CUDWORTH, RALPH. - English (Latitudinarian) philosopher and theologian, b. at Aller (Somersetshire) in 1617, d. 26 July 1688 at Cambridge. He studied and taught at Cambridge, was a man of vast erudition, most devoted to the Christian religion, the most celebrated of the Cambridge Platonist school.
His A Discourse concerning the true Notion of the Lord's Supper (London 1642) had vast repercussions, in which, basing himself on 1 Cor. 10:14-22, he maintains that the Supper is not a sacrifice, but a symbolic banquet ἐκ τῆς θωλίας. In The Union of Christ and Church a Shadow (ibid. 1642) he defended the view that marriage was instituted by God as a type of the union between Christ and the Church. The work, however, that absorbed all of C.'s energies was The true Intellectual System of the Universe, a grandiose dike raised against the irruption of atheism. C. published only The first part, wherein all the reason and philosophy of atheism is confuted and its impossibility demonstrated (ibid. 1678). His theory of "plastic nature" (appendix, ch. 3) and his conception of the Trinity (ch. 4) aroused numerous discussions. It was placed on the Index by decr. 13 Apr. 1739. The other two parts were to study the eternity and immutability of the just and the unjust, and liberty. C. left very numerous manuscripts on these subjects. Published posthumously were: A treatise concerning eternal and immutable Morality (Chandler 1731) and A Treatise of the Freewill (Allen 1838).
Bibliography5 worksWorks: The Works of R. C., ed. T. Birch, new ed., 4 vols., Oxford-London 1829; The true Intellectual System of the Universe..., ed. J. Harri
BIBL.: Works: The Works of R. C., ed. T. Birch, new ed., 4 vols., Oxford-London 1829; The true Intellectual System of the Universe..., ed. J. Harrison, 3 vols., London 1845, Italian trans. Sistema intellettuale dell'universo (Collezione dei classici metaforici), Pavia 1824. Studies: C. E. Lowrey, The philosophy of R. C., New York 1884; K. J. Schmitz, C. und der Platonismus, Giessen 1919; Ueberwer, III, pp. 260-62; E. Cassirer, Die platonische Renaissance in England und die Schule von Cambridge, Leipzig 1932, Italian trans. by R. Salvini, Florence 1947, passim.
Amaroli, Agostino. “Cudworth, ralph.” In Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. IV, col. 1033. Città del Vaticano: Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1950. https://azioneromana.com/article/cudworth-ralph.
MLA
Amaroli, Agostino. “Cudworth, ralph.” Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. IV, Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1950, col. 1033. Azione Romana, https://azioneromana.com/article/cudworth-ralph.
BibTeX
@incollection{ec4_cudworth_ralph,
author = {Amaroli, Agostino},
title = {Cudworth, ralph},
booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica},
volume = {IV},
pages = {1033},
note = {Cited by column},
publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico},
address = {Città del Vaticano},
year = {1950},
url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/cudworth-ralph}
}
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