Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 7.djvu/522

 HONOUR

462

HONOUR

some time before the fifteenth century; "Sigillum Beatae Mariie", an exposition of the Canticle of Can- ticles; "Gemma Anima;", a treatise on the Divine Office; " Eucharistiou ", a work on the Body and Blood of Christ; "Speculum Ecclesite", a book of sermons, and a work "De incontinentia clericorum seu offendiculum". III. Works of general educa- tional value, such as "De luminaribus Ecclesise", "iSumma totius Historia;", "Series Romanorum Pon- tificum ", etc. Honorius composed a commentary on the "Tima;us" of Plato, of which unfortunately only a fragment has come clown to us. This fragment is published in Migne's edition of Honorius's works (P. L., CLXXII) from Cousin's edition of it in the introduction to the "Ouvrages inedits d'Abelard".

Honorius does not pretend to observe a distinction between the province of philosophy and that of theol- ogy. In his work "Philosophia Mundi " he treats of the mystery of the Trinity, and in the treatise "De Ha;resibus" he enumerates the "heretics of pagan times". Stoics, Pythagoreans, Platonists, etc. The distinction, which seems so natural to us, was not acknowledged generally until the time of St. Thomas. Honorius, as has been said, borrows his definition of philosophy from John the Scot. "Philosophy", he says, "is the comprehension of things visible and in- visible " (eorum qua> sunt et non videntur et ciuoe sunt et videntur comprehensio). True to the inspiration of the Platonists, he begins with the invisible, un- created, incorporeal, and proceeds to the considera- tion of the visible, created, corporeal. But, unlike the Platonists, he has a proper appreciation of the value of concrete knowledge. Consequently, he de- votes much space in philosophy to the description of the actual world, and in his theological speculations he is far from overlooking the value of institutions, ceremonies, and the organization of religious truth in the life and career of the Church. He thus marks one of the first epochs in the history of the relation between speculative and positive teaching in the Mid- dle .Ages. At the same time he does not overlook the mystical element in Christian thought. In fact, he is an author whose importance has been too generally ignored in the history of Christian philosophy and theology.

MioNE, P. L., CLXXII; Cousin, Ouvrnges inid. d'Abi'lard (Paris, 18.36), 646-7: Schladebach, Das Elwidarium des Hon- orius Augustodunensis, etc. (Leipzig, 1884); Mon. Germ. Hist.: Scriplores, X, 125-8; Wienpr ^Sitzutiusber., 1901-6; Revue des sciences cedes. (Aug., Sept., Oct., Nov., 1907); Endres, Hono- rius Augu^todunensis (Munich, 1906).

William Turner.

Honour may be defined as the deferential recog- nition liy word or sign of another's worth or station. Thus I show honour to another liy giving him his title if he have one, and by raising my hat to him, or by yielding to him a place of precedence. I thereby give expression to my sense of his worth, and at the same time I profess my own inferiority to him.

It is right and proper that marks of honour should be paid to worth of any kind, if there be no special reason to the contrary, and we are obliged to honour those who stand in any reliition of superiority to our- selves. First and foremost, wo must honour God by worshipping Him as our first beginning and last end, the infinite source of all that we have and are. We honour the angels and saints on account of the gifts and graces bestowed on them by God. We honour our parents, from whom we received our earthly be- ing, and to whom we owe our bringing-up and prepara- tion for the battle of life. Our rulers, spiritual and temporal, have a just claim on our honour by reason of the authority over us which they have received from God. We honour the aged for their presumed wisdom, virtue, and experience. We should always honour moral worth wherever we find it, and we may honour the highly talented, those who have been en-

dowed with great beauty, strength, and dexterity, the well-born, and even the rich and powerful, for riches and power may, and should, be made the instru- ments of virtue and well-doing.

Among the goods which are external to man honour holds the first place, above wealth and power. It is that which we especially give to (iod, it is the highest reward which we can bestow on virtue, and it is what men naturally prize the most. The Apostle bids us give honour to whom honour is due, and so, to with- hold it or to show dishonour to whom honour is due is a sin against justice, and entails the obligation of making suitable restitution. If we have simply neglected our duty in this respect, we must make amends by more assiduously cultivating the person injured by our neglect. If we have been guilty of offering a public insult to another, we must offer an equally public satisfaction; if the insult was private, we must make the suitable reparation in private, so that the person injured should be reasonably satisfied. Those who are placed in authority in Church or State, and have the bestowal of public honours, are bound by the special virtue of distributive justice to bestow honours according to merit. If they fail in this duty, they are guilty of the special sin of acceptation of persons. The public good of the Church specially re- quires that those who are more worthy should be pro- moted to .such high dignities as the cardinalate or e)iiscopate, and for the same reason there is a grave obligation to promote the more worthy rather than the less worthy to ecclesiastical benefices that have the cure of souls annexed to them. According to the more probable opinion, the same rule holds good con- cerning promotion to benefices to which the cure of souls is not attached, though St. Alphonsus allows that the contrary opinion is probable, provided that the favouretl person is at least worthy of the honour, although less worthy than his rival. When an ex- amination is held to decide who among many candi- dates is to be chosen for a post of honour, there is a still stricter ol^ligation to choose the one whom all the tests show to be — other things being equal — the most worthy of the post. On the groimd that, where this obligation is neglected, not only distril)Utive justice is violated, as in the preceding cases, but rommutative justice as well, the common opinion holds that if one who by examination is proved more worthy is passed over, he has a right to compen.sation for the injury which he has suffered. Many, however, deny the obligation to make restitution in the matter of bene- fices even in this case, on the ground that, though an examination to test fitness be held, yet no strict com- pact is entered into by which those who confer the benefice bind themselves in strict justice to grant it to the more worthy. It is plain that those who are re- sponsil)le for the appointment of an unfit person to a post of superiority are also rcsponsilile for the harm which his unfitness causes. The foregoing principles have been formulated by divines for the settling of questions connected with the appointment to ecclesi- astical benefices, but they are applicable to other similar appointments, both ecclesiastical and civil.

A question of great interest in the history of re- ligion and morals, and of primary importance in Christian asceticism, must be treated of here. We have seen that honour is not only a good, but that it is the chief of those external goods which man can en- joy. St. Thomas Aquinas and Catholic divines agree in this with .\ristotle. We have also seen that, ac- cording to Catholic doctrine, all are bound in justice to give honour to whom honour is due. It follows from this that it is not morally WTong to seek honour in due moderation and with the proper motive. And yet (^hrist severely blamed the Pharisees for loving the first places at feasts, the finst chairs in the syna- gogues, salutations in the marketplace, and titles of honour. He told His disciples not to be called Rabbi,