Review

Author(s): Chorbishop Seely Beggiani

Review by: Chorbishop Seely Beggiani
Source: The Catholic Historical Review, Vol. 89, No. 4 (Oct., 2003), pp. 786-788
Published by: Catholic University of America Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25026492
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 786 BOOK REVIEWS

career as an anatomist and a priest" (p. 207). And he succeeds beautifully in this.
Cutler's work is generally well informed and written in a simple, robust, and
brisk style that befits its intended audience. I am sure that itmeets or exceeds
the customary standards for popular scientific biography.

This is not to say that the work is free of errors. For example, Cutler mistakes
"Nicolai," the genitive form of Steno's first name, for another version of it (pp. 1,
18, and note). When talking about Steno circa 1665, we are told,"Descartes had
been dead for fifteen years, but his posthumously-published book On Man had
just been translated into French, and was the talk of Paris" (p. 40). Descartes s
L'homme was
published 1664, yearsin two
version; after its Latin Steno cer

tainly did not wait for the publication of the original French manuscript to crit
icize Descartes's theories of the heart and of the pineal gland contained in it.
We are also told that Leibniz did not publish the manuscript of his geological
work, Protogaea, but that it "was known, and when his collected philosophical
works were published in 1749, was among them" 183), and fur
Protogaea (p.
ther "Leibniz's Protogaea, finally published in mid-[eighteenth]-century, also in
Latin and French, brought Steno's ideas to still more readers" (p. 188). The Pro

togaea was first published by itself in Latin and inGerman translation in 1749;
the Latin treatise was included in Louis Dutens's six-volume collection of Leib
niz's works in 1768; and itwas translated into French in 1859.

These are, of course, all minor difficulties. Other difficulties, which Iwill not

detail, have to do with the subtleties of Steno's work in a seventeenth-century

context, as directed against the work of Athanasius Kircher and others, that is,
the way in which Steno was trying to prove that fossils did not grow in situ by
giving an account of their formation anda contrasting account of crystals that
did grow within the earth. Or the analysis of Steno's association with Leibniz,
who seems to be regarded as a mere follower; or the account of Steno's rela

tionship to Descartes, who is described more than once as unempirical,not giv

ing explanations and hypotheses, but necessary pronouncements: "Cartesian

anatomy was a product not so much of observation as of reason. Descartes de

scribed the body's structures not as he saw them, but as they must necessarily
be"(p. 57).

Again this is a fine work in its genre, but scholars may prefer to read the treat
ment of these materials in the first few chapters of Martin Rudwick's The Mean

ing of Fossils.

Roger Ariew

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg

Le Synode Libanais de 1736. Tome One: Son influence sur la restructuration

de l'?glise maronite. Tome Two: Traduction du texte orginal arabe. By
Elias Atallah. (Paris: Cero-Letouzey & An?. 2002. Pp. xii, 308,388. 44.)

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 BOOK REVIEWS 787

The Synod of Mt. Lebanon of 1736, held under the auspices of a papal legate
and approved in 1741 by Pope Benedict XIV informa specificates one of the
most important events in the life of the Maronite Church. It was the culmina
tion of several papal missions sent to the Maronite Church beginning in the six
teenth century. Their purpose had been to assure Rome of the doctrinal

integrity and liturgical correctness of the Maronites, and also to lend support
and encouragement to this Eastern Catholic church. There were a number of
reasons for the convoking of the Synod of 1736. The Church of Rome desired to
implement the teachings of the Council of Trent among the Eastern churches.
There was a need to clarify liturgical practice and to law for
codify particular
the Maronite Church. In previous decades serious tensions had arisen between
the patriarch and the bishops. Indeed, at this time, considering the monastic ori

gins of the Maronite Church, the patriarch possessed almost absolute authority,
with the bishops serving as his vicars or auxiliaries. There were no delineated
dioceses or episcopal residences, the bishops for the most part residing at the
residence or in monasteries.
patriarchal

Joseph Simon Assemani, the famous Orientalist, was appointed papal legate
to the synod and prepared a text in Latin for the synod before leaving Rome. An
Arabic translation was made and given to the Maronite patriarch and bishops

shortly before the opening of the synod. The synodal fathers offered changes
and amendments to the text during three days of sessions and gave final unani
mous approval on October After
2,1736. and some of
the closing,
the patriarch
the bishops had second thoughts about the conduct of the synod and its im

plementation and challenged its validity to Rome. After a thorough investiga

tion, the Holy See recognized the synod and its decisions.

