Search
Life of St. Severinus · English translation 46:163Eugippius115. Two more translations still awaited the body. October 14, 903, the Lucullan castle was abandoned through fear of the marauding Saracens. The remains of the saint were borne in solemn procession to the great Benedictine monastery of Saint Severinus, within the walls of Naples. Joannes Diaconus Neapolitanus, Martyrium Sancti Procopii, in Octavius Cajetanus's Vitae Sanctorum Siculorum (Panormi, 1657), ii, p. 62, reprinted in L. A. Muratori's Rerum Italicarum Scriptores (Mediolani, 1723-51), i, 2, pp. 271 f.; and the same, printed from another manuscript, under the title of Translatio Sancti Severini or Historia Translationis, in Acta Sanctorum, January, i (1643), pp. 1100-1103, and reprinted thence in Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores Rerum Langobardicarum et Italicarum Saec. VI-IX (Hannoverae, 1878), pp. 452-459. ----It should be noted, however, that Luigi Parascandolo, in his Memorie Storiche-Critiche-Diplomatiche della Chiesa di Napoli (Naples, 1847-51), ii, pp. 253 f., doubts the authenticity of this narrative, which, he thinks, owes at least its present form to the labor of some Benedictine monk living in the monastery of Saint Severinus at the time of the revival of learning.---- Descriptions of the monastery, now for the most part secularized and occupied by the Royal Neapolitan State Archives, and of the church of Saints Severinus and Sosius connected with it, may be found in Napoli e i Luoghi Celebri delle sue Vicinanze (Naples, 1845), i, pp. 233-243, and in the current guidebooks.Life of St. Severinus · Indices 2:25EugippiusCajetanus, Octavius, 107.Commentary on John 200:10Thomas AquinasFor our purposes here it is sufficient to note three historical points briefly before zeroing in on the analogical use of the term in Aristotelian and Scholastic philosophy. 1) The Greek seekers of wisdom before Socrates (d. 399 B.C.), the pre-Socratics, are frequently called physiologoi because their whole enterprise was a search for the underlying active “source” ( arche ) of all natural processes in the world, including the origin and nature of man. This underlying active source they called physis (nature), from which we derive our English words physics, physical, physician, and the like. For most of these pre-Socratics, one or other of the basic elements were sought out as the ultimate, active nature of things, as though the whole universe had to have been made from one single element; they are commonly called philosophical Monists, from the Greek word monos, “single.” 2) Socrates and his disciple Plato (427347 B.C.) gave up the enterprise of the physiologoi as hopeless, Socrates establishing a moral or ethical philosophy, and Plato turning from the world of nature to the world of separated, subsistent Ideas that defined each thing in itself, and establishing the primacy of art over nature, and of mind or spirit over matter (See, Laws X, 884A913D). Plato, responding to Parmenides, established a dualism that enticed a host of eminent Fathers of the Church, mystics, separatists, and modem dualists. This is not the Pauline warfare between the “spirit” and the “flesh,” but the Cartesian separation of mind and body that overflowed into the pseudo-conflict of faith and reason, Church and science, sacerdotium and regnum, Church and State. 3) Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), a disciple of Plato, tried to reinstate the quest of the ancient physiologoi in order to establish a realist foundation for his metaphysics of being. That Aristotle would have wished to re-establish the investigation of nature is not at all surprising, for his father was court physician to Philip of Macedonia and was himself a born naturalist in the pay of Alexander the Great. What is surprising, however, is that he should have found such a simple truth whereby to succeed in his quest. The simple truth was that the word “is” can be used in many different ways, the fundamental distinction being between actually and potentially. While the phisiologoi and the Platonists were rightly busy looking for the actual, Aristotle discovered the potential, that is, primary matter ( materia prima ), which was capable of becoming actual. For this simple discovery, the Thomistic commentator Cardinal Thomas de Vio Cajetan called him Divus Aristoteles, quia invenit materiam (Divine Aristotle, because he discovered matter).The Essay 27:74An Essay on the Development of Christian DoctrineWith this passage from a learned German, illustrating the bearing of the allegorical method upon the Judaic and Athanasian controversies, it will be well to compare the following passage from the latitudinarian Hale's "Golden Remains," as directed against the theology of Rome. "The literal, plain, and uncontroversible meaning of Scripture," he says, "without any addition or supply by way of interpretation, is that alone which for ground of faith we are necessarily bound to accept; except it be there, where the Holy Ghost Himself treads us out another way. I