Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 6.djvu/668

 GLUTTONY

590

ONESEN

Barraod, Des ganls dans les ceremonies religieuses in Bulletin monumental (Paris, 1867), XXXIII; de Montault, Les ffanls

£ontificaux (Paris), XLII, XLIII; de Linas, POTiii/icaiia de S. ouis d'Anjou in Revue de I'art Chretien (Paris, 1861), V; Bock, Geschichle der liturg. Gewiinder (Bonn. 1866), II; Bhaun, Die ponlificalen Gewander des Abetidlandes (Freiburg im Br., 1898); Idem, Die liturgische Gewandung im Occident und Orient (Frei- burg im Br., 1907); de Fleury, La Messe (Paris, 1889), VIII. Joseph Braun.

Gluttony (From Lat. ghittire, to swallow, to gulp down), the exce.s.sive indulgence in food and drink. The moral deformity discernible in this vice lies in its defiance of the order postulated by reason, which prescribes necessity as the measure of indulgence in eating and drinking. This deordination, according to the teaching of the Angelic Doctor, may happen in five waj's which are set forth in the scholastic verse: "Prre-propere. laute, nimis, ardenter, studiose", or, ac- cording to the apt rendering of Father Joseph Rick- aby : too soon, too expensively, too much, too eagerly, too daintily. Clearly one who uses food or drink in such a way as to injure his health or impair the mental equipment needed for the discharge of his duties, is guilty of the sin of gluttony. It is incontrovertible that to eat or drink for the mere pleasure of the expe- rience, and for that exclusively, is likewise to commit the sin of gluttony. Such a tamper of soul is equiva- lently the direct and positive shutting out of that reference to our last end which must be found, at least implicitly, in all our actions. At the same time it must be noted that there is no obligation to formally and explicitly have before one's mind a motive which will immediately relate our actions to God. It is enough that such an intention should be implied in the apprehension of the thing as lawful with a consequent virtual submission to Almighty God. Gluttony Ls in general a venial sin in so far forth as it is an undue in- dulgence in a thing which is in itself neither good nor bad. Of course it is obvious that a different estimate would have to be given of one so wedded to the pleas- ures of the table as to absolutely and without qualifi- cation live merely to eat and drink, so minded as to be of the number of those, described by the Apostle St. Paul, "whose god is their belly" (Phil., iii, 19). Such a one would be guilty of mortal sin. Likewise a person who, by excesses in eating and drinking, would have greatly impaired his health, or unfitted himself for duties for the performance of which he has a grave obhgation, would be justly chargeable with mortal sin. St. John of the Cross, in his work "The Obscure Night of the Soul" (I, vi), dissects what he calls spirit- ual gluttony. He explains that it is the disposition of those who, in prayer and other acts of reUgion, are always in search of sensible sweetness; they are those who "will feel and taste God, as if he were palpable and accessible to them not only in Communion but in all their other acts of devotion ". This he declares is a very great imperfection and productive of great evils.

Ballerini, Opus Theologicum Morale (Prato, 1898); Geni- coT, TheologicB Moralis Institutiones (Louvain, 189S); Joseph RiCKABT, Aquinas Ethicus (London, 1896); L)e\'1Ne, Manuul of Mystical Theology (London, 1903).

Joseph F. Delany.

Gnesen-Posen, Archdiocese op, in the Ivingdom of Prussia. The archdiocese includes the Dioceses of Gnesen and Posen, which were separate up to 1S21. Since that time they have been united under one arch- bishop. Besides these dioc&ses the ecclesiastical province also embraces the Bishopric of Culm (q.v.).

I. History. — The Bishopric of Posen (Lat., Pos- nania; Polish, Fnzmtn) was founded in 968 under Miecyslaw or Mesko, Duke of Poland. Unable to cope with internal enemies, he sought the support of the German Emperor Otto I and became one of his vassals. Converted by his pious wife, Dubravka, dauglitcr of Duke Boleslaw 1 of Bohemia, he was baptized, and, in order to promote the Christianization of his dorainious, undertook to establish a permanent

ecclesiastical organization. The first bishop was Jordan (968-82), who was appointed suffragan to the Archbishop of Magdeburg, in 970. Posen continued to be the only bishopric in Poland until the Diocese of Gnesen was created (Lat., Gnesjia; Polish, Gniczno). The latter place was chosen bj' Duke Boleslaw as a suitable location for a shrine for the remains of St. Adalbert, who had suffered martyrdom at the hands of the heathen Prussians. When the Emperor Otto III made his pilgrimage to the grave of St. Adalbert in 1000, he established an archbishopric in Gnesen with- out consulting Bishop Unger of Posen (982-1012), and placed it under the jurisdiction of Radim or Gaudentius, brother of St. Adalbert. At the same time he created the Bishoprics of Cracow, Breslau, and Kolberg, and incorporated them in the new arch- diocese. On thedeath of Boleslaw, Posen was severed from Magdeburg in the course of the strife engendered by the national opposition to Germanism. Bishop Paulinus, elected in 10.37, was the first bishop conse- crated in Gnesen. St. Norbert, Archbishop of Magde- burg, succeeded in obtaining a papal rescript in 1133, in which the metropolitan jurisdiction of his archiepis- copal see over Posen was still recognized. But since the twelfth century, Posen has undisputedly been de facto a suffragan of Gnesen. Both bishoprics were dependent on the temporal rulers of the country, who nominated the bishops at will, disposed arbitrarily of the benefices and prebends, and confiscated the estates of the bishops on their death.

The archiepiscopal See of Gnesen, richly endowed with estates and tithes, soon surpassed the older Bishopric of Posen both in extent and importance, and grew to be the most influential bishopric in the dukedom. In the thirteenth century the archbishops acquired the Principality of Lowicz. The diocese was further augmented by the addition of the suffragan Bishoprics of Lebus, AVJoeiawek, and Plock in the thirteenth century; of Wilna and Lutzk in the four- teenth; of Samogitia m the fifteenth, and of Culm in the sixteenth. Its prelates also obtained many ex- tremely valuable privileges, both ecclesiastical and temporal. At the Council of Constance they were given the rank and title of Primas Poloniie et Magni Ducatus Lithuania?, thereby getting ecclesiastical jurisdiction over all the Bishops of Poland and Lithuania. At the Fifth Lateran Council in 1515 they were honoured with the title of papal Legatus natiis. In 1741 they received the privilege of wearing car- dinal's vestments with the exception of the hat. The primacy entitled them to rank as princes of the empire. From 1572 they held authority as regents of the empire during an interregnum, superintended the election of the king and crowned the successful can- didate.

Tlie domestic condition of both bishoprics left much to be desired during the first few centuries of their existence, even with respect to the spiritual and moral training of the clergy. Such was the charge made by Pope Innocent III in a letter to Henry I, Archbishop of Gnesen (1200-19), in 1207. He cen- sured the prelate on the ground that the majority of the priests were living in open matrimony, that the clergy were presenting frivolous plays before the laity, that theatrical performances were being given in churches, and so forth. Most of the credit for the improvement of both dioceses is due to the activi- ties of the monasteries, mainly of German foundation. These included abbeys of the Benedictines, Cistercians, Dominicans. Franciscans, Augustinians, Knights Tem- plar and Knights of St. John, and convents of Poor Clares, all of which became centres of prosperous development. Many of the bishops, also, displayed a beneficent solicitude for education, although on this point there is very little precise information to be obtained. But at least we know that in the synodical statutes of 1257 Archbishop Fulk of Gnesen (1232-58)