their works. Thus in 1791 an Italian priest, Angelo Cigheri, published at Florence his “Veterum Patrum Theologia Universa,” in thirteen volumes quarto, of which the three last are devoted to morals. A fairly complete catalogue of ethical works by the Fathers will be found in the indices of Migne’s “Patrology,” arranged under the separate headings which figure in our modern manuals of moral theology. All that we can do here is to select a few typical works which exhibit the gradual development of the science of Christian Ethics. The “Didaché” may be looked upon as the first handbook of morals which has come down to us, and it will be worth while to give a short analysis of its contents.

¹ Matt. xxviii. 19, 20.

This first handbook of moral theology begins with the first general principle of ethics. All righteousness is summed up in the general precept to avoid evil and do good. The doing of good consists of the observance of the two great commandments of love for our God and for our neighbor. The golden rule is added to the statement of the general first principles of morality. “There are two ways,” we read, “one of life and one of death; and there is much difference between the two ways. Now the way of life is this: First thou shalt love God that made thee; secondly, thy neighbor as thyself; and all things whatsoever thou wouldest should not happen to thee, neither do thou to another.” The rest of the first chapter is occupied with a development of the precept of love for our neighbor, expressed for the most part in the language of the Sermon on the Mount. The second chapter enumerates some of the principal negative duties toward our neighbor. A similar enumeration occupies the third chapter, but here there is an attempt to give the reason for the different prohibitions, as, for example: “Be not prone to anger, for anger leads to murder; neither a zealot, nor contentious, nor passionate; for from all these things murders are begotten.” In the fourth chapter are set down the duties toward preachers of the Gospel, of making peace, of judging righteously, of almsgiving; duties toward parents, children, servants; of avoiding hypocrisy, and not adding to or taking away from the precepts of the Lord which they had been taught. The chapter concludes with, “This is the way of life.”

The fifth chapter consists of a long enumeration of sins, and ends with the prayer, “May ye be delivered, children, from all these.”

In the sixth chapter there is a warning against being led away from this teaching by any one, for such a one would not teach according to God. A distinction is drawn between what is required for perfection and what is morally possible. The faithful are bidden specially to beware of what has been sacrificed to idols.

A brief instruction on Baptism occupies the seventh chapter, and in the eighth Christians are taught to fast on Wednesdays and Fridays, so that their fasting-days may be different from those of the Jews, who fasted on Mondays and Thursdays. They are told to say the “Our Father” three times a day. The ninth and tenth chapters give instructions on the celebration of the Eucharist, while the two following deal with the way in which prophets and strangers should be received. The thirteenth chapter prescribes the offering of first-fruits. In the next chapter the faithful are instructed to meet together on every Lord’s Day, to offer the Eucharistic Sacrifice, after confessing their sins, so that their sacrifice may be pure. Enemies, too, should be reconciled lest the sacrifice be defiled. It was of this sacrifice that Malachias prophesied. The fifteenth chapter deals with the election of bishops and deacons and the respect which is due to them. The duties of fraternal correction, of prayer and almsdeeds, are enjoined as they are contained in the Gospel of Our Lord. The last chapter contains an exhortation to watch, and inculcates the necessity of faith and perseverance, for Antichrist will appear and seduce many. The treatise concludes with a short description of the signs of the last day.

The whole of the second Book of the “Pastor” of Hermas is a document of early Christian moral teaching very similar to the “Didaché,” but more attempt may be observed in it to show the connection between one prohibition and another, and to give reasons and motives for their observance.

