SCHIFFINI, SANTO. — Jesuit, Scholastic philosopher and theologian, b. at S. Domenica (province of Cosenza) on 20 July 1841, d. at Chieri (province of Turin) on 10 Dec. 1906.
Having entered the Order in 1855, he was professor of philosophy to his confrères, assembled, owing to the various revolutionary upheavals, in several foreign colleges; he subsequently moved to the Gregorian University, and then to the Scholasticate of Chieri, where for the last thirteen years he taught dogmatic theology.
His works were not numerous: Principia philosophiae ad mentem Aquinatis (Turin 1886; 2nd ed. ibid. 1892); Disputationes metaphysicae specialis (2 vols., ibid. 1888; 2nd ed. ibid. 1894); Disputationes philosophiae moralis (2 vols., ibid. 1891); De verbo Dei adversaria theologica (ibid. 1895); De Gratia divina (Freiburg im Breisgau 1901); De virtutibus infusis (ibid. 1904); Divinitas Scripturarum adversus hodiernas novitates asserta (Turin 1906); De vera religione (posthumous, ibid. 1909).
A profound and methodical intellect, of refined judgment and great common sense, he knew, by grasping a subject as a whole, how to distinguish the principal from the accessory and to choose the most apposite and persuasive proofs; drawing above all upon Aquinas, of whom he was a highly esteemed and acute interpreter. At times, excessive concision in condensing his thought detracts from the clarity of his exposition; this, however, became lucid and incisive in his lively oral presentation, in which he was a master.
(from F. von S. Werke, Stuttgart 1816, frontispiece)