Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 12.djvu/418

 PREACHERS

362

PREACHERS

the Dominican school, which thus became a part of the theological faculty. This transformation began towards the close of the fourteenth and lasted until the first years of the sixteenth century. Once es- tablished, this state of things lasted until the Ref- ormation in the countries which became Protestant, and until the French Revolution and its spread in the Latin countries.

The archbishops, who according to the decree of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) were to establish in each metropolitan church a master of theology, considered themselves dispensed from this obliga- tion by reason of the creation of Dominican schools open to the secular clergj'. However, when they thought it their duty to apply the decree of the council, or when later they were obliged by the Roman Clnu'ch to do so, they frequently called in a Dominican master to fill the chair of their metro- politan school. Thus the metropolitan school of Lyons was intrusted to the Preachers, from their es- tablishment in that city until the beginning of the sixteenth century (Forest, "L'^cole cathedrale de Lyon", Paris-Lyons, 1885, pp. 238, 368; Beyssac, " Les Prieurs de Notre Dame de Confort, Lyons, 1909; "Chart. Univer. Paris", III, p. 28). Thesame arrange- ment, though not so permanent, was made at Toulouse, Bordeaux, Tortosa, Valencia, Urgel, Milan etc. The popes, who believed themselves morally obligated to set an example regarding the execution of the scholastic decree of the Lateran Council, usually contented them- selves during the thirteenth century with the establish- ment of schools at Rome by the Dominicans and other religious orders. The Dominican masters who taught at Rome or in other cities where the sovereign pontiffs took up their residence, were known as lectores curice. However, when the popes, once settled at Avignon, began to require from the arch- bishops the execution of the decree of Lateran, they instituted a theological school in their own papal palace; the initiative was taken by Clement V (1305- 1314). At the request of the Dominican, Cardinal Nicolas Alberti de Prato (d. 1321), this work was permanently intrusted to a Preacher, bearing the name of Magisler Saeri Palalii. The first to hold the position was Pierre Godin, who later became cardinal (1312). The office of Master of the Sacred Palace, whose functions were successively increased, remains to the present day the special privilege of the Order of Preachers (Catalani, "De Magistro Sacri Palatii Apostolici", Rome, p. 175).

Finally, when towards the middle of the thirteenth century the old monastic orders began to take up the scholastic and doctrinal movement, the Cister- cians, in particular, applied to the Preachers for masters of theology in their abbeys ("Chart. L^niv. Paris", I, p. 184). During the last portion of the Middle Ages, the Dominicans furnished, at intervals, professors to the different orders, not themselves consecrated to study (Denifie, "Quellen zur Gelehrtengeschichte des Predigerordens im 13. und 14. Jahrhundert" in "Archiv.", II, p. 165; Mandonnet, "Les Chanoines Precheiu-s de Bologne", Fribourg, 1903; Douais, "Essaisurl'organisationdes(Studesdans I'OrdredesFreres-Precheurs", Paris, 1884; Mandonnet, "De I'incorporation des Dominicains dans I'ancienne Universiti5 de Paris" in "Re\'Tje Thomiste", IV, 1896, p. 139; Denifie, "DieUniversitiitendes Mittelalters", Berlin, 1885; I, passim; Denifle-Chatelain, "Chart. Univ., Paris", 1889, passim; Bernard, "Les Domini- cains dans i'UniversitS de Paris", Paris, 183; Mandonnet, "Siger de Brabant et I'averroisme Latin au Xllle si^cle", Louvain, 1911, I, p. 30-95). The legislation regarding studies occurs here and there in the constitutions, and principally in the "Acta Capitularium Generalium, Rome, 1898, sq. and Douais, "Acta Capitulorum Provincialium " (Tou- louse, 1894).

The teaching activity of the order and its scholastic organization placed the Preachers in the forefront of the intellectual life of the Middle Ages. They were the pioneers in all directions as one may see from a subsequent paragraph relative to their literary productions. We speak only of the school of philos- ophy and of theology created by them in the thir- teenth century which has been the most influential in the history of the Church. At the beginning of the thirteenth century philosophical teaching was confined practically to the logic of Aristotle and theology, and was under the influenceof St. Augustine; hence the name Augustinism generally given to the theological doctrines of that age. The fii'St Domini- can doctors, who came from the universities into the order, or who taught in the universities, adhered for a long time to the Augustinian doctrine. Among the most celebrated were Roland of Cremona, Hugh of Saint Cher, Richard Fitzacre, Moneta of Cremona, Peter of Tarentaise, and Robert of Kihvardby. It was the introduction into the Latin world of the great works of Aristotle, and their assimilation, through the action of Albertus Magnus, that opened up in the Order of Preachers a new line of philosophical and theological investigation. The work begun by Albertus Magnus (1240-1250) was carried to com- pletion by his disciple, Thomas Aquinas (q. v.), whose teaching activity occupied the last twenty years of his life (1245-1274). The system of theology and philosophy constructed by Aquinas is the most com- plete, the most original, and the most profound, which ChrKtian thought has elaborated, and the master who designed it surpasses all his contem- poraries and his successors in the grandeur of his creative genius. The Thomist School developed rapidly both within the order and without. The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries witnessed the struggles of the Thomist School on various points of doctrine. The Council of Vienne (1311) declared in favour of the Thomistic teaching, according to which there is but one form in the human composi- tion, and condemned as heretical any one who should deny that "the rational or intellective soul is perse and essentially the form of the human body". This is also the teaching of the Fifth Lateran Council (1515). See Zigliara, "De Mente Concilii Vien- nensis", Rome, 1878, pp. 88-89.

The discussions between the Preachers and the Friars on the poverty of Christ and the Apostles was also settled by John XXII in the Thomistic sense [(12 Nov., 1323), Ehrle, "Archiv. f. Lift, u Kirchen- gesch. ", III, p. 517; Tocco, "La Questione della poverta nel Secolo XIV", Naples, 1910]. The ques- tion regarding the Divinity of the Blood of Christ separated from His Body during His Passion, raised for the first time in 1351, at Barcelona, and taken up again in Italy in 1463, was the subject of a formal debate before Pius II. The Dominican opinion pre- vailed; although the pope refused a sentence prop- erly so called (^lortier, "Hist, des Maltrcs G^n(>raux", III, p. 287, IV, p. 413; G. degli Agostini, "Notizie istorico-critiche intorno la vita e le opere degli scrittori Viniziani", Venice, 1752, I, p. 401. During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the Thomist School had to make a stand against Nominalism, of which a Preacher had been one of the protagonists. The repeated sentences of the universities and of princes slowly combatted this doctrine (De Wulf, "Histoire de la philosophie m(5dii5vale", Louvain- Paris, 1905, p. 453).

The Averroism against which Albert the Great, and especially Aquinas had fought so energetically did not disappear entirely with the condemnation of Paris (1277), but survived under a more or less at- tenuated form. At the beginning of the sixteenth century the debates were renewed, and the Preachers found "themselves actively engaged therein in Italy