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‘Principium Verborum Tuorum Veritas,’ Ps. cxviii.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2024

Hugh Pope O. P.
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‘The sum of Thy Words is Truth,’ and for us who have to search for that Truth fidelity or loyalty to it when discovered. Easy in theory, difficult in practice : ‘ascetic practices,’ says St. Jerome, ‘for example continence or mortification of the flesh, are of great value; but nothing is so mortifying as knowledge of the truth ‘(On Nahum ii. i, P.L. xxv, 1244); he seems to be thinking of a man’s reactions on coming up against some wholly unexpected truth, something running counter to his preconceived notions. ‘Nothing,’ says St. Augustine, ‘is easier for a person not merely to say but really to think he has discovered the truth ; but how difficult a thing that is ! ‘(De Utilitate credendi, 1). If the Bishop of Hippo could ever have felt annoyed, he who had made the search after truth the passion of his life must have felt indignant when Secundinus the Manichee told him : ‘the truth makes you as angry as philosophy made Hortensius ‘(Ep. ad Augustinum, 3, P.L.xlii, 574).

Our Dominican history furnishes us with three great examples, among many others, of this unflinching loyalty to the truth as they saw it, a loyalty which was not obstinacy but conviction based on the triple foundation of reason, faith, and their outcome—humility.

Type
Research Article
Information
Blackfriars , Volume 26 , Issue 300 , March 1945 , pp. 93 - 100
Copyright
Copyright © 1945 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

1 See particularly Mrs. Ellen Sommer-Seckendorf's admirable Studies in the Life of Robert Kilwardby, O.P., Dissertationes Historicae, Fasc. VIII, pp. 130-161.

2 M. D. Chenu, Les Réponses de St. Thomas et de Kilwardby â la consultation de Jean de Vercelli. And cf. Quodlibets, I-VI.

3 Paef. in Comment. In Psalmos, 1530 and 1534; cf. Allgeier in Rev. Thomiste, 1934

4 Richard Simon, Histoire Critique de l’ancien Testament, p. 319, remarks that though Cajetan ‘ had no knowledge of Hebrew he deals with it much better than many translators endowed with a mediocre knowledge of it.’

5 Especially Whitaker, De Auctoritate S. Scripturae, ed. Parker Soc., p. 48 and Passim.

6 Annotationes in Cajetania doctrina, 1534 and 1542 ; De Erroribus annotatis in Cajetuni Commentariis. 1561 ; Annotationes in Excerpta quardam de Cardinalis commentariis dogmatae ,1535.

7 But Benedict XIV. would have none of this : ‘ Catharinum excessisse in censura tum quia non fideliter Cajetani sententhn retulerit, tum quia non admodum solide emn impugnaverit, facillime ostenditur,’ De Synodo diocesatra, I. xxx, cap. xix, sect. xxviii.

8 Pref. Tridentine Doctrine : a Review of the Commentaries on the Scriptures by Thomas de Vio, Cardinal Cajetan. R. C. Jenkins, 1891. This writer is little competent to deal with things theological, for he says ‘ the Lateran (sic) in 1860 (sic) established the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception,’ and explains the technical term ‘ res sacramenti ‘ as meaning ‘ the matter or outward part of the sacrament.’ Preface, pp. vii-ix and p. 54.

9 Note his words about M. Loisy: ‘ The great esteem I haw always had for his talents and the testimony I have consistently borne to them and to his standing both as a man and a writer make me fear that he will yet exert considerable influence.’ Preface to his M . Loisy et le Modernisme, 1932.

11 La Méthode Historique surtout à propos de L'Ancien Testament, Paris, 1903 : translated by Edward Myers, M.A., as Historical Criticism and the Old Testamerit, The Catholic Truth Society, 1905.

12 Etudes sut la Religion des Sémites, 1903, 2nd. ed. 1905; see a most favourable review by S. A. Cook in the Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement, April, 1905.

13 L.’Evangile selon S. Marc, 1911 ; selon S. Luc, 1921 ; Selon S . Matthieu, 1923; selon S. Jean, 1925. L’Evangile de Jesus Christ, 5th. ed. 1929, translated by Members of the English Dominican Province, 2 vols. 1938 : The Gospel of Jesus Christ.L.’Epitre aux Romains, 1918, cf. La et la Vulgate Latine et l’Epitre aux Romains, et la Texte Grec, Revue Biblique, Jan., 1916. L’Epitre aux Galates, 1918.

14 La Critique Rationelle ; Critique Textuelle, 1935. Histoire ancienne du Canon du Noveau Testament, 1933.