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 CERENZA

539

CERTITUDE

raising the hands and eyes, giving the kiss of peace, frequently making the sign of the cross. To these may be added another class which not only symbolize, but produce, spiritual effects, and obtain Divine grace, e. g. the imposition of the hands of the bishop together with the form of words by which priestly power and inward grace are conferred on the recipient of Holy orders. The sum total of the ceremonies of an individual function is called a rite (ritus), e. g. the rite of Mass, baptism, extreme unction; the totality of the rites of religion is called its cult (cultus). (See Rite).

Menghini, ElemaUa juris liiurgici (Rome, 1906); Coppin- Stimart. Sacra- lHurr/ire compendium (Tournai, 1903); Stella, Institution?* lUurqica- (Rome, 1S95); Magana, Saarada hturaia (Pamplona, 1905); Van per Stappen, .Sacra Liturgia (Mechlin, 1904). I.

A. J. SCHULTE.

Cerenza, Diocese of. See Cariati. Cerignola, Diocese of. See Ascoli, Satriano

AND ClRIGNOLA.

Cerinthus (Gr. Kripirffos). a Gnostic-Ebionite heretic, contemporary with Si. John; against whose errors on the divinity of Christ the Apostle is said tohave written the Fourth Gospel. We possess no information con- cerning this early sectary which reaches back to his own times. The first mention of his name and de- scription of his doctrines occur in St. Irenreus (Adv. riser., I, c. xxvi; III, c. iii, c. xi), written about 170. Further information is gathered from Presbyter Caius (c. 210) as quoted by Eusebius (Hist. Eccl., Ill, xxviii,2). Hippolytus, in "Philosphoumena", VII, 33 (c. 230), practically transcribes Irenreus. Cerinthus is referred to by Pseudo-Tertullian in "Adv. Omnes Hseres", written about 240. A fragment of Dionysius of Alexandria, taken from "De Promissionibus", written about 250, is given by Eusebius after his quo- tation from Caius. Tin- most detailed account is given by St. Epiphanius ("Adv. Hares", xxviii, written about 390), which, however, on account of its date ami character must be used with some caution. A good summary is given byTheodoret ("Haer. Fab.", l\, :>, written about 4.50). Cerinthus was an Egyp- tian, and if not by race a Jew, at least he was circum- cised. The exact date of his birth and his death are unknown. In Asia he founded a school and gathered disciples. No writings of any kind have come down to us. Cerinthus's doctrines were a strange mixture of (in >st icism, Judaism, < 'hiliasm. and Ebionitism. He admitted one Supreme Being; but the world was pro- duced by a distinct and far inferior power. He does not identify this Creator or Demmrgos with the Jehovah of the Old Testament. Not Jehovah but the angels have both made the world and given the law. These creator-angels were ignorant of the exis- tence of the Supreme God. The Jewish law was most sacred, and salvation to be obtained by obe- dience to its precepts. Cerinthus distinguished be- tweerj Jesus and Christ. Jesus was mere man, though eminent in holiness. He suffered and died and was raised from tin 1 dead, or, as some say Cerinthus

taught, He will be raised from the dead at the Last Day and all men will rise with Him. At the moment of baptism, Christ or the Holy Ghost was sent by the Highest God, and dwelt in Jesus teaching Him, what not even tin- angels knew, the Unknown God. This union between Jesus and Christ continues till the Passion, when Jesus suffers alone and Christ returns to heaven. Cerinthus believed in a happy millen- nium which would lie realized here on earth previous to thi- resurrection and the spiritual kingdom of God in heaven.

Scarcely anything is known of Cerinthus's disciples; they seem soon to have fused with the Nazareans and Ebionites and exercised little influence on the bulk of Christendom, except perhaps through the Pseudo-

Clementines, the product of Cerinthian and Ebionite circles. They flourished most in Asia and Galatia. Bareille, in Diet, de Thiol. Cath., s. v.; Hi < mesne. Hist. aneienne de VEglise (Paris, 1907); I>>. > ■■: Christ. Biogr.; Mansel, The (inostic Heresies of the Fir f and Second Cent. (1875); Davidson, Introductions to X. Test. (18,94), I, 345; II. 245-6; Kunze, De Hist. Gnosticismi Fontihus (Leipzig, 1894).

J. P. Arendzen.

Cerne, Book op. See Celtic Rite.

Cerreto-Sannita. See Telese.

Certitude. — The word certitude indicates both a state of mind and a quality of a proposition, according as we say, "I am certain", or, "It is certain". This distinction is expressed in the technical language of philosophy by saying that there is subjective certi- tude and objective certitude. It is worthy of not ice, as regards the use of English terms, that Newman reserves the term certitude for the state of mind, and employs the word certainty to describe the condition of the evidence of a proposition. Certitude is cor- relative to truth, for truth is the object of the intel- lect. Knowledge means knowledge of truth; and hence we are in the habit of saying simply of a propo- sition that "it is certain", to express that it is true, and that its truth is so evident as legitimately to produce certitude. Certitude is contrasted with other states of mind in reference to a proposition: the state of ignorance, the state of doubt, and the state of opinion. The last-named signifies, in the strict use of the term, the holding of a proposition as proba- ble, although in common parlance it is loosely used in a wider sense, as in speaking of a man's religious opinions, meaning not his speculations or theories about religious questions, but his dogmatic convic- tions. Certitude is such assent to the truth of a proposition as excludes all real doubt. Here it is proper to observe a distinction between merely un- doubting assent, i. e. the mere absence of doubt, and an assent that positively excludes doubt, an assent with which doubt is incompatible. Thus one may give to a statement in the morning newspaper an undoubting assent and credence, yet readily with- draw that assent if the statement be contradicted in the afternoon papers. Such assent, though undoubt- ing, is not certitude. But, there is a kind of assent from which doubt is not only in fact absent but absent of necessity, because such assent and doubt are incompatible. Such is the assent which one gives to the truth that he really exists, and that he feels well or ill, or to the truth of the proposition that it is impossible for a thing in the same respect both to be and not to be, or to the moral law, the existence of God, and the immortality of the soul. Of these truths we are certain, and such assent is properly called certitude. Certitude differs from opinion in kind, not in degree only; for opinion, that is assent to the probability of a proposition, regards the opposite proposition as not more than improba ble; and therefore opinion is always accompanied by the consciousness that further evidence may cause a change of mind in favour of the opposite opin- ion. Opinion, therefore, does mil exclude doubt; certitude does. It has been disputed among philos- ophers whether certitude is susceptible of degrees, whether we may rightly say (hat our certitude of one truth is greater than our certitude of another truth. In Zigliara's judgment, this question may easily be solved if a distinction is made between the exclusion of doubt (in which our various certitudes of different truths are all equal, and by which they are all equally marked off in kind from opinion) and the positive firmness of assent, which may be more

intense in one case than in another, though in both it be equally true that we are certain. And. in fact, if we examine experience on this point, it is clear that our certitude of a self-evident truth, e. g. of