LA TOUR DU PIN, CHARLES-HUMBERT-RENÉ, Count of. - Marquis of Charec, b. 10 Apr. 1834 at Arrancy (Aisne), d. at Lausanne on 4 Dec. 1924.
In 1871 he founded the Work of Catholic Workers’ Circles; on 20 Feb. 1885 he took part in the first pilgrimage of Catholic industrialists to Rome, together with Léon Harmel, and from 1884 he belonged to the Fribourg Union, which soon became the International Union of “Catholic Socialists.”
La Tour du Pin’s fame rests on the fact that he is generally regarded as the theorist of corporatism, having been the first to formulate its fundamental principles in a systematic framework, even though one cannot fail to recognize the great influence exercised on his thought by certain German social Catholics, among them Abp. Ketteler and Baron de Vogelsang, whom he knew personally.
The organic conception of society in antithesis to the atomistic conception of liberalism, the principle of the—albeit limited—intervention of the State in the economy in contrast to liberal individualism and socialist statolatry, the ethical conception of the economy and especially of labor in opposition to the mercenary utilitarianism, the recognition of the right to property understood essentially as a social function, and the principle of class professional representation constitute the essential bases of the corporatism that La Tour du Pin expounded in a detailed but overly theoretical and schematic design, from the base to the periphery, to which he attached a political representative system as well. This system, through local and provincial corporate representations, was to culminate in a Grand Council of Corporations, a kind of advisory senate for the French monarchy.
Not without significance is the fact that this theorist of corporative economics was essentially a traditionalist, to the point of having supported the system of voting by category (ordre) rather than by head within the corporation, and of not having followed, with regard to the Third Republic, the policy of rallentimento recommended to French Catholics by Leo XIII. But apart from the exaggerations and absolutisms of La Tour du Pin, which are due to his overly systematic and abstract spirit and therefore often closed to economic reality, what remains is his corporative system as a whole and his conception of the corporation, which substantially coincides with the fundamental principles of the Catholic social school. While, in fact, for “State corporatism” (so called in contrast to “associative corporatism”), the corporation must essentially be an organ of the executive power, consequently without juridical personality, aimed at the progressive increase and centralization of state functions, for La Tour du Pin it should rather be considered an autarchic public-law entity, separate from the State (though not entirely independent of it), intended essentially as a valid defense of natural rights against the encroachment of the State and the predominance of political power.
The corporation, therefore, according to La Tour du Pin, should have constituted, with its statute and its
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LACTANTIUS. - Christian writer of the early 4th century, b. in Africa, d. after 317.
1) The De opificio Dei, probably written at the end of 303 or the beginning of 304 and addressed to an old disciple of the author, Demetrianus, remains on the scientific and philosophical terrain, without introducing specifically Christian elements (except for the dualistic trait in 19, 8), and aims to demonstrate God’s providence in the constitution of the human body, which he examines in an accurate anatomical and physiological description, and of the soul.
2) The Divinae institutiones, in 7 books, composed between 304 and 313, have a fundamental apologetic intent, aiming to defend Christianity from the accusations of the pagans, in particular of two writers, an unidentified philosopher and a judge, probably L. But the author’s culture and his purpose of responding exhaustively to the objections of educated pagans gave the work the character of a systematic treatise (as the title indicates), where the polemical element is integrated by the constant effort to provide a rational grounding of Christianity. In Bk. I, De falsa religione, he demonstrates by reason and tradition the unity of God and the absurdity of polytheism, whose cause he points out in Bk. II, De origine erroris, as the work of demons, expatiating on demonology. He then proceeds to demonstrate in Bk. III, De falsa philosophia, the insufficiency of pretended human wisdom, especially in the doctrine of the supreme good; and in contrast to that, in Bk. IV, De vera sapientia et religione, he sets forth Christianity and its central dogma of the Incarnation and Redemption. In Bk. V, De iustitia, the focus is on the ethical sphere, reproaching pagans for the injustice with which they persecute Christians and demonstrating that justice is founded on true knowledge of God. The moral problem is again the subject of Bk. VII, De vero cultu, since God is honored not by material sacrifices but by uprightness of conscience, which leads to love of neighbor. Bk. VIII, De vita beata, concludes with a demonstration of the immortality of the soul and a fantastic description of the future life in a millenarian sense.
3) The Epitome, composed after 314 at the request of Pentadius, is a free reworking summarizing the major work.
4) Probably in 314 or 315 he wrote the De ira Dei, where he affirms, against the Epicureans and Stoics, that in God there is wrath as well as goodness.
The authorship of two important works by Lactantius is debated, the first as a historical source, the second as a literary document.
1) In the De mortibus persecutorum, composed when the persecution of Licinius (v.) was imminent, there is a brief account of the origin of Christianity followed by a review of its most bitter persecutors, showing the wretched end of each: Nero, Domitian, Decius, Valerian, Aurelian, and above all the contemporaries Diocletian, Maximian, Galerius, and Maximin. The substantial historical reliability is generally admitted; criticism today is almost unanimous in recognizing Lactantius as the author, despite some external difficulties (the author’s name, the title cited by St. Jerome) and especially internal ones, namely the strong difference in tone and style between this work of violent polemic and the other writings.
