Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 6.djvu/815

 GRATIUS

731

GRATRY

disguised under tlie native name (see " Byzantinische Zeitschrift ", 1892, II, 26, 31). Its history, location, and present condition are unknown. Three of its bishops are known: Publicius (Catholic), Deuterius (Donatist), both at the Conference of Carthage in 41 1 ; and Thalassius, present at the Conference of 486. Gams. Scries epUcopoTum ecct, Calh., 4S6.

S. V.ULHE.

Oratius (v.a.n Graes), Ortwin, humanist; b. 1475 at Holtwick, near Coesfeld, Westphalia; d. at Co- logne, 22 May, 1542. He belonged to an impover- ished noble family, and was accordingly received in the house of his uncle Johannes van Graes at Deventer (wherefore he generally called himself Daventriensis), and was educated at the local school, where he re- ceived his first scientific instruction from the renowned Alexander Hegius. In 1501 he went to the Univer- sity of Cologne to pursue his philosophical studies. As a member of the Kuyk Burse he became licentiate in 1505, magistcr in 1506, and professor ariium in 1507. His salary as professor being insufficient, he accepted the position of skilled adviser and corrector in the world-famous Quentell printing establishment, where many classical authors of the Middle Ages were published under his direction. These, according to usage, he provided with introductions and rhymed dedications. As a disciple of Hegius he was naturally a fanatical humanist and a devoted adherent of Peter of Ravenna; he also enjoyed the friendship of the most prominent scientific minds of his time. But things soon changed. He was attacked bitterly by the younger intellectual element, especially their leader, Hermann von dem Busche, on account of his taking the part of the Cologne University theologians and the Dominicans on the occasion of the Reuchlin controversy, as well as on account of his Latin transla- tions of various writings of the Jewish convert, Pfeffer- korn. Gratius had at that time just finished a literary tournament with von dem Busche, and had been made the laughing-stock of the literary world by the venom- ous "Epistolfe obscurorum virorum", his adversaries succeeding in vilifying him from both the moral and scientific standpoints, denouncing him as a drunkard and guilty of other vices, and as an incompetent Latin and Greek scholar. This procedure was the more effective from the fact that he ignored attacks, and did not defend himself from the beginning. He only at- tacked his defamers when Leo X excommunicated the author, readers, and disseminators of the "Epistola;" (1517). His defence, entitled "Lamentationes ob- scurorum virorum", was very weak and missed its mark, so that the portrayal of his character remained distorted up to modern times and it is only of late that due credit is given him. In 1520 he was ordained to the priesthood and devoted himself thenceforth entirely to literary work. The magnum opus of his literary activity is: "Fasciculus rerum expetendarum ac fugi- endarum" (Cologne, 1535), a collection of sixty-six more or less weighty treatises of various authors on ecclesiastical and profane history, dogma and canon law. compiled to expose the noxious elements in the Church's organism, and prepare a way for a future council to remedy them. It has been wrongly claimed that this work, put on the inde.x on account of its anti- clerical tendency, was not from the pen of Gratius.

Cremans in Atinalen des historischen Vereins fur den Nieder- rhein, XXIII, 192-224; Reichlino, Gralius, sein Leben und Wirkm (Ileiligcnstadt, 1SS4); Allgemeine deulsche Biographie, IX. 600-602.

Patricius Schlager.

Gratry, Auguste-Joseph-Alphonse, French priest ami writer; b. at Lille. 30 March, 1805; d. at Montreux, Switzerland, 7 February, 1872. .\fter brilliantly finishing his classical studies, he entered the polvtcdmic school at Paris. At the end of his course, (1828), he went to Strasburg, spent some months a,t

the convent of Bischenberg, and decided to become a priest. He was ordained at Strasburg on 22 De- cember, 1832, and remained there for several years with Bautain. In 1841, Gratry became director of the College Stanislas in Paris, but, in 1846, accepted the position of chaplain of the "Ecole normale supe- rieure". It was then that he published his first work: "Demandes et reponses sur les devoirs .sociaux".

When V' acherot, director of studies at the Ecole nor- male, published the third volume of his "Histoire de I'Ecole d'Ale.xandrie", a polemic took place between him and Gratry; Vacherot was obliged to leave the school, and Gratry himself resigned his charge one year later (1851). After a year spent at Orleans as vicar-general of Bishop Dupanloup, Gratry imited his efforts with Abbe Petitot, in Paris, for the restoration in France of the Oratory under the name of Oratoire de I'Immaculee Conception. In 1863, Gratry was ap- pointed professor of moral theology in the faculty of theology of Paris ; and in 1867 he was elected a mem- ber of the French Academy, suc- ceeding Barante in the/aiz/Pi/iVonce occupied by Vol- taire. At the time of the Council of the Vatican (1870), he de- clared himself against the papal infallibility in sev- eral letters, edited under the title-' "M on seigneur I'Evcque d'Orle- ans et Monsei- gneur I'Archeve- que de Malines ' '. These were condemned by the Bishop of Strasburg, and Gratry, who had already lived for al- most ten years outside of his community and had been publicly reproved by his superior in 1869 for his partici- pation in a certain association, formed under the name of the International League for Peace, had to severhis connexion with the Oratory. After the proclamation of papal infallibility, Gratry gave his full and sincere adhesion to the dogma, and, when Archbishop Guibert had taken possession of the See of Paris in December, 187 1, he wrote him a public letter wherein he retracted all that he had written against the infallibility of the pope. He was then sulTering f rom an abscess on the neck ; he went to Montreux, near the Lake of Geneva, and died there in 1872. Among the chief works of Gratry, be- sides tho.se already named are: " I'ne Etude sur la so- phistique contemporaine, ou Lettre a M. Vacherot" (Paris, 1851); "De la Connaissance de Dieu " (2 vols., Paris, 1853); "Logique" (2 vols., Paris, 1855); "De la Connaissance de I'ame" (2 vols., Paris, 1858); "La Philosophic du Credo" (1861); "Les Sources" (1862); "Commentaire sur I'Evangile de Saint Matthieu" (2 vols., 1863); "Les Sophistes et la Critique" (Paris, 1864) ; " Henri Pereyve " (Paris, 1866) ; " La Morale et la Loi de I'Histoire" (2 vols., Paris, 1868); "Les Sources de la Regeneration sociale" (a reprint with some changes of his first work); "Souvenirs de ma Jeunesse" (1874); "Meditations inedites" (1874).

Gratry exercised a great influence during his Ufe by his personality — distinguished for greatness of thought, generosity of heart, and optimistic enthusiasm — and, after his" death, by his works. In the last twenty years his books have been frequently reprinted. Among those who came under his influence, we may mention especially, Charles and Adolphe (later Car-

Auguste-Joseph-.\lphonse Gratry