FUGA. – F., also called horror, is termed by St. Thomas (Sum. Theol., 1ª-2ª, q. 23 a. 1) the passion by which our concupiscible appetite withdraws from a future evil. If this aversion so affects the individual as to make him shrink from any effort in the practice of religion and in the fulfillment of the duties of his state, f. becomes a disordered passion, which easily leads to the capital sin of acedia (v.).
In a more general sense, in which it is taken here, f. is the act of fleeing (Latin fugere), that is, the act of one who rapidly withdraws from some person or thing, out of fear, in order to save himself.
Morally and juridically, f. may on certain occasions be an obligation; in other cases it may be an act of cowardice, or evasion of one’s own duty. Everything depends on the end for which one has recourse to f., on the object from which one flees, and on the obligations imposed by law.
The liceity of f. in the face of persecutions was a subject that deeply engaged the first Christians. Tertullian (v.), already a Montanist, according to which f. in such circumstances is inadmissible and constitutes a denial of God’s will (De fuga in persecutione, written ca. 212: PL 2, 103-20), and against the practical attitude of certain faithful who considered it their duty to present themselves and denounce themselves spontaneously as Christians, the more moderate thesis prevailed: it discouraged self-denunciation, which was always dangerous, and admitted that one could escape the search by fleeing. In favor of this thesis were the words of Christ himself, which, whether precept or counsel, have an unequivocal meaning (Mt. 10, 17-23). Nor need we mention the example of Jesus himself, who several times escaped by fleeing, or that of the Apostle Paul, who at Damascus was lowered from the walls to escape his persecutors (Mt. 14, 13; Io. 8, 58-59; 11, 53-54; Act. 8, 4; 9, 23-26). St. Cyprian, Tertullian’s greatest admirer, likewise kept himself hidden near the city of Carthage during the persecution of Decius (250); similarly, the great martyr of Smyrna, St. Polycarp, had previously acted in the same way (Martyr. Pol., chaps. 5-7). And it was the f. of Christians from the cities where persecution was raging that nourished the first coenobia and monasteries in Egypt and elsewhere. This theme would be brilliantly developed by St. Athanasius in controversy with his detractors, who had already persecuted him and from whose hands he had escaped by a flight of a decidedly adventurous character (Apologia della sua fuga: PG 25, 643-80).
Today this problem is no longer a subject of dispute, since it is peacefully admitted that it is lawful to escape persecution even by flight: f. could become sinful only in those cases in which undertaking it would, because of the circumstances, amount to an implicit denial of the faith, or when an explicit command of God to the contrary had been manifested, or finally when pastoral duties required one to assist the faithful amid the storm of persecution, whenever this was naturally possible. Whoever resorted to f. in these circumstances could only be called an apostate, and the shepherd of souls would place himself on the same level as the hireling (mercenarius autem fugit: Io. 10, 13).
If these problems are always current in the Church, which is continually persecuted, other questions concerning the obligation of f. in the face of dangers of perversion and occasions of sin are even more practical. The safeguarding of virtue requires one to flee all external occasions that may place it in danger.
Indeed, it would be temerity to expose oneself to temptation, and worse still to provoke it, without a just and proportionate cause. A grave danger must be fled under pain of grave sin; a slight danger under pain of venial sin (for a more extensive treatment, including the attitude of the confessor toward those who persist in occasions of sin, V. OCCASIONE DI PECCATO).
Christian ascetical theology has particularly insisted on f. chastity (v.), which are among the most dangerous.
When f. has been discussed thus far, the word has been taken not only in its literal and almost physical sense, but also in a figurative sense. F. from occasions also includes at times not lingering in solitude, changing one’s environment and occupation, turning one’s gaze and even one’s attention away from those mental representations and objects that experience shows to be conducive to arousing temptation.
Returning to the literal sense of the word, a series of problems in the opposite direction arises concerning the unlawfulness of f. when it constitutes an evasion of duty. Certain persons bound to an office or an obligation, or even to a particular state of life, cannot abandon their post, even in the face of possible danger, and even if confronting the danger requires a heroic act. A parish priest, for example, cannot leave his parish in the event of an infectious epidemic that places his own life in danger; nor can the district physician, etc., except in particular circumstances and under particular conditions. To do so constitutes not only a sin but is often also regarded as a crime in the various legal systems (v. ABANDONO; ATTO EROICO DI CARITÀ). Thus a soldier may not desert the army (for the various hypotheses, V. MILIZIA).