In
succeeding decades, it became
apparent that Rome and the Maronite
Church were interpreting synod from two separate
the versions, one in Latin
and one in Arabic, which contained some important differences. The Latin text
followed by Rome was probably the one on which papal approval was based,
and the Arabic text used by the patriarch was a copy of the text
presumably
worked on by the synod. The issue that first brought the problem to light was
whether the patriarch had authority to dispense from the second degree of

consanguinity according to the Roman computation.

EliasAtallah, former
superior general of the Maronite Antonine Order, has

produced a detailed of the various manuscripts and editions of

study printed
the synod of 1736. He also provides a French translation of the original Arabic

manuscript text, which until twenty years ago was considered lost. Atallah does
not offer an analysis of how the
synod influenced the restructuring of the Ma
ronite Church as the subtitle of his work might imply. Nor does he offer an ex
planation of how or why the Latin and Arabic texts of the synod came to differ.

Atallah's contribution consists in providing in one volume an itemized pre

sentation of all the correspondence that took place between Rome and the Ma
ronites leading up to the synod, a description of the synod and its aftermath,

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 788 BOOK REVIEWS

and a detailed exposition of the correspondence of both those challenging and

defending the synod. The remainder of the volume is a meticulous comparison
of the differences between the Latin and Arabic texts, especially of the Latin
text printed in Rome in 1820 and the Arabic text based on the original Arabic
manuscript printed in 1788. Atallah defends the authenticity of the Arabic text
and cites authorities in its support. He theorizes that both Latin and Arabic man

uscripts were the bases for the papal approval of the synod in 1741, and that
none of the reviewers at that time who knew both languages cited any differ
ences. However, Rome has consistently declared that only the Latin text is the
official one and made a definitive statement in 1883.

Atallah's literal translation of the original Arabic text of the synod is the first

complete translation in French. Translations of the approved Latin text exist

only in Arabic.

Chorbishop Seely Beggiani

The Catholic University of America

Late Modern European

John Henry Newman: The Challenge to Evangelical Religion. By Frank M.

Turner. (New Haven: Yale University Press. 2002. Pp. xii, 740. $35.00.)

The continued interest in the life of John Henry Newman (1801-1890) is re

markable. One wonders why a nineteenth-century author should continue to
attract so many biographers, who sometimes seem obsessive about investigat
ing and interpreting even the most minor details of his life. Such microscopic
interest has not been evident in the case of the other leaders of the Oxford
Movement: John Keble (1792-1866), Edward Bouverie Pusey (1800-1882), or
Richard Hurrell Froude (1803-1836). Nor has
comparable attention been given
to the lives of other Anglicans, who like Newman became Roman Catholics:
Frederick Faber (1814-1863), William George Ward (1812-1882), and New
man's fellow
cardinal, Henry Manning Edward
(1808-1892). Yet in the century

plus since Newman's death (1890), dozens and dozens of biographers have
drawn portraits of him?portraits varying from one biographer to the next.

One biography that is still very engaging is the two-volume work of Meriol
Trevor (Newman: The Pillar of the Cloud, 1962; Newman: Light in Winter,
1963; and a one-volume condensation, Newman's 1974), whose fasci
Journey,
nation with the faith-journey of a fellow convert produced a compellingly read
able narrative, though one lacking scholarly apparatus and critique. The latter
lacuna has recently been supplied by the late Vincent Ferrer Blehl (Pilgrim
Journey:John Henry Newman, 1801-1845,2001), an editor of Newman's let
ters and a vice-postulator of his cause for beatification. In a more popular vein,
Brian Martin (John Henry Newman: His Life and Work, 1982) has provided a
short well-written biography, whose attractive narrative is enhanced by ample

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