Alfonso Maria de’ Liguori, son of Giuseppe de’ Liguori, a Neapolitan noble, and of Anna Cavalieri de Brindes, his wife, was born at Marianella, near Naples, on September 27,1696. He was educated chiefly at home, though he attended an Oratorian school at Naples for a time; and, as his father desired that he should rise to office in the magistracy, he was especially directed to the study of jurisprudence, both civil and canonical. He took the degree of doctor in this faculty in January 1713, being then little more than sixteen years old. He was called to the bar in due course, and obtained considerable practice, while his biographers dwell much on the high moral tone of the rules he laid down for his guidance in the conduct of professional business. The loss of an important suit in which he was engaged as counsel for a Neapolitan noble against the grand-duke of Tuscany, and in which he had entirely mistaken the force of a leading document, so mortified him that, acting on a temper already disposed towards the monastic life, it induced his withdrawal from the legal profession, which he never resumed after this defeat. He soon adopted the ecclesiastical dress as a candidate for orders, which he received in December 1724, when he entered as a novice into the Congregation of Missions, being ordained priest in December 1726.

He soon became popular as a preacher and as a confessor, obtaining much influence in Naples and its vicinity. In 1732 he founded the “Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer,” usually known as Redemptorists, or, as they are often named, Liguorians, whose special object is the religious instruction of the rural poor and other uneducated classes, establishing the first house of the society, in the force of much opposition, at the little town of Scala, about 8 miles from Salerno. The headquarters were transferred somewhat later to Ciorani, and in 1743 to Nocera dei Pagani, which is still the chief house. The confirmation of the rule and institute was obtained from Benedict XIV. in February 1749, and in the following year Liguori, who had previously made some minor literary ventures, published one of his most famous and popular books, Le Glorie di Maria, a book intended to promote the cultus of the Blessed Virgin; and in 1753 he issued his yet more celebrated Moral Theology, dedicating it to Pope Benedict XIV., expressly as a “via media” treatise. An Italian version of this book, somewhat abridged, recast, and adapted for the use of the clergy, was his next task; and, on this shorter treatise becoming popular, and a demand for it arising outside of Italy, he translated it into Latin, and issued it in 1755 as the Homo Apostolicus.

In 1762, being then sixty-six years of age, he accepted the bishopric of Sant’ Agata dei Goti, a small town in the province of Benevento, at the express desire of the pope (though he had several years before refused the archbishopric of Palermo, offered him by the king of Naples), and by a very unusual concession was permitted to retain his superiorship of the Redemptorists, governing them by means of a vicar-general. He worked diligently in this sphere of labour for thirteen years, busying himself with practical reforms of various kinds in his diocese, notably in trying to raise the standard of clerical life and work, while not intermitting either his literary pursuits or his efforts to promote the growth of his Redemptorist institute. In 1775, being then seventy-nine years of age, he obtained permission from Pius VI. to resign his bishopric, on the plea of enfeebled health, and retired to the Redemptorist house at Nocera dei Pagani, where he died August 1, 1787, aged nearly ninety-one. He was decreed the rank of “Venerable” very speedily, being so named by Pius VI. in 1796, was beatified by Pius VII. in 1816, canonized by Gregory XVI. in 1839, and finally declared a “Doctor of the Church” by Pius IX., March 11,1871. He is one of the most copious of the later Roman theologians, and his productiveness extended over a period of thirty years, from the issue of his Visits to the Blessed Sacrament in 1747 till the appearance of no fewer than eleven treatises in 1777; but his only writings necessary to be added here to those already named are his treatises De Usu Moderato Opinionis Probabilis, 1754, recast and reissued in 1756; Praxis Cοnfessarii, 1756; six apologies in defence of his views on probabilism and of his Moral Theology, in the same year, followed by three more in 1768; Verit<ι della Fide, against Helvetius and the deists, 1767; Storia delle Eresie, directed chiefly against the Jansenists and Molinists, 1772; Dissertazioni teologiche morale, 1772; and Vindicix pro suprema Pontificia potestate, adversus Justinum Febronium, in the same year.