The accused, however, is not forbidden f. in order to escape punishment. For just as he is not obliged to confess himself guilty, neither is he obliged actively to cooperate in his punishment. Therefore: a) even if justly condemned, he may escape from prison; b) indeed, he may probably even force the prison exits in order to regain his freedom, or deceive the guards; and, if innocent (but not if guilty), he may also bribe them and threaten them with weapons, though never wound or kill them. To one who flees in this way, weeping, it is lawful for others not assigned to his custody to offer peaceful (nonviolent) assistance, unless this cooperation would be seriously harmful to a third party or to the public good.
In the CIC, a religious is called a fugitive who leaves the religious house for two or three days, without the permission of his superiors, with the intention of returning there (can. 644 § 3). Unless this constitutes an escape from an unjust persecution in order to appeal to the superior, the act is considered a delict, and the fugitive immediately incurs the penalty of deprivation of the office he holds, if he holds one, and suspension reserved to his own major superior (can. 2386), who, in accordance with the constitutions, may also add other penalties. F., like apostasy from the Order, does not dissolve religious profession.
BIBLI: T. Ortolan, Fuite des occasions de péché, in DTHC, VI, col. 951; id., Fuite pendant la persécution, ibid., VI, coll. 951-964; S. Copeniche, De religiosis, Roma 1938, n. 102, pp. 202-209; F. Ter Haar, Cases consuntiales, I, 3ª ed., Torino-Roma 1939, pp. 1-140; H. M. Merkelbach, Summa theologia moralis, 3ª ed., I, Parigi 1947, nn. 91, 177, 485-86, 780; H. ivi 1947, n. 641 II; III. ivi 1947, nn. 663-68; A. Lanza, Theologia moralis, I, Torino-Roma 1940, nn. 83, 210-11. Pietro Palazzini
FUGUE. - A form of composition that encapsulates the principal criteria for the development of musical thought and the main procedures of so-called "imitative" counterpoint, that is, based on the reproduction, in various voices, of a given thematic element.
The fugue is constructed in that ternary form which is also widely applied in symphonic art across its three phases: presentation, development, and recapitulation. The two lateral pillars support and condition the central one. In the first section of the fugue (exposition), the fundamental theme (subject) is presented successively by the different voices, and it is interwoven with the secondary theme (countersubject).This latter is combined with the first according to the rules of reversible counterpoint, so that the two simultaneous themes may stand one above or equally below the other.
The complete presentation of the subject and the countersubject in all voices is followed by the so-called divertimenti, episodes in which the thematic elements are developed and which are inserted between the restatements of the subject in other keys.
The final section is the most interesting and the most learned due to its tightly interwoven stretti, canons (prolonged imitations), possible episodes in triple counterpoint, augmentations (when the rhythmic values of a theme are proportionally increased), and other possible contrapuntal procedures, more or less ingenious and intricate, culminating in the strettissimo and the final pedal, which is a prolonged note in the bass, above which new thematic combinations are superimposed.To this general scheme, the composition of a fugue adheres with greater or lesser rigor depending on whether it is a school fugue, a fugato, or a fugue as part of a symphonic movement, or even a personal construction inspired by the fugue. The fugato is of two main types: 1) an exposition followed by strettos; 2) the section following the exposition is composed with broad freedom of procedures, that is, without adhering to the precise rules that instead apply to the school fugue. As a remarkable model of a fugue, inspired by highly artistic criteria and with personal significance, one recalls that which concludes Beethoven's op. 110 (in reality, two fugatos, the second on the inverted theme of the first; and such inversion has meaning in the particular and general significance of this celebrated sonata).
As for its historical origins, they are linked, on the one hand, to the Flemish polyphony of the second half of the fifteenth century, and on the other, to the earliest instrumental forms, such as the ricercare; and these origins are essentially determined by imitation at the fifth. In G. Zarlino's Istituzioni armoniche (Venice, 1558), there is a complete enunciation of the structure of the fugue, conceived as a monothematic form. Extensive use of fugal technique is found among seventeenth-century German organists, among whom the fugato also intertwines with the chorale. But even earlier, in a Ricercare del X tono by G. Gabrieli (1595), one can identify one of the very first examples (if not the absolute first—considering that primacies in the history of music are always uncertain) of a fugue with episodes.
It is superfluous to recall that all great musicians cultivated this form, each with their own characteristics. Thus, for example, Händel gives the fugue an amplitude and majesty entirely his own. Bach's Mass in B Minor offers unsurpassed models of fugues for choir and orchestra. But the immense work of Bach is entirely based on fugal technique, which never prevented that supreme master from reaching the heights of expressive power and poetic evocation through sound.
BIBL.:
E. Walker, A History of Music in England, Oxford 1924; H. Riemann, Geschichte der Musiktheorie, Berlin 1920; A. Schering, Geschichte des Oratoriums, Leipzig 1911; V. FUGA, POLIFONIA, RICERCARE.
Edgardo Carducci-Agustini