take not this to be any particular conceit of mine, but that unto which our Church stands necessarily bound. When we receded from the Church of Rome, one motive was, because she added unto Scripture her glosses as Canonical, to supply what the plain text of Scripture could not yield. If, in place of hers, we set up our own glosses, thus to do were nothing else but to pull down Baal, and set up an Ephod, to run round and meet the Church of Rome again in the same point in which at first we left her. . . . This doctrine of the literal sense was never grievous or prejudicial to any, but only to those who were inwardly conscious that their positions were not sufficiently grounded. When Cardinal Cajetan, in the days of our grandfathers, had forsaken that vein of postilling and allegorizing on Scripture, which for a long time had prevailed in the Church, and betaken himself unto the literal sense, it was a thing so distasteful unto the Church of Rome that he was forced to find out many shifts and make many apologies for himself. The truth is (as it will appear to him that reads his writings), this sticking close to the literal sense was that alone which made him to shake off many of those tenets upon which the Church of Rome and the reformed Churches differ. But when the importunity of the Reformers, and the great credit of Calvin's writings in that kind, had forced the divines of Rome to level their interpretations by the same line; when they saw that no pains, no subtlety of wit was strong enough to defeat the literal evidence of Scripture, it drove them on those desperate shoals, on which at this day they stick, to call in question, as far as they durst, the credit of the Hebrew text, and countenance against it a corrupt translation; to add traditions unto Scripture, and to make the Church's interpretation, so pretended, to be above exception."[346:1]Good Works 1:6A Treatise on Good WorksLuther's first literary works to appear in print were also occasioned by the work of his calling and of his office in the Wittenberg congregation. He had no other object in view than to edify his congregation and to lead it to Christ when, in 1517, he published his first independent work, the Explanation of the Seven Penitential Psalms. On Oct 31 of the same year he published his 95 Theses against Indulgences. These were indeed intended as controversial theses for theologians, but at the same time it is well known that Luther was moved by his duty toward his congregation to declare his position in this matter and to put in issue the whole question as to the right and wrong of indulgences by means of his theses. His sermon Of Indulgences and Grace, occasioned by Tetzel's attack and delivered in the latter part of March, 1518, as well as his sermon Of Penitence, delivered about the same time, were also intended for his congregation. Before his congregation (Sept., 1516-Feb., 1517) he delivered the Sermons on the Ten Commandments, which were published in 1518 and the Sermons on the Lord's Prayer, which were also published in 1518 by Agricola. Though Luther in the same year published a series of controversial writings, which were occasioned by attacks from outside sources, viz., the Resolutiones disputationis de Virtute indulgentiarum, the Asterisci adversus obeliscos Joh. Eccii, and the Ad dialogum Silv. Prieriatis responsio, still he never was diverted by this necessary rebuttal from his paramount duty, the edification of the congregation. The autumn of the year 1518, when he was confronted with Cajetan, as well as the whole year of 1519, when he held his disputations with Eck, etc., were replete with disquietude and pressing labors; still Luther served his congregation with a whole series of writings during this time, and only regretted that he was not entirely at its disposal. Of such writings we mention: Explanation of the Lord's Prayer for the simple Laity (an elaboration of the sermons of 1517); Brief Explanation of the Ten Commandments; Instruction concerning certain Articles, which might be ascribed and imputed to him by his adversaries; Brief Instruction how to Confess; Of Meditation on the Sacred Passion of Christ; Of Twofold Righteousness; Of the Matrimonial Estate; Brief Form to understand and to pray the Lord's Prayer; Explanation of the Lord's Prayer "vor sich und hinter sich"; Of Prayer and Processions in Rogation Week; Of Usury; Of the Sacrament of Penitence; Of Preparation for Death; Of the Sacrament of Baptism; Of the Sacrament of the Sacred Body; Of Excommunication. With but few exceptions these writings all appeared in print in the year 1519, and again it was the congregation which Luther sought primarily to serve. If the bounds of his congregation spread ever wider beyond Wittenberg, so that his writings found a surprisingly ready sale, even afar, that was not Luther's fault. Even the Tessaradecas consolatoria, written in 1519 and printed in 1520, a book of consolation, which was originally intended for the sick Elector of Saxony, was written by him only upon solicitation from outside sources.