Thomas Cajetan - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Thomas Cajetan also known as Gaetanus, commonly Tommaso de Vio (20 February 1469 - 9 August 1534), was an Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

cardinal

Cardinal (Catholicism)

A cardinal is a senior ecclesiastical official, usually an ordained bishop, and ecclesiastical prince of the Catholic Church. They are collectively known as the College of Cardinals, which as a body elects a new pope. The duties of the cardinals include attending the meetings of the College and...

. He is perhaps best known among Protestants for his opposition to the teachings of Martin Luther

Martin Luther

Martin Luther was a German priest, professor of theology and iconic figure of the Protestant Reformation. He strongly disputed the claim that freedom from God's punishment for sin could be purchased with money. He confronted indulgence salesman Johann Tetzel with his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517...

and the Protestant Reformation

Protestant Reformation

The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...

while he was the Pope's Legate

Papal legate

A papal legate – from the Latin, authentic Roman title Legatus – is a personal representative of the pope to foreign nations, or to some part of the Catholic Church. He is empowered on matters of Catholic Faith and for the settlement of ecclesiastical matters....

in Wittenberg

Wittenberg

Wittenberg, officially Lutherstadt Wittenberg, is a city in Germany in the Bundesland Saxony-Anhalt, on the river Elbe. It has a population of about 50,000....

, and perhaps best known among Catholics for his extensive commentary on the Summa Theologica
Summa Theologica
The Summa Theologiæ is the best-known work of Thomas Aquinas , and although unfinished, "one of the classics of the history of philosophy and one of the most influential works of Western literature." It is intended as a manual for beginners in theology and a compendium of all of the main...

of Thomas Aquinas

Thomas Aquinas

Thomas Aquinas, O.P. , also Thomas of Aquin or Aquino, was an Italian Dominican priest of the Catholic Church, and an immensely influential philosopher and theologian in the tradition of scholasticism, known as Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Communis, or Doctor Universalis...

.

He is not to be confused with his contemporary, Saint Cajetan

Saint Cajetan

Saint Cajetan , born Gaetano dei Conti di Tiene , is a Catholic Church saint and founder of the order of the Clerics Regular, better known as the Theatines...

, the founder of the Theatines.

Life

De Vio was born in Gaeta

Gaeta

Gaeta is a city and comune in the province of Latina, in Lazio, central Italy. Set on a promontory stretching towards the Gulf of Gaeta, it is 120 km from Rome and 80 km from Naples....

, then part of the kingdom of Naples, as Jacopo Vio. The name Tommaso was taken as a monastic

Monastery

Monastery denotes the building, or complex of buildings, that houses a room reserved for prayer as well as the domestic quarters and workplace of monastics, whether monks or nuns, and whether living in community or alone .Monasteries may vary greatly in size – a small dwelling accommodating only...

name, while the surname Cajetan derives from his native city. At the age of fifteen he entered the Dominican order

Dominican Order

The Order of Preachers , after the 15th century more commonly known as the Dominican Order or Dominicans, is a Catholic religious order founded by Saint Dominic and approved by Pope Honorius III on 22 December 1216 in France...

, and, devoting himself to studies in philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas

Thomism

Thomism is the philosophical school that arose as a legacy of the work and thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, philosopher, theologian, and Doctor of the Church. In philosophy, his commentaries on Aristotle are his most lasting contribution...

(he is the founder of Neothomism), became, before the age of thirty, a doctor of theology

Theology

Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...

at Padua

University of Padua

The University of Padua is a premier Italian university located in the city of Padua, Italy. The University of Padua was founded in 1222 as a school of law and was one of the most prominent universities in early modern Europe. It is among the earliest universities of the world and the second...

, where he was subsequently professor of metaphysics

Metaphysics

Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...

.

A public disputation at Ferrara

Ferrara

Ferrara is a city and comune in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy, capital city of the Province of Ferrara. It is situated 50 km north-northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main stream of the Po River, located 5 km north...

(1494) with Pico della Mirandola gave him a great reputation as a theologian

Theology

. He was made general procurator in 1507 and general of his order a year later in 1508. For his zeal in defending the papal rights against the 1511 Council of Pisa, in a series of works which were condemned by the Sorbonne

Collège de Sorbonne

The Collège de Sorbonne was a theological college of the University of Paris, founded in 1257 by Robert de Sorbon, after whom it is named. With the rest of the Paris colleges, it was suppressed during the French Revolution. It was restored in 1808 but finally closed in 1882. The name Sorbonne...

and publicly burnt by order of King Louis XII

Louis XII of France

Louis proved to be a popular king. At the end of his reign the crown deficit was no greater than it had been when he succeeded Charles VIII in 1498, despite several expensive military campaigns in Italy. His fiscal reforms of 1504 and 1508 tightened and improved procedures for the collection of taxes...

