Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 14.djvu/387

 SUPERPELLICIUM

339

SUPERSTITION

to the whole actual creation might become natural to some possible higher creature, has never been for- mally condemned by the Church; it is however unani- mously rejected by theologians, as it seems less con- formable to Scriptural sayings and tends to destroy the absolute transcendence of the supernatural order. (3) The philosophical possibility and the critical ascertainment of the supernatural order are the central point of Christian apologetics. Against the prejudicial views of the Rationalists who pro- nounce it inexistent, or unnecessary, or mischievous, or even impossible, Christian apologists urge, and to good piu-pose, the critical value of the records on which it rests, its quasi-necessity for the correct con- duct of life, the profits it brings to its recipients, and the utter want of foundation of its so-called anti- nomies. Having thus cleared the ground, they proceed to collect and interpret and organize the various data of Revelation, the result being a har- monious and truly grandiose sj-stem of o\'crlife. From the commonlj- received axiom that "grace does not destroy but only perfects nature" they establish between the two orders a parallelism that is not mutual confusion or reciprocal exclusion, but distinction and subordination. The Schoolmen spoke freely of nature's possibilities {potenlia ohedienlialis) and even conations (appctitus naliiraUs) towards the supernatural. To those traditional methods and views some Christian writers ha\e, of late, endeavoured to add and even .substitute another theory which, they claim, will bring the supernatural home to the modern mind and give it unquestionable credentials. The novel theory consists in making nature postulate the supernatural. Whatever be the legitimity of the purpose, the method is ambiguous and full of pitfalls. Between the Schoolmen's poten- lia ohedifnlialis and appetitus moralis and the Modern- ist tenet according to which the supernatural "ema- nates from nature spontaneously and entirely" there is space and distance; at the same time, the Catholic apologist who would attempt to fill some of the space and cover some of the distance should keep in mind the admonition of Pius X to those "Catholics who, while rejecting immanence as a doctrine, employ it as a method of apologetics, and who do this so imprudently that they seem to admit that there is in human nature a true and rigorous necessity with regard to the supernatural order and not merely a capacity and suitability for the supernatural such as has at all times been emphasized by Catholic apologists" (Encyclical "Pascendi").

RlPALD.i, De ente supernaturali (Paris, 1S70); Schiuder. De triplici ordine (Vienna, 1864) ; Terhien, La grace el la gloire (Paris. 1897); Bainvel, Xature et surnaturel (Paris. 1903); De Bboque, Le surnaturel (Paris. 1908) ; Ligeabd, Le rapport de la nature et du surnaturel d'aprks les theologiens scolaatiques du XIII' au XVIII' siides (Paris. 1910). A more complete bibliography is found in: Wilhelm and Sc.annell, Manual of Cath. Theology, I (London. 1906), 430; Tanquerey, Synopsis theol. dogmat.. I (Xew York), 345; Bareilles, Le caiechisme romain. III (Mon- trejeau, 1908), 352; Labacche,. . . L'homme ... in lemons de thiol, dogmatique (Paris, 1908).

J. F. SOLLIER.

Superpellicium. See Surplice.

Superstition [from supersisto, "to stand in terror of the deity" (Cicero, "De Xat. deorum", I, xUi, 117l; or from supemles, "sur\'iving": "Qui totos dies precabantur et immolabant, ut sibi sui liberi supcr- atites essent, superslitiosi sunt appellati", i. e. "Those who for whole days praj-ed and offered sacrifice that their children might survive them, were called super- stitious" (Cicero, ibid., II, xx-viii, 72). Cicero also drew the distinction: "Superstifio est in qua timor inanis deorum, religio qua; deorum cultu pio contin- etur", i. e. "Superstition is the baseless fear of the gods, religion the pious worship." According to Isi- dore of Seville (Etymolog., 1. 8, c. iii, sent.), the word comes from suprr/^l/ilun or superinJsHluo: "Superstitio est euperflua observantia in cultu super statuta seu

instituta superiorum", i. e. "observances added on to prescribed or established worship"] is defined by St. Thomas (II-II, Q. xcii, a. 1) as "a vice opposed to religion by way of excess; not because in the worship of God it does more than true religion, but because it offers Divine worship to beings other than God or offers worship to God in an improper manner". Su- perstition sins by excess of religion, and this differs from the vice of irreligion, which sins by defect. The theological virtue of religion stands midway between the two. (II-II, Q. xcii, a. 1.)

Division. — There are four species of superstitions: (1) improper worship of the true God (indebitus veri Dei cultus); (2) idolatry; (3) divination; (4) vain observances, which include magic and occult arts. This division is based upon the various ways in which religion may be vitiated by excess. Worship becomes inikbitu.% cullus when incongruous, meaningless, im- proper elements are added to the proper and approved performance; it becomes idolatrous when it is offered to creatures set up as divinities or endowed with divine attributes. Divination (q. v.) consists in the attempt to extract from creatures, by means of reli- gious rites, a knowledge of future events or of things known to God alone. Under the head of vain obser- vances come all those beliefs and practices which, at least by imphcation, attribute supernatural or pre- ternatural powers for good or for evil to causes evi- dently incapable of producing the expected effects. The number and variety of superstitions appear from the following Ust of those most in vogue at different periods of history: astrolog}', the reading of the future and of man's destiny from the stars; aeromancy, divinations by means of the air and winds; amulets, things worn as a remedy or preservative against evils or mischief, such as disea.ses or witchcraft; chiro- mancy, or palmistry, divination by the lines of the hand; capnomancy, by the ascent or motion of smoke; catroptomancy, by mirrors; alomancy, by salt; car- tomancy, by playing cards; anthropomancy, by in- spection of human viscera; belomancy, by the shuffling of arrows (Ezechiel, xxi, 21); geomancy, by points, hues, or figures traced on the ground; hydro- mancy, by water; idolatry, the worship of idols; Sabianism, the worship of the sun, moon, and stars; Zoolatry, Anthropolatry, and Fetishism, the worship of animals, man, and things without sense; Devil- worship; the wonship of abstract notions personified, e. g. Victory, Peace, Fame, Concord, which had tem- ples and a priesthood for the performance of their cult ; necromancy, the evocat ion of the dead, as old as hLstory and perpetuated in contemporary Spiriti.sm; oneiromancy, the interpretation of dreams; philtres, potions, or charms intended to excite love; omens or prognostics of future events; witchcraft and magic in all their ramifications; lucky and unlucky days, numbers, persons, things, actions; the evil eye, spells, incantations, ordeals, etc.

Origin. — The source of superstition is, in the first place, subjective. Ignorance of natural causes leads to the belief that certain striking phenomena express the will or the anger of some invisible overruling power, and the objects in which such phenomena appear are forthwith deified, as, e. g. in Nature- worship. Conversely, many superstitious practices are due to an exaggerated notion or a false interpre- tation of natural events, so that effects are .sought which are beyond the efficiency of physical causes. Curiosity also with regard to things that are hidden or are still in the future plays a considerable part, e. g. in the v.arious kinds of divination. But the chief source of superstition is pointed out in Scripture: ".Ml men are vain, in whom there is not the knowledge of (iod: and who by these good things that .are seen, could not understand him that is, neither by attending to t he works have ackno%vledged who w.os t he workman : but have imagined either the fire, or the wind, or the