A great advance is observable in the catechetical works of Clement of Alexandria. They are almost exclusively devoted to moral teaching, which their learned author illustrates and confirms by constant quotations from the Greek classical authors. With an enthusiastic and personal love for Jesus Christ, and faith in His teaching as a divine and full revelation of the truth to men, he combines a high esteem for reason and philosophy. According to Clement, philosophy was the pedagogue of the pagan world, preparing it for Christ and leading it to Him, as the law did the Jews. Philosophy is the handmaid of theology, he says, and the dictates of reason are but the promptings of the Word which illuminates every man that cometh into the world. This, of course, is but a development of ideas which we find in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, and it is a natural consequence of Christian teaching concerning God and His relation to man and to the world. It is a very superficial view which regards the action of Clement and other Fathers in the use they made of reason and philosophy as a corrupting influence in Christian teaching. With them, as with the scholastics in the Middle Ages, that action was the necessary result of a firm faith in the Gospel message, and the natural desire to understand it and penetrate its full meaning as far as possible. It was Fides quaerens intellectum, the moving spirit of Catholic theology from the beginning. Better than any lengthy exposition, an extract or two from Clement will show how far the science of moral theology had progressed at the end of the second century. The following extract is taken from an apologetic work entitled “An Exhortation to the Heathen.”

“Wherefore, since the Word Himself has come to us from heaven, we need not, I reckon, go any more in search of human learning to Athens and the rest of Greece, and to Ionia. For if we have as our teacher Him that filled the universe with His holy energies in creation, salvation, beneficence, legislation, prophecy, teaching, we have the Teacher from whom all instruction comes; and the whole world, with Athens and Greece, has already become the domain of the Word. For you, who believed the poetical fable which designated Minos the Cretan as the bosom friend of Zeus, will not refuse to believe that we who have become the disciples of God have received the only true wisdom; and that which the chiefs of philosophy only guessed at, the disciples of Christ have both apprehended and proclaimed.”¹

¹ Exhortation to the Heathen, c. 11.

The next extract from the “Pædagogus,” a work containing instructions for recent converts, shows the place which reason or conscience holds in Christian ethics.

“Everything that is contrary to right reason is sin. Accordingly, therefore, the philosophers think fit to define the most generic passions thus: lust, as desire disobedient to reason; fear, as weakness disobedient to reason; pleasure, as an elation of the spirit disobedient to reason. If, then, disobedience in reference to reason is the generating cause of sin, how shall we escape the conclusion that obedience to reason,—the Word,—which we call Faith, will of necessity be the efficacious cause of duty? For virtue itself is a state of the soul rendered harmonious by reason in respect to the whole life. Nay, to crown all, philosophy itself is pronounced to be the cultivation of right reason; so that, necessarily, whatever is done through error of reason is transgression, and is rightly called sin.”¹

¹ Pædagogus, i, c. 13.

The “Stromata,” or “Miscellanies,” are a collection of materials for the ethical instruction and training of the Christian theologian. The philosophical and theological detail to which Clement descends in the treatment of his subject may be illustrated by an extract from the fourteenth chapter of the second Book of the “Stromata,” on the different ways in which an act may be involuntary. The matter of course belongs to the treatise on Human Acts, sometimes said to be the last treatise which was added to our manuals of morals.

“What is involuntary is not matter for judgment. But this is twofold—what is done in ignorance, and what is done through necessity. For how will you judge concerning those who are said to sin in involuntary modes? For either one knew not himself, as Cleomenes and Athamas, who were mad; or the thing which he does, as Æschylus, who divulged the mysteries on the stage, who being tried in the Areopagus was absolved on his showing that he had never been initiated. Or one knows not what is done, as he who has let off his antagonist, and slain his domestic instead of his enemy; or that by which it is done, as he who in exercising with spears having buttons on them, has killed some one in consequence of the spear throwing off the button; or knows not the manner how, as he who has killed his antagonist in the stadium, for it was not for his death but for victory that he contended; or knows not the reason why it is done, as the physician who gave a salutary antidote and killed, for it was not for this purpose that he gave it, but to save.”¹

¹ Stromata, ii, c. 14.

As yet no attempt had been made in the Church to write a systematic treatise of morals by reducing the various virtues and vices to logical order under appropriate general principles. This step was taken by St. Ambrose at the end of the fourth century. This great Father and Doctor of the Church composed his work “De Officiis” for the instruction of the clergy of his church of Milan. He expressly tells us that he followed Cicero’s work with the same title as his pattern. Cicero wrote his book for the instruction of his son; St. Ambrose desired to write for the instruction of his spiritual children. Although he followed Cicero closely in the arrangement and treatment of the matter, yet he never loses sight of what appears to have been the chief motive that he had in view in the composition of his work; namely, to demonstrate the superiority of Christian over pagan ethics.

