the Chair of S. Peter. Since S. John of Damascus, I hardly know what the Greek Church has produced, except a few meagre Catenas of the Fathers upon certain books of Holy Scripture, the works of Theophylact, a body of miserable Erastian canon law, a few still more meagre catechetical works, and many virulent and schismatical attacks upon the Primacy of the Holy See. It may be truly said that the history of the human intellect in the last eighteen hundred years is the history of Christianity, and the history of Christianity is the history of the Catholic Church. It is in the Catholic Church that the human intellect has developed its activity and its maturity, both within the sphere of revelation and beyond it.

It was not before the eleventh century that theology assumed a scientific and systematic form. Italy and France may claim the precedence, because the two who led the way in this work were born in, or reared by them; but it is no little glory to England that they were both Archbishops of Canterbury, Lanfranc and his disciple S. Anselm. It was another Archbishop of Canterbury who gave to the theological studies of England a scientific direction by introducing into the University of Oxford the study of Aristotle; which, strange to say, endures to this day—I mean S. Edmund. After these came Hugh and Richard of S. Victor, Hildebert of Tours, Robert Pool, Otto of Frisingen, S. Bernard, and others. It

was at this period that the first explicit collision took place between reason ministering to revelation as its disciple, and reason dissecting it as a critic; that is between S. Bernard and Abelard.

There may be said to be three epochs in the science of theology.

S. Anselam is not untruly thought to be the first who gave to theology the scientific impulse which has stamped a new form and method on its treatment. His two works, the 'Cur Deus Homo,' or • Ratio Incarnationis,' and that on the Holy Trinity called 'Fides quærens Intellectum Divinæ Essentia et SSmæ Trinitatis,' may be said to mark the first of the three epochs in theological science. The chief axiom of S. Anselm's theological method may be expressed in his own words: 'Sicut rectus ordo exigit ut profunda Christianæ fidei prius credamus quam ea præsumamus ratione discutere, ita negligentia mihi videtur, si postquam confirmati sumus in fide, non studemus quod credimus intelligere.'1

The second epoch was constituted by the 'Liber Sententiarum' of Peter Lombard, which formed the text of the Schools for nearly two centuries. Alexander of Hales, Albertus Magnus, S. Bonaventura. S. Thomas, and many more commented on the Book of the Sentences, and formed the School of the Senten

1 Cur Deus Homo, lib. i. c. 2.

tiasta, who were fated to pass away before the greater light of the third epoch.

The third epoch was made by S. Thomas. It is indeed true that England may claim somewhat of this glory. Before the Summa Theologica of S. Thomas, Alexander of Hales had formed a Summa Universæ Theologiæ, which would have inaugurated a new period, had not the more perfect amplitude, order, and unity of S. Thomas cast all others into shade. From this time the Book of the Sentences gave way to the Sum of Theology as the text of the Schools, and the Sententiastæ yielded to the Summista. From this time onward two great streams of scientific theology flow towards us, the one of Dominican commentators on the Sum of their great doctor, such as Caietan, Sylvius, the Sotos, and others; the other, which sprung later, of Jesuit commentators, Suarez, Vasquez, De Lugo, and the like.

Since the Council of Trent, another mode of treating theology has arisen. The controversy with the pretended appeal to antiquity, threw the Catholic theologian more and more upon the study of the History of Dogma; and theology assumed what is called the positive method. Nevertheless, the Scholastic method still held and holds to this day its ascendency. And that because it represents the intellectual process of the Church, elaborating, through a period of many centuries, an exact conception and expression of revealed

truth. The Scholastic method can never cease to be true, just as logic can never cease to be true, because it is the intellectual order of revealed truths in their mutual relations, harmony, and unity. To depreciate it is to show that we do not understand it. The critical and exegetical studies which are tributary to it may be advanced and corrected, but the form of the Scholastic theology has its basis in the intrinsic nature and relations of the truths of which it treats. All else is subordinate and accidental.

V. The last relation of which I will speak is that of transmitting theology by a scientific treatment and tradition. The mind or intelligence of the Church has had, as we have seen, many relations to the revelation entrusted to it, namely, that of passive reception, from which arises the consciousness of supernatural knowledge;—that of enunciation, which presupposes apprehension or conception of the truths received;-that of definition, or the precise verbal expression, and the orderly digest of the doctrines of faith ;-that of defence, by way of proof and evidence;-and finally, by a scientific treatment and tradition. I say scientific, because theology, though not a science propriè dicta, may be truly and correctly so described.

The definition of Science, according to both philosophers and theologians, is the habit of the mind conversant with necessary truth,' that is, truth which admits of demonstration and of the certainty which ex

cludes the possibility of its contradictory being true. According to the Scholastic philosophy, Science is defined as follows:

Viewed subjectively, it is 'The certain and evident knowledge, of the ultimate reasons or principles of truth, attained by reasoning.'

Viewed objectively, it is 'The system of known truths belonging to the same order, as a whole, and depending upon one only principle.' '

This is founded on the definition of Aristotle. In the sixth book of the Ethics, ch. 3, he says: 'From this it is evident what Science is; to speak accurately, and not to follow mere similitudes, for we all understand that what we know cannot be otherwise than we know it. For whatsoever may or may not be, as a practical question, is not known to be or not to be. For that which is known is necessary; therefore eternal. For whatsoever is necessary is simply eternal.'

Such also is the definition of S. Thomas, who says, 'Whatsoever truths are truly known, as by certain knowledge (ut certa scientia), are known by resolution into their first principles, which of themselves are immediately present to the intellect; and so all science is constituted by a vision of the thing as present, so that it is impossible that the same thing should be the object 'both of faith and of science, because, that is, of the ob

1 Sanseverino, Elementi di Filosofia Speculativa, vol. i. pp. 130, 131. Napoli, 1862.