“Pius PP. IX.”
This very letter is an instance of the results to which a thorough and judicious mixed Latin classical education will lead the student of Latinity—the resources of the pagan Latin made classically available even to him who is secretary to the Pope ab epistolis Latinis, to which post are appointed those who, with other proper qualifications, are good Latin scholars. Some of these letters, especially
those issued under the pontificates of Benedict XIV. and Pius VI. and VII., are truly Ciceronian in style and language.
We call the closest attention of such of our readers as are not acquainted with Latin to the following translation of the above most important document:
“To the Rev. Father Bartholomew d’Avanzo, Bishop of Calvi and Teano.
“Pius IX., Pope.
“Venerable Brother, health and Apostolic Benediction: In proportion, Venerable Brother, to the eager good-will with which our proclamation of the Jubilee has been received by the Catholic world, is the harvest of good results we expect therefrom under favor of divine mercy. Heartily, therefore, do we welcome the sentiments of gratitude which you express, and offer them to God, that he may vouchsafe to your dioceses a share in your joy. Most seasonable, moreover, do we account the learned letter you have written on the mixed teaching of the Latin language. For with great erudition have you therein vindicated the honor of Christian Latinity, which many have charged with being a corruption of the ancient tongue; whereas it is clear that speech, as the expression of ideas, manners, and public usages, must necessarily have assumed a new garb after the law introduced by Christ—a law which, while it elevated human intercourse, and refashioned it to spiritual requirements, needed a new form of conversation, distinct from that which had so long reflected the bent of a carnal society swayed only by transitory things. And truly the monuments you have skilfully gathered from the several ages of the church afford a self-evident proof of our assertion; for, while they lay before the eyes of the reader the beginnings of the new form, its progress and importance, they also aver it to have been an established practice in the church to train youth in the Latin tongue by a mixed reading of sacred with classic authors. And assuredly this your dissertation, in throwing greater light on a question already well ventilated, will the more effectually urge upon the instructors
of youth the advisability of calling to their aid the works of authors of both kinds. Such is the result we predict for your labors; and in the meanwhile, as a pledge of divine favor and a token of our own good-will, we most affectionately bestow upon yourself, Venerable Brother, and upon all your clergy and people, the Apostolic Benediction.
“Given at Rome, at St. Peter’s, on the 1st of April, in the year 1875, the twenty-ninth of our pontificate.”
“Pius PP. IX.”