, he obtained the bishopric of Gaeta, and in 1517 Pope Leo X

Pope Leo X

Pope Leo X , born Giovanni di Lorenzo de' Medici, was the Pope from 1513 to his death in 1521. He was the last non-priest to be elected Pope. He is known for granting indulgences for those who donated to reconstruct St. Peter's Basilica and his challenging of Martin Luther's 95 Theses...

made him a cardinal

Cardinal (Catholicism)

and archbishop of Palermo.

Faithful to the traditions of the Dominicans, he appears in 1511 as a supporter of the pope against the claims of the Council of Pisa called by dissident cardinals to punish Pope Julius II, composing in defense of his position the Tractatus de Comparatione auctoritatis Papæ et conciliorum ad invicem. Jacques Almain

Jacques Almain

Jacques Almain was a prominent professor of theology at the University of Paris when he died at an early age. Born in the diocese of Sens, he studied Arts at the Collège de Montaigu of the University of Paris. He served as Rector of the university in 1507.-Life:Beginning in 1508, Jacques Almain...

answered this work, and Cajetan replied in his Apologia. At the Fifth Lateran Council (1512-17) which Pope Julius II set up in opposition to that of Pisa, De Vio played the leading role. During the second session of the council, he brought about a decree recognizing the superiority of papal authority to that of councils.

For his services Leo X made him in 1517 cardinal presbyter

Cardinal (Catholicism)

of San Sisto

San Sisto Vecchio

San Sisto Vecchio is a church in Rome, devoted to St. Pope Sixtus II. It was built in the 4th century, and is recorded as the Titulus Crescentianae, thus relating the church to some Crescentia, possibly a Roman woman who founded the church. According to tradition, the church was established by Pope...

in Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

, and made him in the following year bishop of Palermo. He resigned as bishop of Palermo in 1519 to become bishop of Gaeta, as granted him by the Emperor Charles V

Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor

Charles V was ruler of the Holy Roman Empire from 1519 and, as Charles I, of the Spanish Empire from 1516 until his voluntary retirement and abdication in favor of his younger brother Ferdinand I and his son Philip II in 1556.As...

, for whose election De Vio had labored zealously.

In 1518 he was sent as legate to the Diet of Augsburg

Diet of Augsburg

The Diet of Augsburg were the meetings of the Imperial Diet of the Holy Roman Empire in the German city of Augsburg. There were many such sessions, but the three meetings during the Reformation and the ensuing religious wars between the Roman Catholic emperor Charles V and the Protestant...

and to him, at the wish of the Saxon elector

Frederick III, Elector of Saxony

Frederick III of Saxony , also known as Frederick the Wise , was Elector of Saxony from 1486 to his death. Frederick was the son of Ernest, Elector of Saxony and his wife Elisabeth, daughter of Albert III, Duke of Bavaria...

, was entrusted the task of examining and testing the teachings of Luther

Martin Luther

. According to Hilaire Belloc

Hilaire Belloc

Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc was an Anglo-French writer and historian who became a naturalised British subject in 1902. He was one of the most prolific writers in England during the early twentieth century. He was known as a writer, orator, poet, satirist, man of letters and political activist...

, "[Luther] had not been treated roughly by his opponents, the roughness had been on his side. But things had gone against him, and he had been made to look foolish; he had been cross-examined into denying, for instance, the authority of a General Council--which authority was the trump card to play against the Papacy."

In 1519, De Vio helped in drawing up the bill of excommunication against Luther.

De Vio was employed in several other negotiations and transactions, being as able in business as in letters. In conjunction with Cardinal Giulio de' Medici in the conclave of 1521‑1522, he secured the election of Adrian Boeyens, bishop of Tortosa

Bishop of Tortosa

The Bishop of Tortosa is the ordinary of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tortosa in Spain. The bishop is a suffragan of the Archbishop of Tarragona.-List of bishops of Tortosa:*San Rufo 64 - 90?*Macià s. II*Quart c. 156*Eustorqui s.III*Exuperanci ¿ - 369...

, as Adrian VI

Pope Adrian VI

Pope Adrian VI , born Adriaan Florenszoon Boeyens, served as Pope from 9 January 1522 until his death some 18 months later...

. He retained influence under Clement VII, suffered a short term of imprisonment after the storming of Rome by the Constable of Bourbon

Charles III, Duke of Bourbon

Charles III, Duke of Bourbon was a French military leader, the Count of Montpensier and Dauphin of Auvergne. He commanded the Imperial troops of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in what became known as the Sack of Rome in 1527, where he was killed.-Biography:Charles was born at Montpensier...

and by Frundsberg

Georg von Frundsberg

Georg von Frundsberg was a South German knight and Landsknecht leader in the service of the Imperial Habsburg dynasty of the Holy Roman Empire....

