Rosmini

Bosco Peters has alerted me to the fact that Antonio Rosmini will be beatified tomorrow. This is very welcome news. It will help open up several important doors:

(1) There should develop, at least over time, a greater interest in nineteenth century of a broadly Malebranchean sort, of which Rosmini is certainly an instance (he tells us that he and Malebranche differ only in details). Needless to say, as someone who studies Malebranche, I will be happy if this comes about very soon.

(2) Attention will be directed to some of the good work done by the Rosminians.

(3) More people will read Rosmini's classic, The Five Wounds of the Church, which has for too long lain under a shadow of suspicion. The book is an excellent example of how to criticize abuses in the Church without being anti-ecclesiastical. The Wounds that Rosmini saw in the Italian Church of his day are still, in slightly different forms, to be seen today. But even that aside, it's filled with excellent meditations on (e.g.) the fact that Christ, in saving mankind, saves not only individuals but human associations (the family, the nation, humankind in general), transfiguring them with grace; or the role of moral dignity in human life; or the role of language in the teaching of the faith; or the relation between Church and state; or on the general patterns that characterize the history of the Church. There is much worth reading in this book.

UPDATES

Other weblogs discussing the beatification:

Lacrimarum Valle
Roman Miscellany

Benedict XVI emphasized Rosmini's intellectual charity.

Augustine and Incubi

"Philosophical Misadventures" has a post on Augustine, saying that he was "convinced that devils were fornicating with wanton women". The passage in question is from The City of God:

There is … a very general rumour, which many have verified by their own experience, or which trustworthy persons who have heard the experience of others corroborate, that sylvans and fauns, who are commonly called 'incubi,' had often made wicked assaults upon women, and satisfied their lust upon them; and that certain devils, called Duses by the Gauls, are constantly attempting and effecting this impurity is so generally affirmed, that it were impudent to deny it.

I'm inclined to think, though, that Augustine's point is, when taken in context, not quite but almost exactly the opposite of the way Mathews (and the Malleus Maleficarum before him) have taken it to be. Immediately after the cited passage, Augustine goes on to say things that seem to be very skeptical of the whole idea.

Here is the structure of the chapter as I see it. The question is raised, whether, when Genesis talks of giants born when the sons of God mated with the daughters of men, we should understand this as saying (as indeed some have understood it to say) that angels fell from heaven out of lust for the human women, with whom they mated. The big issue here is that angels are spirits, and mating with women requires a body of some sort. He considers the possibility that the Psalmist, in saying that God makes his ministers flames of fire, is talking about angelic bodies; but concludes that it is unclear, and that the Psalmist might well mean that God's ministers should be ardent with love. However, Scripture does, indeed, seem to say that angels have bodies that can be touched; and (here's the passage above) that spirits can lustfully mate with women is such a common view, and seems to fit with enough claimed experiences of enough trustworthy people, that Augustine does not see himself as being in a position to reject it out of hand -- he would be merely impudent to do so without better reasons than he thinks he has. Taking it as granted, however, it's still not enough to tell us whether there might be spirits who have some sort of 'aerial' body, and Augustine passes on deciding the question. He then denies that the passage in Genesis is really talking about angels, and thus that it has anything to do with demons lustfully seducing women; he argues that it's clear that the passage is talking about men. Of course, some people might want to make a big deal about the term 'giants', but Augustine rightly notes that people of unusual stature can be born of human parents -- no need to bring in angelic mating as an explanation.

(He draws a rather lovely moral from the whole thing: "And it pleased the Creator to produce them, that it might thus be demonstrated that neither beauty, nor yet size and strength, are of much moment to the wise man, whose blessedness lies in spiritual and immortal blessings, in far better and more enduring gifts, in the good things that are the peculiar property of the good, and are not shared by good and bad alike.")

So Augustine, I think, is pretty agnostic on the whole thing; he does think that the evidence points to something going on (and that he has no particular reason for rejecting that there is), but he places no weight on it in the context: he remains explicitly agnostic about whether such claims show that there are spirits with bodies, and he explicitly denies that it has relevance to the question he is considering. Contrary to the Malleus Maleficarum interpretation, then, Augustine is not settling the matter of incubi and succubi, but passing on the question as not particularly relevant to his concerns; to the extent he addresses it at all, he simply defers to others. I suppose, though, it depends on how one takes the somewhat ambiguous phrase "it would be impudent to deny it," which can be understood as meaning, "It would be impudent for anyone to deny it," or as meaning, "It would be impudent for me to deny it." The two, of course, are not the same thing; the former leads to something like the interpretation Mathews puts on it, whereas the latter leads to the interpretation I'm inclined to give it.

Gregory's Declaration

The Declaration of Faith usually attributed to St. Gregory Thaumaturgos:

There is one God, the Father of the living Word, who is His subsistent Wisdom and Power and Eternal Image: perfect Begetter of the perfect Begotten, Father of the only-begotten Son. There is one Lord, Only of the Only, God of God, Image and Likeness of Deity, Efficient Word,Wisdom comprehensive of the constitution of all things, and Power formative of the whole creation, true Son of true Father, Invisible of Invisible, and Incorruptible of Incorruptible, and Immortal of Immortal and Eternal of Eternal. And there is One Holy Spirit, having His subsistence from God, and being made manifest by the Son, to wit to men: Image of the Son, Perfect Image of the Perfect; Life, the Cause of the living; Holy Fount; Sanctity, the Supplier, or Leader, of Sanctification; in whom is manifested God the Father, who is above all and in all, and God the Son, who is through all. There is a perfect Trinity, in glory and eternity and sovereignty, neither divided nor estranged. Wherefore there is nothing either created or in servitude in the Trinity; nor anything superinduced, as if at some former period it was non-existent, and at some later period it was introduced. And thus neither was the Son ever wanting to the Father, nor the Spirit to the Son; but without variation and without change, the same Trinity abideth ever.

