St. Peter Damian: His Teaching on the Spiritual Life by Owen J. Blum (review)

BOOK REVIEWS Sr. Thomas Aquinas On Kingship to the King of Cyprus. Done into English by Gerald B. Phelan; revised with Introduction and Notes by I. Th. Eschmann, O.P. Toronto: The Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1949. Pp· xxxix-115-Index. This is a completely revised edition of the De Regimine Principum issued some years ago by Dt. Phelan. Made on the basis of an emended Latin text, it is further embellished with abundant notes embodying not only explicit quotations used by St. Thomas but also much of the tradition implied in the text. The very titles of the chapters and the divisions of the treatise are likewise founded on manuscript tradition. Unfortunately, Fr. Eschmann has not included the authenticated Latin text, but has been content merely to indicate important variants in an appendix. More valuable even than the English translation is the critical and highly interesting Introduction. Father Eschmann has long been an advocate of the historical approach to the works and doctrine of St. Thomas, and here carries out his principles in a masterly analysis of this Opusculum. His first endeavor is to establish the text as originally left by St. Thomas, since the authentic treatise was welded in the fourteenth centurv with the De Regimine Principum of Tolomeo of Lucca. The work of St. Thomas, properly known as De Regno, Ad Regem Cypri, was composed between 1260 and 1265, but never edited and "published" by the Angelic Doctor. In Father Eschnann's hypothesis, some unknown Friar Preacher, probably Reginald of Piperno, found the treatise, but as a disarranged collection of tragments, among the papers of St. Thomas, and proceeded to give the work some semblance of completeness. Only later was it fused with the work of Tolomeo. In the present edition, the work is given its original title, and the translation limited to that part known to be from the hand of Aquinas. Father Eschmann then proceeds to solve certain historical problems incidental to the text, the identity of the King of Cyprus, the date of the wotk; and to clarify many local and historical references found within the text. It is his conclusion, of utmost value to students of St. Thomas, that the De Regno is to be read with a clear knowledge of its literary history and conditions. The work is not a full statement of St. Tilomas' political doctrine; and each statement must be compared to later texts (conveniently gathered into Appendix II) before being quoted as expressive of the definitive teaching of St. Thomas. (How many nake the mistake of quoting earlier works oí the Saint, e.g., the Sentences, as though they were his settled docttine, forgetting that, the holy Doctor underwent much doctrinal development). On the other hand, one cannot deny that the Le Regno possesses a genuine spiritual and doctrinal value in itself, especially through the concept it presents of the mediaeval Civitas Dei. IGNATIUS BRADY, O.F.M. Duns Scotus College, Detroit, Michigan. St. Peter Danuan: his leaching on the Spiritual Life. Owen J. Blum, O.F.M. A Dissertation. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1947. Pp. viii-224. If St. Peter Damián is remembered solely as the fanatical zealot and the morose reformer, it is because the "traditionally morose picture of the reformer, seen in the fuller light of his writings, is only a caricature that is sorely in need of adjustment." 313 314BOOK REVIEWS This is the conclusion of the author of this searching dissertation. Father Blum presents, in a scholarly though not pedantic way, this sorely needed adjustment. That is his thesis. It is the "purpose of this study," to use the words of the author, "to discover the spiritual ideals of Peter Damián and to correlate his teachings on spiritual perfection." The book is simply a synthesis of Damian's teaching on the spiritual life which embraces the following four salient points: conversion and the uprooting of vices; the spirit of penance expressed in the exterior mortification; the life of virtue and the means of perfection; and perfection in the world. It is the opinion of Father Blum that since St. Peter has treated almost every phase of...