Apologeticae sive Theologiae Fundamentalis, Tomus I: Demonstratio Christiana

Greetings to the students of sacred theology!

This manual of apologetic or fundamental theology is yours rather than mine. It has indeed come forth from my continual converse with you in the schools and from the office of teaching, which, by God's favor, I have now discharged for twenty-five years. And I have made it my one solemn aim both then in teaching and now in writing, most beloved students, to attend to your advantage, to seek your progress, and to adapt the apologetic to your ability.

Indeed, in these last decades the apologetic discipline has continually obtained a greater part in theological studies. For the more tenaciously the gates of hell strive to prevail against Christ and his Church, the more strongly from day to day was it necessary to draw up the apologetic battle-line. Above all, priests, the leaders of the Christian people, ought to be girt not with just any apologetic knowledge, but with the more solid kind, that which is befitting the most exalted office they hold and the circumstances of the present day in which they minister. Whence you also, recruits of the sacred militia, must needs put on the most strong "armor of God, that you may be able to stand in the evil day and in all things stand perfect" (Eph 6, 13).

Led by this purpose, I strove to treat all those questions of fundamental theology which seemed necessary and opportune to know, with such diligence and such method that they may correspond both to the difficulties and demands of our age and to the most recent state of apologetics. Yet I have used a simple manner of speaking and, as far as was permitted, a lucid one. Whence I have not spurned certain expressions which are indeed unusual to classical and elegant diction, yet are sanctioned by long scholastic use and suited to the understanding of the students.

The Fathers and ecclesiastical writers I have cited according to the Migne edition, so that the letters ML or MG are to be read: Migne Patres Latini or Migne Patres Graeci; and the former of the following numbers designates the volume, the latter the column. The Apostolic Fathers I have used according to Funk's "new" edition, and the works of Cyprian according to the Hartel edition, with the letters F and H added. The definitions and declarations of the Church concerning matters of faith and morals I have for the most part rendered from the "Enchiridion symbolorum" of Henry Denzinger (thirteenth edition, prepared by Clement Bannwart S. J.), with the marginal numbers added (e.g., Denz. n. 10).

In citing and enumerating the more recent works I strove to be as generous and as sparing as the nature of a manual book required. I have assigned an asterisk to the names of non-Catholic authors, whenever it does not appear from the context that they are strangers [to the faith]. For the rest, I have referred to these authors with only this purpose in view: to indicate that they have written upon some subject, and that they may be consulted by readers furnished with due competence.

It remains for me to give thanks to God, the Best and Greatest, that, when the world was shaken by the most dreadful wars, he permitted this book to be written in the Swiss isle of peace. And would that the work offered to you, most beloved students, were not unworthy of that Peacemaker of whom the Apostle says: "For he is our peace, who has made both one" (Eph 2, 14). "Grace unto you and peace be fulfilled in the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ our Lord" (2 Pet 1, 2). Farewell!

At Fribourg in Switzerland, 20 April 1920.

The Author.