RAFFAELE MARIANO. – Writer on philosophy and the history of religions, born at Capua on 5 Sept. 1840, died at Florence on 10 Dec. 1912. He taught (1885–1904) Church history at the University of Naples.
A restless and eclectic spirit, he was improperly regarded as Hegelian. His thought was fundamentally a mystical Platonism, influenced by Hegel. He admitted the immobility and objectivity of the Idea and the transcendence of God; he rejected historicism. Despite his hesitations between Catholicism and Protestantism and certain heterodox pronouncements in his historical work, M. defended the truth and perennial value of Christianity and its positive contribution to a genuine national renewal (Il Risorgimento italiano ecc., Florence 1866, p. 72).
Principal works: Lassalle e il suo Eraclito, saggio di filosofia hegeliana (Florence 1865); Il Risorgimento italiano secondo i principi della filosofia della storia (ibid. 1866); Roma nel medioevo (Rome 1873); Cristianesimo, cattolicesimo e civiltà (Milan 1879); Ritorno a Kant e ai neokantiani (Naples 1887); Buddismo e cristianesimo (2nd ed., Rome 1896); Giudaismo, paganesimo e Impero romano (Florence 1901); La conversione del mondo pagano al cristianesimo (ibid. 1902); Il cristianesimo nei primi secoli (2 vols., ibid. 1902); Scritti vari (essays and articles; 11 vols., ibid. 1900 ff.). Vol. X contains the philosophical writings on Hegelianism. The work Gli evangelii sinottici: realtà e invenzione? (Naples 1893) was placed on the Index (decr. 14 July 1893) because, although he opposed Harnack and rationalist criticism, he was excessively accommodating and claimed to find contradictions and absurdities which he then turned against the Church, denying its foundation by Jesus Christ.