Page:AManualOfCatholicTheology.djvu/39

 the land least affected by the heretical movement. The Universities of Salamanca, Alcala (Complutum), and Coimbra, now became famous for theological learning. Spanish theologians, partly by their labours at the Council of Trent (Dominic Soto, Peter Soto, and Vega), partly by their teaching in other countries (Maldonatus in Paris, Toletus in Italy, Gregory of Valentia in Germany), were its chief promoters and revivers. Next to Spain, the chief glory belongs to the University of Louvain, in the Netherlands, at that time under Spanish rule. On the other hand, the University of Paris, which had lost much of its ancient renown, did not regain its position until towards the end of the sixteenth century. Among the religious bodies the ancient Orders, the heirs of the theology of the thirteenth century, were indeed animated with a new spirit; but all were surpassed by the newly founded Society of Jesus, whose members laboured most assiduously and successfully in every branch of theology, especially in exegesis and history, and strove to develop the mediaeval theology in an independent, eclectic spirit and in a form adapted to the age. The continuity with the theological teaching of the Middle Ages was preserved by the Jesuits and by most of the other schools, by their taking as a text-book the noblest product of the thirteenth century—the Summa of St. Thomas, which was placed on the table of the Council of Trent next to the Holy Scriptures and the Corpus Juris Canonici as the most authentic expression of the mind of the Church.

This modern epoch may be divided into four periods:—

I. The Preparatory Period, up to the end of the Council of Trent;

II. The Flourishing Period, from the Council of Trent to 1660;

III. The Period of Decay to 1760.

Besides these three periods, which correspond with those of the Patristic and Mediæval Epochs, there is another,

IV. The Period of Degradation, lasting from 1760 till about 1830.

I. The Preparatory Period produced comparatively