THE CATHOLIC SYSTEM.
The older system of theological education, that prevailing in Catholic institutions, is the result of a gradual historical development from the beginning of the Church. Although the aim and ideal have remained unchanged, the matter has broadened and the lines widened and deepened in response to the demands on the Church's or ganic activity. The training of the subject, the man, has ever been its first and most im portant function—consisting in the assimilating of his mind to the object matter of the theo logical disciplines and of his conduct to the ideal of the priestly vocation. The first thologians were educated and instructed in the school of Christ. They in turn handed on to their disciples what they had received from their master. Its matter was the Bible. the Old and New Testament, the latter especially, with the oral interpretation gathered and treasured from the instructions of Jesus, The form was simple, unsystematic, adapted to the synthetic soul rather than the analytic mind. Both aspects—the matter and the form—are indicated with sufficient detail to enable one to estimate their character in the letter of Saint Paul to Titus and his two letters to Timothy. Contact with Judaism developed a somewhat more definite exegesis, and conflict with paganism a direct apologetic. The neces sity of defining and defending the explicit con tent of revelation resulted in a gradual growth of dogmatics, with a well-marked branch of polemics, while the bearings of the new reli gions-moral truths on the growing complexities of life in the world and the cloister necessitated an unfolding of moral and ascetical theology. Eusebius in the meantime had founded ecclesi 'astical history, and with the Decretists and the Deeretalists canon law received an organic shape. After the collapse of the Roman Empire educa tional activity, theological as well as secular, was practically confined to the monasteries, and was limited to the conserving of the materials in herited from the past: Throughout the 141iddIQ Ages the various branches of the theological curriculum became more systematic and cot?rdinated. Biblical study was emphasized, though principal attention was given to the philosophieo-theological systema tization of the speculative content of religious faith and to the motives, faculties, and laws of moral and religious conduct. Historical and critical studies were, however, but slightly and superficially cultivated.
A great change begins with the rise of the Humanists and the Reformation, followed by the opposite reform instituted by the Council of Trent. Progress lay principally in the circle
of biblical and historical studies. Exegesis was pursued with great zeal, and the study of the Bible centred mainly on historico-critical ques tions. The founder of isagogics as a special dis cipline was Richard Simon, and in the second half of the eighteenth century, in which, besides, the division of theology into separate depart ments was completed, it was marked off against the rest of biblical science. In Church history, reestablished by Baronius (1607), the auxiliary sciences attained chiefly through the Benedictines of Saint Maw- their form and demarcation: patrology, arelpology, and chronology. Tim criti cism of sources Mabillon (1707), in the study of the Catacombs Bosio (1639), in hagiography Bollandus (1665), were most prominent. Besides these Petavius (1652) and Thomassin (1695) es tablished scientifically the history of dogma, which since the latter half of the eighteenth cen tury has been independent. in systematic the ology, moral theology, which had made great ad vance, separated definitely from dogmatic and was raised to an independent discipline. Casuis try received particular interest and care. In dogmatics Melchior Cano (15(10) created by his Loci Theo/ogici the science of theological noeties, to which Stapleton (De Principiis Fidel trinw) gave scientific finish. In post-Tridentine dogmatics, polemics took a broad and important place. To it men like Bellarmine, Suarez, and Soto devoted their best powers. Mystics and ascetics, earnestly cultivated even in patristic times (their founder was the Psendo-Dionysins), were greatly developed, bnt attained no indepen dent position. They remained, like casuistics, in connection with and in the service of moral the ology. Thus the theological cycle was, at the close of the sixteenth century, divided into the following departments: Biblical science (undi vided), Church hi-story, dogmatics, moral and canon law. The differentiation of the other the ological disciplines was accomplished only in the second half of the eighteenth century. The latest to appear as a separate branch was pastoral the ology, in Germany, with the erection of a special chair for its teaching under Maria Theresa. Later on it divided into three departments: homi letics. liturgics, a ml the theory of the pastoral life. Apologetics, as fundamental theology, though zealously cultivated for centuries, sepa rated from dogmatics only in the nineteenth cen tury.