The work is divided, like Cicero’s, into three Books. In the first he treats of what is honorable and dishonorable. He points out that the philosophic distinction between ordinary and perfect virtue has its counterpart in the Gospel, which distinguishes between what is matter of strict precept and of counsel. Certain elementary duties, as those toward parents and elders, are touched on, and then follows a discussion on the four cardinal virtues. The second Book treats of what is expedient with reference to eternal life. The third Book treats of what is honorable and expedient in conjunction, and the author has no difficulty in reconciling these conflicting principles according to Christian teaching. “For,” he writes, “I said that nothing can be virtuous but what is useful, and nothing can be useful but what is virtuous. For we do not follow the wisdom of the flesh, whereby the usefulness that consists in an abundance of money is held to be of most value, but we follow the wisdom which is of God, whereby those things which are greatly valued in this world are counted but as loss. For this κατόρθωμα, which is duty carried out entirely and in perfection, starts from the true source of virtue. On this follows another, or ordinary duty. This shows by its name that no hard or extraordinary practice of virtue is involved, for it can be common to very many.”¹ This principle of perfection is then applied to the pursuit of gain and other questions.

¹ De Officiis, iii, c. 2.

A very famous book of morals, somewhat more restricted in scope than the “De Officiis” of St. Ambrose, is the “Pastoral Care” of St. Gregory the Great. This, together with the same author’s “Morals” on Job, was a favorite textbook in the Middle Ages. It lays down the qualities required in those who have the cure of souls, how they themselves should live, how they should instruct and admonish those subject to their authority. The book was brought to England by St. Augustine and translated into English by King Alfred for the benefit of the bishops and priests of his kingdom.

A word must here be said on Christian asceticism, which has been so utterly misunderstood and misrepresented by such writers as Lecky and Harnack, and whose true relation to Christian morals is so seldom perceived by non-Catholic authors.

Christ our Lord expressly taught that renunciation of self, of the world with its riches and pleasures, was in a certain sense a necessary condition of discipleship. This renunciation, however, admitted of different degrees, as is also plain from the Gospels. Some were called only to spiritual poverty and detachment, and these hoped to save their souls by remaining in the world without being of it. Outwardly they lived much like other people, but their affections were detached from this world and centered on God and eternity. They went to heaven by the way of the commandments. Others, on the contrary, voluntarily embraced the counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience, given by Our Lord to those who were called, and who felt that they had the spiritual strength to follow the call. They made a special profession of following the counsels, and were assigned a place of honor in the Christian assemblies, but at first they seem to have lived in the bosom of their families. They soon, however, began to find it very difficult to persevere in their adopted form of life while exposed to the distractions and temptations of the world, and this, together with the violence of the persecutions, drove them into the desert. There they lived at first solitary lives as hermits, but before long they began to come together and put themselves under the authority of some ancient Father of the desert renowned for his prudence and sanctity. Their aim was to subdue their passions and ascend the heights of Christian perfection. The task is notoriously difficult both in theory and in practice, and many mistakes were made. The Church had not yet drawn up her minute code of laws for the regulation of religious life. Those writers, however, who industriously pick out the mistakes and the exaggerations of indiscreet fervor, and piece them together to produce a picture of Christian monachism and asceticism, only succeed in producing a caricature. To convince oneself of this it is sufficient to dip into the “Institutes of Monasteries” and the “Conferences” of Cassian, who was in the middle of a long life in the year 400. In the twelve Books of his “Institutes” Cassian describes the dress of the monks, their method of singing the divine office, the training of postulants and novices, and then he devotes the last eight Books to a minute account of the nature, causes, and remedies of the eight principal vices which bar the way to the summit of Christian perfection. He maps out every portion of the pilgrim’s progress to his heavenly country, and shows what dangers and obstacles he will meet by the way. In brief, he says, progress toward perfection begins with the fear of God, from which arises a salutary sorrow for sin, which leads to renunciation and contempt of the world; this begets humility, from which springs mortification of the will, and by this all vices are subdued and extirpated. Then all virtues begin to flourish in the soul, which thus arrives at purity of heart and the perfection of apostolic charity.¹

¹ De Coenobiorum Institutis, lib. iv, c. 43.