2) The poem De ave phoenice tells in 85 elegiac couplets the marvelous story of the fabulous bird that rises from its own ashes. The mythical content does not prevent attributing it to a Christian author, for whom this fable offered a clear symbol of the Resurrection; the Lactantian authorship then appears confirmed by notable consonances with Lactantius’ ideas.
St. Jerome mentions other works by Lactantius now lost: Symposium; Hodoeporicon; Grammaticus; two books Ad Asclepiadem; four books of letters to Probus; two to Demetrianus; two to Severus. A brief fragment of a book De motibus animi survives under Lactantius’ name.
Two poems have been wrongly attributed to him: the De Resurrectione, or De Pascha, by Venantius Fortunatus, and the De passione Domini.
III. THOUGHT
Lactantius’ work is of little interest in the history of dogma, moving predominantly in the field of theology and natural ethics; where specifically Christian concepts emerge, there is neither originality of position nor speculative depth.lativo. The Trinitarian theology is particularly poor and uncertain. The order of creation in some way manifests to all the existence of God and His providence (Inst., 1, 2, 5; 2, 7, 1-3; 7, 9, 5), yet man, whose soul is created immediately by God (Epit., 19, 1-6), cannot attain perfect knowledge of the truth unless instructed by God (2, 3, 23), “the light of the human mind” (Ira Dei, 1). God is one (Inst., 1, 3 ff. and passim); the Father and the Son are not separate but form one mind, one spirit, one substance, distinguished from each other as the stream from the spring, the ray from the sun (4, 29, 1-5); elsewhere he attempts to explain the Son’s origin from the Father as “word” and “deed” (4, 8, 6 ff.). Christ therefore was born twice, first in spirit, then in flesh, Son of God by spirit, Son of man by flesh (4, 8, 1-2; 13, 2-5). The Holy Spirit of God descended upon the Virgin and made her fruitful (4, 12, 1; cf. however Epit., 38, 9). The divinity of Christ is demonstrated by the fulfillment in Him of the prophets’ oracles, which foretold even the cross (Inst., 5, 3, 18-21); He knew that He was to suffer and be killed for the salvation of many (4, 18, 2); He is “the food and life of those who believe in the flesh He bore and in the cross from which He hung” (4, 18, 28). Moreover, L. insists above all on Christ’s mission as teacher, a mission that required Him to be passible and mortal (4, 22 ff.). Only in the Catholic Church, which preserves the true worship of God adulterated by heretics, is there life and salvation; and it is in this Church that confession and penance are found (4, 30), the haven of salvation opened by God to man (6, 24). This penance consists in the confession of sins, symbolized by circumcision, and is necessary to obtain forgiveness (4, 17, 17), just as Baptism is necessary to purify man and grant him immortality and perfection (3, 26, 8-9; 7, 5, 22). Peter and Paul preached in Rome under Nero and there suffered martyrdom (4, 21, 12; De mort. pers., 2, 5-6). Reference has already been made to the millenarianism professed by L. Also singular is his dualism, which opposes to God the devil, who, though created by God, the author of all good, is the cause of all evil.
IV. The writer
The historical significance of L. lies chiefly in his presentation of Christianity in the form demanded by the culture of his time, namely, in an organic elaboration—however weak philosophically and theologically—appealing, even while rejecting philosophy, to reason, and in an artistic prose inspired by classical models, above all Cicero. It was largely this stylistic perfection (which, however, did not prevent him from enriching his language with Christian elements) that, together with his education, sprang from his firm conviction that he was thus serving the Christian cause (Inst., 1, 1, 10), the reason for the success enjoyed by L., the “Christian Cicero” of Pico della Mirandola, in Christian antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance.Studies: R. Pichon, Lactance. Etude sur le mouvement philos. et religieux sous le règne de Constantin, Paris 1901; P. Monceaux, Histoire littéraire de l'Afrique chrétienne, II, 1915, pp. 287-359; Bardenhewer, II (1914), pp. 325-49; G. Krüger, in Schanz-Hosius, III, 3rd ed. (1922), pp. 413-377; Mörike, I, pp. 618-64; P. de Labriolle-G. Bardy, Histoire de la littérature latine chrétienne, I, 3rd ed., Paris 1947, pp. 201-318; E. Amann, Lactance, in DTHC, VIII, cols. 2425-44. The most recent special bibliography in U. Mannucci-A. Casamassa, Istituzioni di patrologia, I, 6th ed., Rome 1948, pp. 143-38; B. Altaner, Patrologie, 2nd ed., Freiburg im Br. 1950, pp. 153-57. May be added: L. Alfonsi, L. e Giustino, in Rendic. istit. lomb., 82 (1949), pp. 19-27; A. Huldson-Williams, Orientius and L., in Vigiliae christianae, 3 (1949), pp. 237-43. On the Christian elements in L.’s language, cf. C. Mohrmann, in Vigiliae christianae, 2 (1948), pp. 165-76.