Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 10.djvu/809

 NECTARinS

737

NEHEMIAS

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C. A. DUBRAY.

Nectaxius (Ntx-rdpios), Patriarch of Coastantino- ple, (381-397), d. 27 Sept., 397, eleventh bishop of that city .since Metrophanes, and may be counted its first [jatriarch. He came from Tarsus of a senatorial family and was praetor at Constantinople at the time of the second general council (381). When St. Greg- ory Nazianzen resigned his occupation of that see the people called for Nectarius to succeed him and their choice was ratified by the Council (Socrates, "H. E." V), before August, 381. Sozomen (H. E., VII, 8) adds that Nectarius, about to return to Tarsus, asked Diodorus, Bishop of Tarsus, if he could carry any letters for him. Diodorus, who saw that his visitor was the most suitable person to become Bishop of Constantinople, persuaded Meletius, Bishop of Anti- och, to add his name to the list of candidates presented by the council to the emperor. The emperor then, to every one's surpri.se, chose Nectarius, who was not yet baptized, and in neophyte's robe he was conse- crated bishop. Tillemont (Memoires, IX, 486) doubts this story. Soon after Nectarius' election the Coun- cil passed the famous third canon giving Constanti- nople rank immediately after Rome. A man of no very great power, Nectarius had an uneventful reign with which St. Gregory was not altogether pleased ("Ep." 88, 91, 1.51, etc.; Tillemont, op. cit., IX, 48S). Suspected of concessions to the Novatians (Socrates, V, 10; Sozomen, VII, 12), he made none to the Arians, who in 388 burnt his house (Socrates, V, 13). Palsa- mon says that in 394 he held a sj-nod at Constantino- ple which decreed that no bishop should be deposed without the consent of several other bishops of the same province (Harduin, I, 955). The most impor- tant event, however, is that, according to Socrates (V, 19) and Sozomen (VII, 16), as a result of a public scandal Nectarius abohshed the discipline of public penance and the office of penitentiary hitherto held by a priest of his diocese. The incident is important for the history of Penance. Nectarius preached a sermon about the martyr Theodore still e.xtant ("P. G." XXXIX, 1821-40; Nilles "Kalendarium man- uale," II, 90-100). He was succeeded by St. John Chrysostom and appears as St. Nectarius in the Ortho- dox Menaion for 11 October (Nilles, op. cil. I, 300; "Acta SS." May, II, 421).

Tillemont, Memoires pour serpir a Vhistoire ecclesia.'itique (Paris, 1093-1713), IX, X; Fabricius-Hables, Bibliolheca GrcFca. IX (Hamburg. 1804). 309; Rauschen, Jahrblicher der christlicheyi Kirche unter dem Kaiser Tkeodosius (Freiburg. 1897).

Adrian Fortescue.

Negligence (Lat. nee, not, and legere, to pick out), the condition of not heeding. More specifically it is here considered as the omission, whether habitual or not, of the care required for the performance of du- ties, or at any rate, for their full and adequate dis- charge. In the teaching of St. Thomas, it is rated not only as a characteristic discernible in the commission of all sins, but also as a special sin in itself. Its partic- ular deformity he judges to be the imputable lack of such solicitude as is here and now demanded for the satisfjang of obligations. He therefore a.ssigns pru- dence as the virtue to which it is directly opposed. What has been said applies also to actions which are not of precept, once it is resolved to undertake them. Negligence, according to St. Thomas, is initially at least a lack of promptness of will, and is quite distin- guishable from torpor or slipshodness in execution. It

is not commonly esteemed to be more than a venial sin. There are, however, two notable exceptions to this statement; (1) if a person is carele.ss to the point of omitting something which is indispensable for sal- vation (_de necessitate saiuiis), or (2) if the remissness of will be so great as totally to extinguish the love of God in the soul, then the sin committed is obviously griev- ous. Negligence is a factor to be reckoned with in determining the liability of one who has damaged another in any way. In the court of conscience the perpetrator of damage can only be held responsible and bound to restitution when his action has been at- tended with moral culpability, i. e. has been done freely and advertently. The civil law exacts the ex- ercise of diligence whose measure is established ac- cording to the different subject matter involved. The absence of this degree of care on the part of an agent is assumed by the civil law to be culpable, and is pun- ished with the penalties provided. Thus the common law generally distinguishes three classes of negligence as follows: gross negUgence is the failure to employ even the smallest amount of care, such as any person, no matter how heedless, would use for the safeguarding of his own interests; ordinary negligence is the failure to exercise ordinary care, such as a person of ordinary capacity and capable of governing a family would take of his own affairs; slight negligence is the failure to bring to bear a high degree of care, such as very thoughtful persons would maintain in looking after their owa interests. The civil law may and does im- pose the obligation of reparation for harm wrought not only where ordinary and gross negligence are shown, but also at times when only slight negligence is proved to have existed. This obligation holds good likewise in conscience, once the decision of the judge decreeing it has been rendered.

Slater, A Manual of Moral Theology (New York, 1908) ; St. Thomas, Summa Theologica, II — II, Q. liv; Genicot, Theologia Moralis Itutitutiones (Louvain, 1S98).

Joseph F. Delant.

Negroes. See Race, Negro.

Nehemias, Book of, also called the second Book OF EsDH.\s, is reckoned both in the Talmud and in the early Christian Church, at least until the time of Origen, as forming one single book with Esdras, and St. Jerome in his preface {ad Dominionem et Rogatia- num), following the example of the Jews, still con- tinues to treat it as making one with the Book of Esdras. The union of the two in a single book doubt- less has its origin in the fact that the documents of which the Books of Esdras and Nehemias are com- posed, underwent compilation and redaction together at the hands probably, as most critics think, of the author of Paralipomenon about B. C. 300. The sep- aration oi the Book of Nehemias from that of Esdras, preserved in our editions, may in its turn be justified by the consideration that the former relates in a dis- tinct manner the work accomplished by Nehemias, and is made up, at least in great part, from the authen- tic memoirs of the principal figure. The book com- prises three sections: I, i-vi; II, vii-xiii, 3; III, xiii, 4-31. Sections I and III will be treated first, and section II, which raises special literary problems, will be discussed at the end.

Section I: i-vi, (1) comprises the account, written by Nehemias himself, of the restoration of the walls of Jerusalem. Already in the reign of Xerxes (B. C. 485- 65), and especially during the first half of the reign of Artaxerxes I (B. C. 46.5-24), the Jews had attempted, but with only partial success, to rebuild the walls of their capital, a work, up to then, never sanctioned by the Persian kings (see I Esd., iv, 6-23). In conse- quence of the edict of Artaxerxes, given in I E.sd., iv, 18-22, the enemies of the Jews at Jerusalem forcibly stopped the work (ibid., 23) and pulled down a part of what had already been accomplished. (2) With these events the beginning of the Book of Nehemias is con-