The vices to be overcome are classed under eight different heads by Cassian, and he says that the classification was admitted by all.² These principal or capital vices are typified by the seven peoples whom the Israelites were commanded by God to extirpate when they came into the land of promise. Egypt makes the eighth from which they had been delivered, and which, Cassian says, typifies gluttony. From this vice the monk is indeed delivered by his abandoning the world for the desert, but he may not extirpate it altogether; he should aim only at curbing its excesses. Gregory the Great adopted in substance the teaching of Cassian on the capital vices, but by making pride the queen of all the rest, and placing it in a category by itself, the other seven became the seven deadly sins which with their daughter vices were so famous in the literature of the Middle Ages, and figure in the books of morals and in the catechisms of Christian doctrine to the present day.

² Collatio v, c. 18.

To show how conservative the Catholic tradition has been even in the expression of doctrine I will give the following passage in St. Gregory’s own words:

“For when pride, the queen of the vices, has fully taken possession of the conquered heart, it immediately hands it over to the seven principal vices, as though to certain leaders of its own, to be laid waste. An army, namely, follows these leaders, because from them without doubt troublesome multitudes of vices arise. We show this better if, as far as we are able, we bring forward by enumeration the leaders themselves and their army individually. For the root of every evil is pride, concerning which, Scripture bearing witness, it is said:

“The beginning of every sin is pride (Ecclus. x. 15). Its first offspring, moreover, namely the seven principal vices, are brought forth from this poisonous root: vainglory, envy, anger, sadness, avarice, gluttony of the belly, lust. For because He grieved that we had been taken captive by these seven vices of pride, for that reason our Redeemer came to the spiritual battle of liberation full of the spirit of sevenfold grace.

“But each of these has its own army against us. For from vainglory arise disobedience, boasting, hypocrisy, contentions, obstinacies, discords, and presumptions of innovations. From envy arise hatred, whispering, detraction, exultation in a neighbor’s adversities, but affliction at his prosperity. From anger are brought forth quarrels, swelling of mind, insults, clamor, indignation, blasphemies. From sadness arise malice, rancor, faintheartedness, despair, sluggishness concerning the precepts, and wandering of the mind toward unlawful things. From avarice arise treachery, fraud, deceit, perjuries, restlessness, acts of violence, and hardenings of the heart against mercy. From gluttony of the belly are propagated foolish joy, scurrility, uncleanness, much speaking, and dullness of sense concerning understanding. From lust are generated blindness of mind, inconsideration, inconstancy, precipitation, love of self, hatred of God, attachment to the present age, but horror or despair of the future. Therefore, because the seven principal vices bring forth from themselves so great a multitude of vices, when they come to the heart, they drag with them, as it were, the bands of the army that follows. Of these seven, namely, five are spiritual and two are carnal.”¹

¹ Moralium, lib. xxxi, c. 45.

The “Conferences” of Cassian are represented by him as the teachings of celebrated abbots on various questions of the spiritual life. They are partly speculative, partly practical. There are twenty-four in all, each being divided into a greater or less number of chapters. These two works have provided an ample store of moral and ascetical doctrine for all subsequent Catholic writers on the subjects treated in them.