(1527), retired to his bishopric for a few years, and, returning to Rome in 1530, assumed his old position of influence about the person of Clement, in whose behalf he wrote the decision rejecting the appeal for divorce from Catharine of Aragon made by Henry VIII of England

Henry VIII of England

Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...

. Nominated by Clement VII

Pope Clement VII

Clement VII , born Giulio di Giuliano de' Medici, was a cardinal from 1513 to 1523 and was Pope from 1523 to 1534.-Early life:...

a member of the committee of cardinals appointed to report on the "Nuremberg Recess", he recommended, in opposition to the majority, certain concessions to the Lutherans, notably the marriage of the clergy as in the Greek Church

Eastern Orthodox Church

The Orthodox Church, officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to as the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the second largest Christian denomination in the world, with an estimated 300 million adherents mainly in the countries of Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece,...

, and communion in both kinds according to the decision of the council of Basel.

Cardinal De Vio died in Rome

Rome

in 1534.

Views

Though as a theologian De Vio was a scholastic of the older Thomist

Thomism

type, his general position was that of the moderate reformers of the school to which Reginald Pole, later archbishop of Canterbury

Archbishop of Canterbury

The Archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and principal leader of the Church of England, the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. In his role as head of the Anglican Communion, the archbishop leads the third largest group...

, also belonged; i.e., he desired to retain the best elements of the humanist revival in harmony with Catholic

Catholic

The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...

orthodoxy illumined by a revived appreciation of the Augustinian doctrine of justification. In the field of Thomistic

Thomism

philosophy he showed striking independence of judgment, expressing liberal views on marriage and divorce, denying the existence of a material Hell

Hell

In many religious traditions, a hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as endless. Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations...

and advocating the celebration of public prayers in the vernacular.

Some Dominicans regarded his views as too independent of those of Saint Thomas. The Sorbonne

Collège de Sorbonne

in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

found some of these views heterodox, and in the 1570 edition of his celebrated commentary on Aquinas

Thomas Aquinas

' Summa, the objectionable passages were expunged. In this spirit he wrote commentaries upon portions of Aristotle

Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...

, and upon the Summa of Aquinas

Thomas Aquinas

, and towards the end of his life, made a careful translation of the Old

Old Testament

The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...

and New

New Testament

The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....

Testaments, excepting Solomon's Song

Song of Solomon

The Song of Songs of Solomon, commonly referred to as Song of Songs or Song of Solomon, is a book of the Hebrew Bible—one of the megillot —found in the last section of the Tanakh, known as the Ketuvim...

, the Prophets

Prophet

In religion, a prophet, from the Greek word προφήτης profitis meaning "foreteller", is an individual who is claimed to have been contacted by the supernatural or the divine, and serves as an intermediary with humanity, delivering this newfound knowledge from the supernatural entity to other people...

and the Revelation of St John

Book of Revelation

The Book of Revelation is the final book of the New Testament. The title came into usage from the first word of the book in Koine Greek: apokalupsis, meaning "unveiling" or "revelation"...

.

Of the Reformation

Protestant Reformation

he remained a steadfast opponent, composing several works directed against Martin Luther

Martin Luther

, and taking an important share in shaping the policy of the papal delegates in Germany. Learned though he was in the scholastics, he recognized that to fight the Reformers with some chance of success a deeper knowledge of the Scriptures than he possessed was necessary. To this study he devoted himself with characteristic zeal, wrote commentaries on the greater part of the Old and the New Testament, and, in the exposition of his text, which he treated critically, allowed himself considerable latitude in departing from the literal and traditional interpretation.

De Vio is reported as declaring

a statement that has seemed controversial to some.

In contrast to the majority of Italian cardinals of his day, De Vio was a man of austere piety

Piety

In spiritual terminology, piety is a virtue that can mean religious devotion, spirituality, or a combination of both. A common element in most conceptions of piety is humility.- Etymology :...

and fervent zeal; and if, from the standpoint of the Dominican idea of the supreme necessity of maintaining ecclesiastical discipline, he defended the rights of the papacy and proclaimed that the pope should be "the mirror of God on earth."

Works

Opera omnia (5 vol, 1639)
Opuscula omnia (1530)
Commentary on Saint Thomas' Summa theologiae (1540)
De divina institutione Pontificatus Romani Pontificis (1521)
In Porphyrii Isagogen (1934)
De comparatione auctoritatis papae u. Apologia (1936)
De Anima (1938)
Scripta philosophica (6 vols., edited by P. Zammit, M.-H. Laurent and J. Coquelle, 1934-39)

Other references

"Aktenstücke uber das Verhalten der römischen Kurie zur Reformation, 1524‑1531," in Quellen und Forschungen (Kön. Press. Hist. Inst., Rome), vol. iii. p. 1‑20; TM Lindsay, History of the Reformation, vol. i. (Edinburgh, 1906).
Catholic Encyclopedia article

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