He was a man of naturally amiable and gentle disposition, ascetic and self-denying in his personal habits, indefatigably diligent in many forms of activity, and of more than respectable abilities, though with the emotional side of his character in greater relief than its intellectual side. He was learned, as learning was understood amongst the Italian clergy of the 18th century, though altogether lacking in critical faculty, whence he is quite untrustworthy as a controversialist, not only as habitually quoting spurious or interpolated authorities, but by adding matter of his own to amplify genuine quotations which fall short of proving his case. In estimating the nature of his moral teaching, not only have these personal characteristics to be steadily kept in mind, but also the fact that his life exactly synchronizes with that epoch of European history which was the seed-time of the Revolution, and when, owing to reaction from the fervid theological controversies of the 16th and 17th centuries, a general languor, coldness, and indifference towards religious questions reigned in all parts of Western Christendom. It was Liguori’s firm belief that only the most lenient and gentle treatment could win back the alienated laity; and consequently, though he professed to steer a middle course between errors of laxity and severity in moral teaching, and fully believed himself to have done so, yet in fact such a treatment was impossible to one who viewed the question as he did. For, while he regarded errors on the side of laxity as pardonable mistakes committed through excess of zeal in winning over penitents, contrariwise he looked on the stricter method of the rigoriste, who upheld a loftier morality, as not merely inexpedient, but as positively and intentionally evil, as designed to make religion odious by making it impossible, and so to prepare the way for the triumph of unbelief. He identified all teaching of the sort with Jansenism, and Jansenism, from its resistance to various pontifical decrees, seemed to him all but equivalent to atheism.

Hence the opinions of rigorist theologians find almost no place in his writings, save for the purpose of censure, since he did not regard them as authorities to be relied on; and accordingly the line he draws is not, what he probably thought it, an intermediate one between rigorism and laxity, but between a greater and a lesser degree of laxity, depending on the working of the principle known as “Probabilism.” The meaning of this principle (due to the scholastic form of the Aristotelian dialectic, and thus visible in germ as early as St Thomas Aquinas, though not taking final shape till the writings of Medina, Valencia, Vasquez, and others, mainly, but not exclusively, Jesuits, at the close of the 16 th century) is simply this :—when a doubt arises as to the binding force of some divine or human precept in any given case, it is permissible to abandon the opinion in favour of obedience to the law—technically known as the “safe” {tuta) opinion—for that which favours non-compliance, provided this laxer opinion be “probable.” And by “probable” is meant any judgment or opinion based on some reasonable grounds, though with some doubt that the opposite view is perhaps the true one (Gury, Theol. Mor., vol. i. n. 51). It may be probable in two chief ways,—intrinsically, because of reasons drawn from the nature of the thing itself, or extrinsically, because supported by one or more theologians of repute; and its degree of probability may vary according to a variety of conditions. Casuists are divided into six classes according to their mode of regarding probability :—(1) Rigorists, who lay down that the safer way, that of obedience to the law, is always to be followed; (2) Mitigated Rigorists, or “Tutiorists,” who, holding that the law is always the safer and better way, yet allow that an opinion of the highest intrinsic probability in favour of liberty may sometimes be followed; (3) irobabiliorists, who hold that the law is always to be obeyed unless an opinion clearly very probable (probabilior) is opposed to it; (4) Equiprobabilists, who teach that in a balance of opinions the less safe opinion may be lawfully followed, provided it be as probable, or nearly as probable, as its opposite; (5) Moderate Proba-bilists, according to whom it is lawful to follow the less safe and somewhat less probable opinion, provided it have some degree of real probability, even if the opposite opinion be clearly more probable; (6) Laxists, who hold that even slightly probable opinions may be followed; but, as they were condemned by Innocent XL, they no longer exist as an avowed school, but are still latent under classes 4 and 5.

On further examination, it appears that the right of judging of the intrinsic probability of an opinion is restricted to persons of considerable learning, and specially versed in moral theology, since they alone can know that there is not any certain argument in opposition. All other inquirers must fall back on extrinsic probability, that is, on what may be called “counsel’s opinions.” And, in forming a judgment on this basis, the following rules are laid down by F. Gury :—a moderately educated person may accept as probable any opinion which he finds asserted by distinguished theologians of the present day, and may follow even a single author of repute, though teaching contrary to the commonly received view, provided he brings forward some fresh argument, and can urge reasonable pleas against former solutions; while an ignorant man may take the word of any person whom he thinks trustworthy, able, and learned, that a particular opinion is probable (Theol. Mor., vol. i. n. 54). Some classes of things are, however, excluded by Roman casuists from the operation of this principle; as, for example, all questions relating to matters of faith, in which the very highest degree of probability is not sufficient to excuse from following the safe opinion, which is that of the Roman Church. Liguori’s own position is that of an equiprobabilist, and he therefore, as a rule, leans to the laxer side.