A large portion of moral theology is taken up with the duties arising from the positive legislation of the Church. In this legislation we have the practical application of Christian moral principles to the varying requirements of time and place, and change and variety are here conspicuous. With the establishment of the Christian religion the positive precepts of the Mosaic law ceased to be binding, but the Church received from her divine Founder authority to make new laws for the sanctification and salvation of her children. The apostles used this legislative authority, as we see from the Epistles of St. Paul, especially from those to Timothy and Titus, and within twenty years after the Ascension we find them legislating in the Council of Jerusalem on the disputed question of legal observances. The decree which we have in the Acts¹ was a true positive law imposing a new obligation on the faithful concerned, as long as the peculiar circumstances of the time rendered its observance desirable and necessary.² This council of the apostles formed the type and pattern for the ecumenical and provincial councils of the Church which were to be held in the future. Innumerable laws and regulations have been enacted by these, affecting Catholic life, discipline, and worship. The Bishops, too, as successors of the apostles have continued in all ages to exercise the legislative authority committed to them by God and the Church. The Roman Pontiffs, especially, in the exercise of their jurisdiction over the whole Church in succession to Blessed Peter, have in all ages made wise laws for the peace and prosperity of the Christian people. As instances of this action of the Popes in the early centuries may be mentioned St. Clement’s first epistle to the Corinthians in the first century, St. Victor’s decision about the observance of Easter in the second century, St. Stephen’s about the baptism of heretics in the third, and similar action on the part of Popes Liberius, Damasus, and Siricius. Subsequently papal decisions became frequent and notorious. Collections of the decisions issuing from all these sources of positive law began to be made in very early times. Of these some have survived the ravages of time. The “Didascalia of the Apostles” may in the judgment of the learned be ascribed to the first half of the third century, and the so-called “Constitutions of the Apostles” together with the “Canons of the Apostles” to the early part of the fifth century. The materials of which these collections are composed are, of course, still more ancient. At the beginning of the fourth century the decrees of the councils were collected and arranged at first in chronological order in the East. At the beginning of the sixth century systematic collections arranged under suitable titles began to appear. Of these early collections of canons the most celebrated is that of John the Scholastic. In the West, Dionysius Exiguus made his translation of Greek canons into Latin about the year 500. A copy of this collection was presented by the Pope to Charlemagne when he was in Rome, and he caused it to be received and approved by the clergy of his empire in 802 at the great Council of Aix la Chapelle. Collections of Church laws continued to grow in number and in bulk until in the twelfth century the monk Gratian issued his “Decretum” which became the most famous of them all, and still forms the first volume of the “Corpus Juris Canonici.” It contains some 4000 decisions on law and morals taken from the decrees of Popes, the canons of councils both general and particular, the opinions of the Fathers, and even from the civil law.

¹ Acts xv. 28, 29.

² It ceased to bind in the Latin Church about the ninth century.

No attempt of course can be made in this short sketch to trace the varying phases through which the innumerable positive laws of the Church have passed. It will be sufficient for our purpose to trace in outline those chief precepts which bind all Catholics and which are specially known as the precepts of the Church. They are usually reckoned six in number: the due observance of Sundays and feast-days, the days of fasting and abstinence, confession and communion, the support of pastors, and the prohibition of marriage within certain degrees of kindred and of its solemnization at certain times of the year.

The observance of the Sunday and its substitution for the Sabbath appears to be due to apostolic institution. There are traces of it in the New Testament; in the “Didaché” the faithful are bidden to come together on the Lord’s Day, as it was called even then in honor of the Resurrection, and offer the eucharistic sacrifice after confessing their sins. In the second century the custom of observing the Lord’s Day was universal throughout the Church. The chief duty to be performed on that day was to hear Mass. Very soon particular provincial laws began to be enacted urging the obligation and imposing penalties on transgressors. At the beginning of the fourth century the Council of Elliberis in Spain decreed that any one who might be absent from Mass on three successive Sundays should be deprived of communion. The Council of Agde at the beginning of the sixth century prescribed that all were to hear an entire Mass on Sunday and not leave until after the blessing of the priest on pain of a public reprehension by the Bishop.

It was natural that when Sunday became the Christian Sabbath it should be kept much in the same way as the Jews kept their Sabbath. While knowing from the teaching of Our Lord Himself that pharisaic exaggeration was to be avoided in this matter, and from St. Paul that the sabbatical rest was no longer of obligation, still St. Cæsarius of Arles in the sixth century expressly says that the Doctors of the Church decreed to transfer all the honor of the Sabbath to the Lord’s Day. The very necessity of hearing Mass on that day made a certain abstention from work also necessary. Tertullian testifies to the Christian custom of his day in this respect. Constantine prescribed that judges and artisans in towns should abstain from work on the Sunday, but that agriculture should be allowed on account of necessity. The strictness with which the Sunday repose was observed varied somewhat according to time and place in the period with which we are dealing.

