Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 5.djvu/101

 DOCTOR

Memoriosissimus — Ludovicus Pontanus, 1439.

Monarcha juris — Bartholomew of Saliceto, 1412.

Os aureum — Bulgarus, 1166.

Pacificus {Projicuu^) — Nicolas Bonet, O.F.M 1360.

Pater Decretalium — Gregory IX, 1241.

Pater et organum veritatis — Innocent IV, 1254.

Pater juris — Innocent III, 1216.

Pater peritorum — Pierre de Belleperche, 1307.

Planus ac perspicuus — Walter Burleigh, 1337.

Princeps subtilitatum — Francesco d'Accolti, 1486.

Speculator — -William Durandus, 1296.

Speculum juris — Bartholus of Sassoferrato, 1359.

Subtilis — Benedict Raymond, 1440; Filippo Corneo, 1462.

Verus — Thomas Doctius, Siena, 1441.

E. A. Pace Doctor Angelicus. See Thomas Aquin.as, Saint. Doctor of the Law. See Law; Scribe.

Doctors of the ChuTch (hat. DoctoresEcclesia;). — Certain ecclesiastical writers have received this title on account of the great advantage the whole Church has derived from their doctrine. In the Western Church four eminent Fathers of the Church attained this honour in the early Middle Ages: St. Gregory the Great, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and St. Jerome. The "four Doctors" became a commonplace among the Scholastics, and a decree of Boniface VIII (1298) ordering their feasts to be kept as doubles in the whole Church is contained in his sixth book of Decretals (cap. " Gloriosus", de reliqu. et vener. sanctorum, in Sexto, III, 22). In the Eastern Church three Doctors were pre-eminent: Chrysostom, Basil, and Gregory Nazian- zen. The feasts of these three saints were made obli- gatory throughout the Eastern Empire by Leo VI, the Wise, the deposer of Photius. A common feast was later instituted in their honour on 30 January, called " the feast of the three Hierarchs ". In the Menaea for that day it is related that the tliree Doctors appeared in a dream to John, Bishop of Euchaitae, and com- manded him to institute a festival in their honour, in order to put a stop to the rivalries of their votaries and panegyrists. This was under Alexius Comnenus (1081-1118; see "ActaSS.", 14 June, underSt. Basil, c. xxxviii). But sermons for the feast are attributed in MSS. to Cosmas Vestitor, who flourished in the tenth century. The three are as common in Eastern art as the four are in Western. Durandus (i, 3) re- marks that Doctors should be represented with books in their hands. In the West analogy led to the venera- tion of four Eastern Doctors, St. Athanasius being very properly added to the three hierarchs.

To these great names others have subsequently been added. The requisite conditions are enumerated as three: eminens doctrina, insignis vitie sanctitas, EcclesicB declaratio (i. e. eminent learning, a high de- gree of sanctity, and proclamation by the Church). Benedict XIV explains the third as a declaration by the supreme pontiff or by a general council. But though general councils have acclaimed the WTitings of certain Doctors, no council has actually conferred the title of Doctor of the Church. In practice the pro- cedure consists in extending to the tJniversal Church the use of the Office and Mass of a saint in which the title of Doctor is applied to hirn. The decree is issued by the Congregation of Sacred Rites and approved by the pope, after a careful examination, if necessary, of the saint's writings. It is not in any way an ex cath- edra decision, nor does it even amount to a declaration that no error is to be found in the teaching of the Doctor. It is, indeed, well known that the very great- est of them are not wholly immune from error. No martyr has ever been included in the list, since the Office and the Mass are for Confessors. Hence, as Benedict XIV points out. St. Ignatius, St. Irena^us, and St. Cyprian are not called Doctors of the Church.

