Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 9.djvu/481

 LUST

438

IiUTHEB

Always mindful of this and filled with zoal for the im- provement of the Church's condition, he was from thttt time tirelessly engaged in bringing about the full accomplishment of the council's decrees in Switzer- land. Already in 1564 he resolutely made himself responsible for them; and afterwards he never lost sight of these matters, and never failed to raise a warning voice. Lussy was a friend of St. Charles Borromco, with whom he had much correspondence, and who also invited him in 1570 to Stans. Lussy lealously arranged the establishment of a papal nun- ciature to Switzerland, and when Bishof) Giovaimi Francesco Borromeo of Vercelli arrived in 1579 as nuncio and visitator, Lussy \ngorously supported him. He aJso always gave hesjrty support to subsequent nuncios. In 1583 he made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, of which he published an account. Lussy founded the Cftpuchin monastery at Stans. After 1596 he retired from active office and piously prepared himself for death.

Mater, Dot Konxil von Tritnt und die Gegenreformation in derSehveiz, II (Stans, 1903). 295 sq.; Feller, RitterM. Luavy (Stans, 1908-09). '

F. G. Maykr.

Last, the inordinate craving for, or indulgence of, the carnal pleasure which is experienced in the human organs of generation. The wron^ulness of lust is reducible to this: that venereal satisfaction is sought for either outside of wedlock or, at any rate, in a man- ner which is contrary to the laws that govern marital intercourse. Every such criminal indulgence is a mortal sin, provided, of course, it l)e voluntary in itself and fully delilwrate. This is the testimony of St. Paul in the Epistle to the Gala tians, v, 19: " Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are fornica- tion, uncleanness, immodesty, luxury, ... Of the which I foretell you, as I have foretold to you, that they who do such things shall not obtain the kingdom of God." Moreover, iJF it be true that the gravity of the oflences may be measured by the liarm they work to the individual or the community, there can be no doubt that lust has in this respect a gravity all its own. Transgressions against virtues other than purity frequently admit of a minor degree of malice, and are accounted venial. Impurity has the evil distinction that, whenever there is a direct conscious surrender to any of its phases the guilt incurred is always grievous. This judgment, however, needs niodifying'when there 18 question of some impure gratification for which a person is responsible, not immediately, but l)ecause he Dad posited its cause, and to which he has not delil)er- ately consent<*d. The act naay then be only venially sinful. For the determination of the amount of its wickedness much will depend upon the apprehended proximate danger of givmg way on the part of the agent, as well as upon the known capacity of the thing done to bring about venereal pleasure. This teaching applies to external and internal sins alike: ''Whoso- ever shall look on a woman to lust after her, hath alnNMly committed adultery with her in his heart'' (Matt., V, 28). However the case may stand as to the extent of the obligation under which one lies to refrain in certain circumstances from actions whose net result 18 to excite the passions, moralists are at one as to the counsel they give. They all emphasize the perils of the situation, and point out the practical dangers of a failure to refrain. It matters not that there is not, as ife suppose, any initial sinful intent. The sheerest

Snidence and most rudimentary self-knowledge alike emand abstinence, where possible, from things which, though not grievously ban in themselves, yet easily fan into flame the unKoly fire which may be smoulder- ing^ but is not extinct.

Lust is said to l)e a capital sin. The reason is obvious. The pleasure which this vice has as its object is at once so attractive and connatural to human nature as to whet keenly a man's desire, and so lead him into the commission of many other dis-

onlers in the pursuit of it. Theologians ordinarily distinguish varioas forms of lust in so far as it is a consummated external sin, e. g., fornication, adultery, incest, criminal assault, abduction, and sodomy. E:ich of these has its own specific miilice — a fact to be borne in mind for purposes of safeguarding the integrity of sacramental confession.

RxcKABY. The Moral Teachino of St. Tkoman (London. 1896); Slater, Moral Theology (New York, 1908); Ballekini, Opua Theologicum Morale (Prato. 1899).

Joseph F. Delany.

Lather, Martin, leader of the great religious revolt of the sixteenth century in Germany, b. at Ei8lel)en, 10 November, 1483; d. at Eisleben, 18 February, IFAQ. His father, Hans Luther, was a miner, a rugged, stem, irascible character. In the opinion of many of his biographers, it was an exhibition of uncontrolled rage, an evident congenital inheritance transmitted to his eldest son, that compelled liim to flee from Mohra, the family seat, to escape the penalty or odium of homicide. This, though first charged by Wicelius, a convert from Lutheranism has found admission into Protestant history and tradition (May hew, "German Life and Manners in Saxony", I, London, 1865, 7-113; Bottcher, "Germania Sacra", 1874, 174; Thierisch, " Luther, Gustav Adolf u. Maximilian I von Bavem ", Nordlingen, 1869, 165; Schenkel, "Martin Luther", Berlin, 1870, 7; Thou, "Schloss Wartburg", Gotha, 1792, 133; Kat\ Luther, " Geschichtliche Notizen ul>er M. Luther's Vorfahren", Wittenberg, 1869, 30; Ort- mann, "Miihra, Der Stammort D. M. Luthers", Salzung, 1S44; Bayne, "Martin Luther", I, London, 1887,92; in explanation: Kostlin,"Stud. u. Kritik.", 1871,24-31; Kiistlin-Kawerau, "Martin Luther", I, Berlin, I9a3, 15; *Am. Cath. Quart., Jan., 1910. "Was Luther's Father a Homicide?", also publishccl in pamphlet form; *Histor. polit. Blatter, CXX, 415-25). His mother, Margaret Ziegler, is spoken of by Melanchthon as conspicuous for "modesty, the fear of God, and prayert ulness " ("Corpus Re- formatorum", ed. Bret Schneider, VI, Halle, 1834, 156) . Extreme simplicity and inflexible severit v char- acterized their home life, so that the joys of childhood were virtually unknown to him. His father once lx?at him so mercilessly that he ran away from home and was so "embittered a^inst him, that he had to win me to himself again " (Tischreden, Frankfort, 1567, fol. 314 a). His mother, "on account of an insignificant nut, beat me till the blood flowed, and it was this liarshness and severity of the life I led with them that forced me sul)«e(iuently to run away to a monastery and become a monk " (ibid. ) . The same cruelty was the experience of his earliest school-days, when in one morning he was punished no less than fiftetm times (Kroker, "Luthers Tischreden", Leipzig, 1903, 627). The meagre data of his life at this period make it a work ol difficulty to reconstruct his childhood. His schooling at Mansfeld, whither his parents had re- turned, was uneventful. He attendea a Liitin school, in which the Ten Commandments, "Child's Belief", the Lord's Prayer, the Latin grammar of Donatus were taught, and which he learned " industriously and Quickly" (>Iathesius, " Historien ... I). Martin Lu- thers', Nuremberg, 1588, fol. 3 a). In his fourteenth year (1497) he entered a school at Magdeburg, where, in the words of his first biographer, like many children " of honourable and well-to-do parents, he sang and begged for bread— T>an«m propter Deum" (Mathesius, op. cit.). In his fifteenth year we find him at Eise- nach. At eighteen (1501) he entered the University of Erfurt, with a view to studying jurispnidence at the request of his father. In 1502 he rectnved the degree of Bachelor of Philoeoph v. being the thirteenth among fifty-seven candidates. On Epiphany (6 Jan.^ 1505), he was advanced to the master's degree, being sec- ond among seventeen applicants. His philosophical studies were no doubt made under Jodocus Trutvetter