Enciclopedia Cattolica

QUO VADIS

Volume X · p. 263 · 1953

English translation · Testo originale italiano

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

QUO VADIS: see PIETRO, APOSTOLO, SANTO, IX. Leggende.

R: see EGITTO, III. Religione dell'antico E.

RAB: ABBA AREKA. RABANO (Hrabanus, Rhabanus, Magnentius), MAURO. — Benedictine, b. Mainz ca. 784, d. there 4 Feb 856.

Trained in sacred and profane letters by Alcuin in the school of Tours, he was ordained priest in 814 and from 817 again directed the school of the abbey of Fulda. Ordained priest in 814, elected abbot in 822, he resigned in 842 and retired to Petersberg. On 26 June 847 he was elected archbishop of Mainz.

R. rightly deserves the title of praeceptor Germaniae. Thanks to his pedagogical skill, Fulda became a leading intellectual center, which promoted the advancement of literary and theological knowledge in a land where these were almost nonexistent. R. cultivated learning only to equip the clergy with the tools needed to spread Christianity in Germany. To this end he wrote a great number of works sharing the character of practical manuals useful for instructing still barbarous peoples in the truth of the faith; e.g., commentaries on almost all the books of Holy Scripture, rich in patristic extracts and allegorical meanings; De institutione clericorum, the work of R. that exerted the greatest influence; De universo libri viginti duo, an extensive encyclopedic treatise, the fruit of assiduous reading, which foreshadows the various Summae, Thesauri, Specula left by the Middle Ages; Homilies for the ecclesiastical year and on virtuous Christian life; a historical Martyrology, dependent on that of Bede; poetry and festive hymns, among which the Veni Creator; a copious and important corpus of letters.

R. opposed Godescalcus, his former pupil, who professed dangerous theories concerning double predestination, one to the joys of Paradise, the other to the pains of Hell. R. distinguished two quite different things: predestination, by which the good will be saved, and the divine prescription concerning the perdition of hardened sinners. In October 848 an assembly of bishops, presided over by R., declared Godescalcus guilty of heresy.

BIBL.: Works in PL 107-12; the Poems in MGH, Poëtae latini Medii aevi, II, ed. E. Dümmer, Hannover 1884, pp. 159-258; the Letters, ibid., Epistolar, V, II, ed. E. Dümmer, ibid. 1899, pp. 379-516; for De institutione clericorum consult the ed. of A. Knöpfler, Munich 1901; of the little poem De laudibus c. Crucis, a copy existed at Urca in 1439 (cf. G. Borghezio, Inventari e notizie della Bibl. capitolare d'Urca nel sec. XV, in Miscellanea Ehrle, V [Studi e testi, 41], Rome 1924, p. 431). Studies: F. Kunstmann, Hrabanus Magnentius Maurus, Mainz 1841; L. Wülner, Das Hrabanische Glossar u. die ältesten bayerischen Sprachdenkmäler, Berlin 1882; E. Dümmer, Hrabanus-Studien, Berlin 1893; S. Birkle, R. M. und seine Lehre von der Eucharistie, in Studien u. Mittheil. O.S.B., 1902, pp. 76-86, 339-60, 609-24; 1903, pp. 33-57; A. Achelis, Martyrologien, 1900, pp. 213-37; G. M. Dreves, Hymnologische Studien zu Venantius Fortunatus u. R. M., Leipzig 1908; G. M. Dreves-C. Blume, Ein Jahrtausend lateinische Hymnendichtung, I, Leipzig 1909, pp. 76-83; Manitius, I, 288-302 (with extensive bibliography); H. Pellier, s.V. in DThC, XIII, cols. 1601-20.