Besides the Sunday other feast-days began gradually to be observed in the same manner by hearing Mass and abstaining from servile work. Easter and Pentecost were assigned to movable Sundays, but the days on which renowned martyrs suffered for the Faith, those on which churches were dedicated, Ascension Day, Christmas Day, and the Epiphany, were soon added to the list. The letter of the Church of Smyrna concerning the martyrdom of St. Polycarp in the middle of the second century expresses the intention of celebrating the anniversary of the day of martyrdom with joy, both in memory of those who had suffered and as a preparation for those who survived.¹

¹ Cf. A. Villien, Histoire des Commandements de l’Église, 1909.

As the Christian Church took over the Jewish Sabbath but changed the day on which it was observed and rejected the exaggerations of the Pharisees in its observance, so, too, it adopted the Jewish practice of fasting at stated times. As we have seen from the “Didaché” the fast of Monday and Thursday was changed into one on Wednesday and Friday. The obligation of fasting on all Wednesdays and Fridays ceased almost entirely about the tenth century, but the fixing of those days by ecclesiastical authority for fasting, and the desire to substitute a Christian observance at Rome for certain pagan rites celebrated in connection with the seasons of the year, seem to have given rise to our Ember Days. In the time of St. Leo, in the middle of the fifth century, the Ember Days were a settled institution, though the time at which they fell varied somewhat at different times and in different places.

The earliest indication that we have of the fast of Lent is contained in a short extract from Irenæus which has been preserved for us by Eusebius.² Writing to Pope Victor about the middle of the second century, St. Irenæus says that the controversy in the East was not merely about the proper time of celebrating Easter but also about the manner of fasting. “For some think,” he says, “that they ought to fast only one day, some two, some more days; some compute their day as consisting of forty hours night and day; and this diversity existing among those that observe it is not a matter that has just sprung up in our times, but long ago among those before us, who perhaps not having ruled with sufficient strictness, established the practice that arose from their simplicity and inexperience, and yet with all these maintained peace, and we have maintained peace with one another; and the very difference in our fasting establishes the unanimity of our faith.” At the time this was written the Lenten fast was obviously very short, and there was no uniformity even in its duration. Tertullian, fifty years later, refers to the Lenten observance as the fulfillment of the words of Our Lord: “But the days will come when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them—then shall they fast in those days.”

² Historia ecclesiastica, v, c. 24.

The first allusion to a period of forty days’ fast occurs in the fifth canon of the Council of Nicæa (325). In the time of St. Leo in the fifth century the period was sufficiently well established to be referred by him to apostolic institution. The period was six weeks, but omitting Sundays the actual fasting days were only thirty-six in number. The four days before the first Sunday of Lent were added sometime in the seventh century. The fasts assigned to certain vigils arose from the practice of the early Christians of assembling on the eve of a feast and spending the night in prayer, fasting, and reading the Scriptures. By degrees matins took the place of the night office, and the vigil office was moved back to the Saturday morning, as we see to this day from the morning office of Holy Saturday. The fast was thus prolonged through the Saturday till after the morning office of the feast of next day.

The fast which used to be observed on the rogation days took its rise in France at the close of the fifth century and by degrees spread to other Churches. The interrupted fast of Advent was introduced as a preparation for Christmas toward the end of the fourth century. The manner of fasting has varied greatly at different times and in different places. At first the fast seems to have been absolute and continuous. During the days of the bridegroom’s absence the faithful neither ate nor drank anything. When the period was lengthened such a total fast became impossible, but at least in the East food was restricted on fast days to one meal of bread, salt, and water, taken in the evening, or at least not before three in the afternoon. In the time of St. Gregory fish was allowed at the single meal in the West. Flesh meat was never allowed on fasting days.

The essence of fasting is still placed by theologians in the single meal, but many relaxations have crept in by degrees. The monks while listening to a Collatio of Cassian before going to bed introduced the practice of drinking an acidulated liquor called posca. By degrees fruits and lighter kinds of food in limited quantity were added, and when about the thirteenth century the full meal began to be taken at twelve midday, the evening collation became an established practice.