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DOCTRINE

The proper Mass of Doctors has the Introit "In medio", borrowed from that of the Theologus par excel- lence, St. John the Evangelist, together with special prayers and Gospel. The Creclo is said. The princi- pal peculiarity of the Office is the antiphon to the Magnificat at both Vespers, "O Doctor optime", and it is rather by this antiphon than by the special Mass that a_saint is perceived to be a Doctor (S. R. C, 7 Sept., 1754). In fact, St. John Damascene has a Mass of his own, while Athanasius, Basil, Leo, and Cyril of Jeru- salem have not the Gospel of Doctors, and several have not the collect. The feasts of the four Latin Doctors were not added to until the sixteenth century, when St. Thomas Aquinas was declared a Doctor by the Dominican St. Pius V in his new edition of the Brev- iary (1568), in which the feasts of the four Greek Doc- tors were also raised to the rank of doubles. The Franciscan Sixtus V (1588) added St. Bonaventure. St. Anselm was added by Clement XI (1720), St. Isi- dore by Innocent XIII (1722), St. Peter Chrysologus by Benedict XIII (1729), St. Leo I (a well-deserved but belated honour) by Benedict XIV (1754), St. Peter Damian by Leo XII (1828), St. Bernard by Pius VIII (1830). Pius IX gave (1851) the honour to St. Hilary and to two more modern saints, Alphonsus Liguori (1871) and Francis de Sales (1877). Leo XIII pro- moted (1SS3) the Easterns, Cyril of Alexandria, Cyril of Jerusalem, and John Damascene, and last of all the Venerable Bede (1S99). The same pope, when, in 1882, he introduced the simplification of ilouble feasts, made an exception for Doctors, whose feasts are al- ways to be transferred.

There are therefore now twenty-three Doctors of the Church, of whom seven are Eastern, sixteen Western. Two are popes, two are cardinals, all but five are bish- ops. They include a Dominican, a Franciscan, a Redemptorist, and five Benedictines. For some of these the Office had previously been granted to certain places or orders — St. Peter Damian to the Camaldo- lese, St. Isidore to Spain, St. Bede to England and to all Benedictines. St. Leander of Seville and St. Ful- gentius are kept as Doctors in Spain, and the former by Benedictines also, as he was in earlier times claimed as a monk. St. Ildephonsus has the Introit "In medio" in the same order (for the same reason) and in Spain, without the rank of Doctor.

PoHLE in Kirchliches Handlexikon (Munich, 1907). II, 384; Fessler-Jungmann. /7M(i(.Pa(ro/o9ia; (Innsbruck, 1890); Bah- DENHEWER, Patrology, tr. Shahan (Freiburg im Br., St. Louis, 198), 2-3. On the early Latin Doctors see Weyman in Hist. Jahrbuch (1894), XV, 96, and in Rev. d'hist. et de lilt, reliaieusca (18981, III, 562; for the Greek Doctors see Nilles in Zeitschrift f. kath. Theolonic (1894), XVIII, 742. See also Bouvy, Lea Pens de VEghsr in Rev. Auguslinienne (1904), 461-86, and Pesch, Pralcct. Dogmat. (Freiburg, 1903), 346 sqq.

John Chapman.

Doctrinarians. See Btrs, Cesar de, Venerable.

Doctrine, Christian. — Taken in the sense of "the act of teaching" and "the knowledge imparted by teaching ", this term is s>Tionjnnous with Catechesis and Catechism. AiSauKaXta,' diSaxv, in the Vulgate doctrina, are often used in the N. T., especially in the Pastoral Epistles. As we might expect, the Apostle insists upon "doctrine" as one of the most important duties of a bishop (I Tim., iv, 1.3, 16; v, 17-11 Tim iv 2, etc.). ■' '

The word (tar^x'JO'is means instruction by word of mouth, especially by questioning and answering. Though it may apply to any subject-matter, it is com- monly used for instruction in the elements of religion, especially preparation for initiation into Christianity! The word and others of the same origin occur in St. Luke's Gospel: "That thou mayest know the \'erity of those things in which thou hast been instructed" {KarrixiSris, in quibus eruditus es — i, 4). In the Acts, xviii, 25, Apollo is described as "instructed [Karrixv- n4ms, edoclus] in the way of the Lord". St. Paul u.ses the word twice: "I had rather speak five words with