Before proceeding to illustrate the exact nature of his teaching by extracts from his works, it is desirable to ascertain what degree of authority attaches to those works in virtue of the position now accorded to him. In the first place, one of the earliest steps in the process of canonization is a strict review of every writing of the candidate proposed, whether published or unpublished. Every single proposition therein must be separately considered, and be judged on its own merits, without taking the author’s probable intention into account, and if even one passage be found which fails to stand this test, as containing any moral or theological error, the process is stopped at once, unless proof be adduced that the author had in his lifetime formally and fully retracted the erroneous opinion. But a decree of the Congregation of Rites, confirmed by Pius VII. in 1803, declared that in none of the writings of Alfonso de’ Liguori was anything found meriting censure, and the testimony of Artico, bishop of Asti, and prince-prelate of the papal household,’ is that the examination had been unusually severe, that Liguori’s system of morality had been discussed more than twenty times, and that the approval of the congregation was perfectly unanimous. Next, in the year 1831, Cardinal Rohan-Chabot, archbishop of Besançon, submitted a case to the cardinal grand penitentiary, desiring to know, whereas the teaching of Liguori’s Moral Theology ∙viqs> resisted by some persons in his diocese, as too lax, dangerous to salvation, and contrary to the moral law, whether a professor of theology might safely follow and teach the opinions in that work, and further, whether a confessor should be molested for following those opinions in the confessional, solely on the ground that they had been pronounced free from censure by the apostolic see, and without having examined them independently himself. To the former of these questions an affirmativ© reply was given, to the latter a negative one. Thirdly, in the bull of canonization, issued by Gregory XVI. in 1839, the entire absence of error in Liguori’s writings is once more asserted.

So far, no more is implied than the entire orthodoxy and moral soundness of Liguori’s writings, vouched for to the ordinary Roman Catholic by the fact of his canonization. And, though the liberty is thereby taken away of directly censuring any proposition in the writings of a saint as dootrinally or morally untenable, yet there is no precise obligation to follow all things contained therein. It is still lawful to challenge the opinions of a saint, if it be done modestly and with the production of strong reasons (Bened. XIV., De Canoniz., i‰ 32, 12); but this liberty is very seriously abridged if the saint be also a “Doctor of the Church.” For the meaning of that title is that the person who bears it is one who has not merely transmitted the teaching of the church to others, but has taught the church itself (Bened. XIV., De Canoniz., iv. ii. xi. 11), and whose doctrine has consequently been generally followed and authorized by the church. The number of these doctors of the church is very small; and, in the special case of Liguori, he is not only the latest so named, but the only post-mediaeval casuist who has yet been canonized. Accordingly, it is not merely permissible, as heretofore, to follow his teaching, but it is now clothed with so high a degree of authority that it becomes matter of grave doubt whether even such a modified expression of dissent from his teaching as occurs in the Apologia of Cardinal Newman in 1864 be now feasible without risk of censure. For the letters apostolic of Pius IX. declare that the works of Liguori may be used publicly in the same manner as the writings of other doctoes of the church, such as Augustine, Gregory the Great, and Thomas Aquinas; with, however, this notable difference that, whereas the teaching of those earlier doctors is necessarily qualified and conditioned by the subsequent development of theology, and by the successive glosses which they have received, on the other hand, Liguori’s recent date makes him the sole authoritative interpreter of all moral theologians earlier than himself, while no writer has yet appeared to modify authoritatively, much less to supersede, his own moral teaching.

It may seem, at first sight, that a great advantage is gained by having thus a standard text-book ou morals, even if some exceptions may be taken to its rulings in certain cases, because it may be expected to check serious divergency of opinion, and to put, indirectly at least, a high ethical ideal before the body of religious teachers. This, however, can be the case only when such a text-book expressly repudiates the principle of probabilism, and so comes to be ranked amongst rigorist works. For once probabilism is conceded as part of the system, as is the case with Liguori, then every opinion not officially condemned by authority, which is set down in the text-book itself, and is fortified with the names of any casuists of repute, becomes thereby probable and sanctioned, even though it be not the one professed by Liguori himself. Thus it may freely be followed by any priest in the confessional; and, what is yet more startling, it is the common and preferable doctrine that a penitent in confession can require absolution to be given him as a right, if he claim to have followed a probable opinion as to the act involved, even though not only the opposite opinion may be the more probable in the confessor’s judgment, but that of the penitent seem absolutely false, and the confessor is therefore bound sub gravi to absolve in such a case (Lig., Theol. J∕br., vi 605); nor is it necessary that the opinion which the penitent advances should really convince or satisfy his own conscience. It is enough that it stands in the books, and is citable. Accordingly, the only practical effect of such a text-book as Liguori’s is to undermine all rigorist propositions, and to make tenable every lax proposition, except the very few which have been specifically condemned.

As regards Liguori himself, his usual method is to begin with taking very high ground, and to state in unexceptionable terms the moral obligation of the precept x^ith which he is concerned, but then to evacuate it of all real force by exceptions and qualifications. That such was felt to be the case, even in the relaxed society of his own day, appears from the frequency with which, even before his death, his moral teaching was impugned in Italy and France as of dangerous consequences, and from the number of apologies he...