Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 4.djvu/652

 CURSORES

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CURSOR

God, or inefficaciously and as a mere expression of desire. From the fact that we find many instances of curses made by God and his representatives, the Church and the Prophets, it is seen that the act of cursing is not necessarily sinful in itself; like other moral acts it takes its sinful character from the object, the end, and the circumstances. Thus it is always a sin, and the greatest of sins, to curse God, for to do so involves both the irreverence of blasphemy and the malice of hatred of the Divinity. It is likewise blas- phemy, and consequently a grievous sin against the Second Commandment, to curse creatures of any kind precisely because they are the work of God. If, how- ever, the imprecation be directed towards irrational creatures not on account of their relation to God, but simply as they are in themselves, the guilt is no greater than that which attaches to vain and idle words, except where grave scandal is given, or the evil wished to the irrational creature cannot be sepa- rated from serious loss to a rational creature, as would be the case were one to wish the death of another's horse, or the destruction of his house by fire, for such wishes involved serious violation of charity.

Curses which imply rebellion against Divine Provi- dence, or denial of His goodness or other attributes, such as curses of the weather, the winds, the world, the Christian Faith, are not generally grievous sins, be- cause the full content and implication of such expres- sions is seldom realized by those who use them. The common imprecations against animate or inanimate objects which cause vexation or pain, those against enterprises which fail of success, so, too, the impreca- tions that spring from impatience, little outbreaks of anger over petty annoyances, and those spoken lightly, inconsiderately, under sudden impulse or in joke, are, as a rule, only venial sins, — the evil being slight and not seriously desired. To call down moral evil upon a rational creature is always illicit, and the same holds good of physical evil, unless it be desired not as evil, but only in so far as it is good, for example, as a punishment for misdeeds, or a means to amendment, or an obstacle to commission of sin ; for in such cases the principal intention, as St. Thomas says, is directed per se towards what is good. When, however, evil is wished another precisely because it is evil and with malice prepense, there is always sin, the gravity of which varies with the seriousness of the evil; if it be of considfrahle magnitude, the sin will be grievous, if of trifling character, the sin will be venial. It is to be noted that merely verbal curses, even without any desire of fulfilment, become grievous sins when ut- tered against and in the presence of those who are invested with special claims to reverence. A child, therefore, would sin grievously who should curse father, mother, or grandfather, or those who hold the place of parents in his regard, provided he does so to their very face, even though he does this merely with the lips and not with the heart. Such an act is a serious violation of the virtue of piety. Between other degrees of kindred verbal curses are forbidden only imder pain of venial sin. To curse the devil is not of itself a sin ; to curse the dead is not ordinarily a grievous sin, because no serious injury is done them, but to curse the saints or holy things, as the sacraments, is generally blasphemy, as their relation to God is generally perceived.

LisK-TKi in \i';, nirt.tlrln Riblr, s. V. Malediction; Lkvias in ./,H,:./, J':nni'-l'n"'lio. s. v.; St. Thomas, Sum. Theol., II-II. xxvi; Sr. .\i.i'ho.\si-.s, Theol. Moral., IV, tract, ii; Ballerini- I'almikiu, Ti-act. vii, sect, ii; Lehmkuhl, Theol. Moral., I, 183; Redtek. Nco-Confessarius (1905), 104; Noldin, Qutcs. Moral..l,2-H. j jj FiSHER.

Cursores Apostolici, Latin title of the ecclesiasti- cal heralds or pursuivants ix-rtaining to the papal court. Their origin is placed in the twelfth century, and they fulfilled for the pontifical government the duties entrusted to heralds by civil states. From the

sixteenth century onward they formed part of the Roman Curia in its broader sense, and are at present reckoned members of the pontifical family. Their number is fLxed at nineteen, and they are subject to the major-domo. The principal duties of the cursores are to invite those who are to take part in consistories and functions in the papal chapel ; to act as servitors in the pontifical palace and as doorkeepers of the con- clave; to affix papal rescripts to the doors of the greater Roman basilicas; to issue the summons for attendance at canonizations, the funerals of cardinals, etc. As the cursores are representatives of the pope, they must be received with the respect becoming the personage in whose name they speak, and their invita- tion has the force of a judicial summons. In the early ages of the Church, an institution somewhat similar to that of the cursores is found in messengers, chosen from among the clergy, to carry important ti- dings from one bishop to another or from the bishop to his flock. They were much used in times of persecu- tion and they are frequently referred to in the writings of the Fathers as prcEcones, inlernuntii, etc. As guar- dians of the assemblies of the faithful, they were called vigilia;. Despite these resemblances to the modern cursores, however, it seems evident that the latter took their rise from the employment of heralds by civil states, rather than from the prwcones of the early Church. Episcopal courts have likewise cursores or apparitors among their officials.

Chajsson, Man. jut. can. (Paris. 1899), IV ; Akdre-Wag- NER, Diet, du droit can. (Paris, 1901).

WlLLI.tM H. W. F.4.NNING.

Cursor Mundi (The Runner op the World), a Middle-English poem of nearly 30,000 lines containing a sort of simimary of imiversal history. From the large nimiber of manuscripts in which it is preserved, it must have been exceptionally popular. It was originally written, as certain peculiarities of construc- tion and vocabulary clearly show, somewhere in the north of England, but of the author nothing can be learnt except the fact, which he himself tells us, that he was a cleric. He must have lived at the close of the thirteenth and at the beginning of the fourteenth century, and his poem is conjecturally as- signed to about the year 1300. In form it is written in eight-syllabled couplets, but in his accoimt of the Passion of Christ the author adopts a new metre of lines of eight and six syllaliles rhjaning alternately. Although the poem deals with universal history, the author contrives to give some sort of unity to his work by grouping it around the theme of man's redemption. He explains in an elaborate jjrologue how folk desire to read old romances relating to .Alexander, Julius Caesar, Troy, Brutus, Arthur, Charlemagne, etc., and how only those men are esteemed that love "para- mours". But earthly love is vain and full of disap- pointments.

Therefore bless I that paramour [i. e. Our Lady] That in my need does me soccour That saves me on earth from sin And heaven bliss me helps to win.

Mother and mayden never-the-less Therefore of her took Jesu flesh.

He goes on to say that his book is written in honour of Mary and purposes to tell about the Old and the New Law and all the world, of the Trinity, the fall of the Angels, of .\dani, .Vbrahatn, and the patriarchs, then of Christ 'scorning, of His birth, and of the three kings, etc., of His public life and of His Pjission and Cruci- fixion, and of the "Harrowing of Hell". Thence he will go on to the Resurrection and .Ascension, the .A.s- smnjition of diu- Lady, the Finding of the Cross, and then to .\ntirhrist and to the Day of Doom. As a sort of devotional appendix he also proposes to deal