Don't Forget the Cliopatria Awards

The Cliopatria Awards recognize the best writing among history bloggers. The categories for 2007 are:

Best Group Blog
Best Individual Blog
Best New Blog
Best Post
Best Series of Posts
Best Writer

If you've come across any historical writing, or writing about the practice of historical scholarship, that deserves nomination for one of the categories, don't forget to click the link above and follow the instructions to nominate it for an award. If you haven't, don't forget to think about possible nominations!

Epistemic Responsibility

In consequence of the commitments he has made that led to his becoming a respected scientist and a Fellow of the Royal Society, Gosee has epistemic responsibilities that, in a certain sense, transcend those of "ordinary" members of an epistemic community. He thus faces demands of epistemic responsibility of a more pressing nature than those that face an "average" enquirer. He is one of those who shape the standards of responsible enquiry; thus, when he proves no longer able to continue shaping those standards, his case is especially difficult to judge, particularly in view of the apparent worthiness of his reasons. Teachers, clergy, physicians, and scientists, among others, in their professional capacity, face special epistemic demands. One might be reluctant, in fact, to judge as intellectually virtuous a teacher (or physician or scientist) who is epistemically responsible in professional matters but is dogmatic, careless, and unscrupulous in private life.

Lorraine Code, Epistemic Responsibility, University Press of New England (Hanover, NH: 1987) 62-63.

The Gosse mentioned here is Philip Henry Gosse, who is indeed an interesting case. The point, of course, is general. It's remarkable, though, how easy it is to find academics who will unthinkingly say things that suggest that the greater one's successes as an outstanding part of the epistemic community, the less anyone has a right to demand or expect that you act responsibly as a member of such a community. It's curious how, for instance, some people are willing to give Nobel Prize winners almost a free pass for saying whatever they please. But there's a sense in which, if you're an academic, or a scientist, or physician, or such, that you never stop being one -- you continue to represent the academy, or the scientific community, or what have you, even when not engaged in strictly professional matters. Of course, you don't do so to as great an extent and there may be more room for foibles than there would in the stricter world of actual research and teaching. But signing on to be an academic is in a sense signing on always to be an academic. When people see you outside the academy, they won't say, "Oh, there goes so-and-so, who is a historian/philosopher/scientist when he goes to work." They'll say, "Oh, there goes so-and-so, who is a historian/philosopher/scientist, and so that's an example of how historians/philosophers/scientists act and think."

Whewell and Gothic Architecture

Speaking of Whewell, I find to my delight that the Internet Archive has a copy of Whewell's Architectural Notes on German Churches online, which it didn't last time I had checked. This work is one of the great classics of philosophy of architecture (like all of Whewell's works, alas, it tends to be overlooked), and is of interest even to those who are interested in Whewell's better known philosophy of science, because in this work he applies the principles of his philosophy of science to the study of architecture. (Notably, he also has a brief discussion of Gothic architecture in his History of the Inductive Sciences as a case in which we can trace some scientific progress through the Middle Ages.) Jonathan Smith has a great little paper online about this. It's also of interest as being one of the major works contributing to the Gothic Revival.

Whewell and the Gorham Controversy

As you know, I have an interest in William Whewell. I was reading Whewell's sermon, Strength in Trouble, which was published in 1851 (I do not know exactly when it was originally delivered). The sermon is partially a stern warning and partially an earnest exhortation for people to stay Anglican. Since we're talking about Whewell, he's subtle enough that it's hard to catch details, but clear enough that there's no question what 'Egypt' represents in the sermon. My first thought was that it might be anti-Tractarian, or even have Newman in view; which would be interesting, but is probably wrong. Todhunter says that the sermon is concerned with the Gorham controversy, which is extremely likely given the date of publication -- the Gorham controversy led to a fair number of Anglicans converting to Catholicism after a secular court -- the Privy Council -- ruled that the High Church bishop of Exeter was wrong to have refused to institute a Calvinist Evangelical (Gorham) to a vicarage (the specific ground was that Gorham denied baptismal regeneration). The conversions were due to the shock of finding that so many Anglicans held, or seemed to hold, that the teaching authority of the Church of England was from the state. Manning is probably the most famous convert in the wake of the controversy. The controversy had been aggravated by Wiseman preaching a vivid sermon on the controversy (in which it is a storm rocking the ship of the Church of England, which therefore desperately needs to return to the Catholic Church), which elicited some rather heated replies, like this one. Whately also got involved, with an attack on the High Church view of baptism. Many of the other big names of the time got involved in one way or another (although I know of no comments by Newman on the subject).

Project Canterbury has a page devoted to the controversy.

ADDED LATER:

In the comments Miriam notes that Newman discusses the controversy here.