In the thirteenth century it was an accepted principle that liquid does not break the fast, and this became the source of another relaxation. A little wine, or coffee, or chocolate, was taken sometimes in the morning, with candied fruits (electuaria) on occasion. The practice was not condemned when the Sacred Penitentiary was asked about it in 1843, provided that the solid food taken then did not exceed two ounces in weight.

At first all seem to have fasted except children and those who were sick. St. Thomas’ opinion that those who are still growing are not bound to fast, and that in general the period of growth lasts till the completion of the twenty-first year, has prevailed. Exemptions in favor of workmen and others were soon admitted, and toward the close of the Middle Ages dispensations from the law of fasting began to be granted. The Lenten indult is now an established custom.

The precept of abstinence from flesh meat which is still observed on Fridays is a survival of the obligation of fasting on that day which obtained in the primitive Church. As we have seen, the “Didaché” prescribed fasting on all Wednesdays and Fridays, and to this fast all the faithful except mere children and the sick were formerly bound. About the tenth century the obligation of the Friday fast was reduced to one of abstinence from flesh meat, and the Wednesday fast after being similarly mitigated gradually disappeared altogether.

While in the East Saturday was observed as a festival in honor of the creation,¹ at Rome and in other Churches of the West it began in early times to be observed as a fasting day. On account of the difference of discipline on this point great difficulties arose in the fourth century, as we know from the correspondence of St. Augustine and St. Jerome. St. Ambrose said that he kept festival on Saturday when he was at Milan and a fast when at Rome, and he advised St. Augustine to follow the same rule. About the eleventh century the Saturday fast was reduced to an obligation of abstinence, and this is the common law of the Church to-day, but many countries are dispensed from its observance. A dispensation from abstinence on Saturdays, the feast of St. Mark, and on Rogation Days was granted for England by a rescript of Propaganda, May 29, 1830.

¹ Apostolic Constitutions, vii. 23.

The Sundays in Lent were never observed as fasting days, but they early became days of abstinence as they are to this day, though usually a dispensation is granted to eat meat on them.

Annual confession and communion was first made a positive universal law of the Catholic Church in the Fourth Lateran Council (1215). As we know from the Gospel of St. John¹ both confession and communion were prescribed by Our Lord, but He determined neither precept in detail. The practice of the different Churches in the early ages was various in respect to both precepts. We will first trace in outline the history regarding the precept of annual communion.

¹ John vi. xx.

From the earliest times, as we have seen, Mass was celebrated for the assembled faithful on Sundays, and all who were present appear to have received holy communion. In some places it was the practice for the faithful to take home with them consecrated particles and communicate themselves therewith out of Mass. Many at Rome, in Spain, and in Africa received communion daily. This was a common practice at the end of the fourth century, as we learn from the letters of St. Jerome and St. Augustine. The latter interprets the daily bread for which we ask in the Lord’s Prayer as holy communion. The Council of Agde (506) decreed that those who did not communicate at least on the feasts of the Nativity, Easter, and Whit-Sunday were not to be reckoned as Catholics. In subsequent centuries this became a general rule in the Western Church; in the East, according to Theodore of Canterbury, the law was much stricter. The Greeks, he says, both laity and clerics, communicate every Sunday, and any one who omits to do so on three Sundays is excommunicated. A synod held 747 at Cloveshoe in England prescribed that innocent youths and those in whom years had cooled the ardor of passion should be exhorted to communicate very frequently. A synod held under St. Patrick in the fifth century decreed that the Eucharist was to be received at all events at Easter, and that any one who neglected this duty was not a member of the Church. Robert Pullen, an Englishman who wrote in the middle of the twelfth century, tells us that in his day some communicated more frequently, others less so, but that even laymen followed the rule of the Fathers and communicated at least three times a year. So that when the Lateran Council established the universal law that all who had come to years of discretion were bound to communicate at least at Easter, it made no new rule; it merely enforced by universal statute the least that was expected of any one who called himself a Catholic.