THE THEOLOGICAL CURRICULUM.
As the Jesuit theologians of Cologne announced in their programme of 1578 that, while they followed St. Thomas, yet "neither all the matters, nor those alone which he treated," were to be handled by them; so, in every age, the standard adopted has been adhered to, with the same practical eye to the needs of the times. The reason is the same as those theologians assigned; because, they said, "Every age has definite fields of conflict, which render it necessary that Theology be enlarged with a variety of newly disputed questions, and, in fact, that it assume a new form."[347] In the arrangement of Scholastic Theology the Ratio suggests the following form:—
Scholastic Theology. Four Years. Two Professors: each four hours a week. One course. Religion and the Church; God in Unity and Trinity; His attributes, predestination: God as Creator; the Angels; the creation of Man and his fall; the Incarnation; Three of the Seven Sacraments. The other course. Human acts, virtues, and vices; the theological virtues; the cardinal virtues; right and justice; religion; grace; the Sacraments in general; the rest of the Seven Sacraments.
Moral Theology. Two years. One Professor: five and a half hours a week. The scope of this course is to form Ministers of the Sacraments. One year. Human acts, conscience, laws, sins, the Commandments, excepting the seventh. The other year. The seventh Commandment, which includes contracts; the Sacraments, censures, the states and duties of life.
Ecclesiastical History. Two Years. One Professor: two hours a week. The questions, necessary and opportune, in the history of each century.
Canon Law. Two Years. One Professor: two hours a week. One year. Persons, judgments, penalties. The other year. Things.
Sacred Scripture. Two Years. One Professor: four hours a week. General prolegomena. A book from the Old and New Testament alternately.
Hebrew. One Year. One Professor: two hours a week. Supplemented with one hour a week on Syriac, Arabic, Chaldaic, during four years.