History 288 Home | Schedule of Readings and Assignments

Readings:

  • Bible: Titus (complete)
  • Online source: Fourth Lateran Council (1215), Canons 1, 11, 15, 19, 21, 22, 23, 27, 29, 44, 46, 62, 66.

    Basic Questions:

    1. What passage(s) in the readings did you find particularly interesting? Why? What passage(s) did you not understand?

    2. What do the readings reveal about what it meant to be a Christian?

    3. What do the readings reveal about the nature of Christianity at the time in which they were produced?

    Specific Questions:

    This week's readings are about the exercise of religious authority in Christianity, or, in other words, about pastoral ministry, which has to do with the spiritual care of Christians exercised by the clergy. One term for pastoral ministry (aka pastoral care) is the cura animarum, literally the care of souls. Look for this term in the readings. Our readings shed some light on the situation of pastoral ministry in the first and thirteenth centuries.

    A note on the canons of the Fourth Lateran Council = Lateran IV. In 1213, Pope Innocent III formally made the invitation to bishops and abbots (who are the leaders of monasteries) to attend a general council in Rome at the Lateran palace in 1215. The council met in November 1215. At the council, Innocent presented the bishops and abbots with a package of legislation, consisting of seventy canons. These canons were rules or laws binding on the Church. We need, of course, to distinguish between these canons and cathedral canons (clergy who elected a bishop) as well as the canon of the New Testament. Lateran IV approved Innocent's seventy canons with few revisions.

    4. How would you summarize the responsibilites of the bishop in the early Christian community after reading the letter to Titus?

    5. How does the author of Titus analyze the Christian community? What does this tell you about the nature of the early Christian community?

    6. What do the canons of Lateran IV teach us about what Christians in the thirteenth century should believe and how they should behave? What do the canons tell us about the institutional Church: its nature, function, and relationship to the world in which it finds itself?

    Clarifications:

  • In Titus 3: 5, the "washing of regeneration" refers to baptism, the ritual or sacrament of initiation in Christianity.
  • The summaries of the canons of Lateran IV are the work of a modern editor. They are not part of the primary document. Do not quote or paraphrase the summaries in essays.
  • A benefice (canon 11) is a church office to which is attached an income. The collation of a benefice (canon 29) refers to the official bestowal of a benefice on a cleric by the person or corporation (e.g. a monastery, a cathedral chapter) who has the exclusive right to confer the benefice. A chapter in canon 11 refers to the body of the clergy at a catheral church or at some other important church.
  • A master in canon 11 of Lateran IV is a teacher.
  • Suo modo (canon 15) is Latin for "in his own way."
  • A widowed church (canon 23) is a metaphorical expression for a diocese whose bishop has died.
  • You should be able to find in a dictionary the meaning of prelate (canon 11).