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 confreres, who were gathered, on account of the various revolutionary upheavals, in several foreign colleges; he then moved to the Gregorian University, and afterwards to the Scholasticate of Chieri, where for the last thirteen years he taught dogmatic theology.
His works are not many: 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 Br. 1901); De virtutibus infusis (ibid. 1904); Divinitas Scripturarum adversus hodiernas novitates asserta (Turin 1906); De vera religione (posthumous, ibid. 1909).
A profound and orderly mind, of exquisite judgment and great good sense, he knew how, grasping a subject as a whole, to distinguish the principal from the accessory and to choose the most fitting and persuasive proofs, drawing above all on the Angelic Doctor, of whom he was a highly esteemed and acute interpreter. At times his excessive concision in condensing his thought harms the clarity of the exposition, which nevertheless became limpid and shrewd in his lively oral exposition, in which he was a master.
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