[16] E.g. Justin Martyr, Origen, Tertullian, Cyprian.
[17] Citra sanguinis effusionem.
[18] To show the crudity of the notion of redemption in early Christianity, it is sufficient to mention that many fathers represent Christ’s ransom as having been paid to the devil; sometimes adding that by the concealment of Christ’s divinity under the veil of humanity a certain deceit was (fairly) practised on the great deceiver.
[19] It is to be observed that Augustine prefers to use “freedom” not for the power of willing either good or evil, but the power of willing good. The highest freedom, in his view, excludes the possibility of willing evil.
[20] Cicero’s works are unimportant in the history of ancient ethics, as their philosophical matter was entirely borrowed from Greek treatises now lost; but the influence exercised by them (especially by the De officiis) over medieval and even modern readers was very considerable.
[21] Abelard afterwards retracted this view, at least in its extreme form; and in fact does not seem to have been fully conscious of the difference between (1) unfulfilled intention to do an act objectively right, and (2) intention to do what is merely believed by the agent to be right.
[22] He was condemned by two synods, in 1121 and 1140.
[23] Synderesis (Gr. συντήρησις, from συντηρεῖν, to watch closely, observe) is used in this sense in Jerome (Com. in Ezek. i. 4-10).
[24] The refusal of the council of Constance to condemn Jean Petit’s advocacy of assassination is a striking example of this weakness. Cf. Milman, Lat. Christ. book xiii. c. 9.
[25] As the chief English casuists we may mention Perkins, Hall, Sanderson, as well as the more eminent Jeremy Taylor, whose Ductor dubitantium appeared in 1660.