Four works on Cannon law and practices. First edition, 1723

Scarfantoni, Joannis Jacobi: Four works on Cannon law and practices. First edition, 1723. Bound in modern calf with florets, gilt lettering a very handsome set of bindings. Interior some browning and occasionally heavy but still very readable. First part: Lcubrationes, [2,]blank, [1]title, +3, ++4, A-I4, K-T4, V-Z4: Second part: Decisiones, *4, [2], A-I4, K-T4, V- Z4, Aa-Ii4, Kk-Tt4, [2], [2]blank: Third Part: Pars Secundi, Liber tertius: [2]blank, [1]title, +3, [3], A-I4, K-T4, V-Z4, Aa-Cc4, Dd6,*: Fourth Part: Decisiones Sacrae Rotae Romanae: *6, A-I4, K-T4, V-Z4, Aa-Ii4, Kk-Pp4, [2]blank. All Printed by: Lucae; MDCCXXIII (1723), Ex Typographia Leonardi Venturini De Superiorum Licentia. Joannis Jacobi Scarfantoni: One of the many who participated in Cannons and the writing of Cannons. This work as a first large 4to edition (folio) is years of work by religious scholars and this reference compendium is an invaluable resource to theological researchers. An ecclesiastical person (Lat. Canonicus), a member of a chapter or body of clerics living according to rule and presided over by one of their number. Whether the title as applied to persons is derived from canon (Gk. kanón), a rule, or from the same term meaning a list of those who served a particular church, is much discussed. As however there are various kinds of chapters, each having its own specific rule, rights, and privileges, the most accurate definition of a canon is "a member of a chapter". Some writers have derived the title from the canon or rule of community life that was followed by certain clerics, and which distinguished them from others who did not live in community. "A canon is so called from the canon, that is from the regularity of the life which he leads" (Scarfantoni, ed. Lucca, 1723, I, 5). Opposed to this is the opinion that canons were so called form the fact that their names were inscribed on the lists of those who served churches for which they were ordained. (For the medieval use of the term see Ducange, Glossar. med et infimæ Latinitatis, s. v. Canonicus.) The latter appears to be the more logical derivation and is in accord with the arguments of Thomassinus and most other writers, who agree that our present cathedral chapters are the modern form of the ancient bodies of presbyters who in each particular church formed with the bishop the senate of that church [Thomassinus, "Vetus ac nova disciplina", pt. I, bk. III, cc. vii-xi, and lxiii-lxx; Binterim, "Denkwürdigkeiten" (1826), III (2), 317-84]. HISTORICAL ORIGIN It is not possible to say exactly when canons first had recognition as a body distinct from the rest of the clergy (cf. Amort, Vetus disciplina canonicorum regularium et sæcularium, Venice, 1747). In the very first ages of Christianity there is evidence that many churches had their own proper bodies of clergy, although it is not so clear that these clerics kept to any common rule of life. At the same time there were many clerics who did live in common, e. g. the cenobites, and the term canon was applied to them as early as the fourth century; but it must not be inferred from this fact that the office of canon has its origin in those who followed the cenobitical Rule of St. Augustine. So far as the Western Church is concerned the first certain evidence is contained in the famous ecclesiastical constitution or ordinance of the Benedictine monk Chrodegang, Bishop of Metz (763). His "Regula vitæ communis" (rule of common life) was at once a restoration and an adaptation of the Rule of St. Augustine, and its chief provisions were that the ecclesiastics who adopted it had to live in common under the episcopal roof, recite common prayers, perform a certain amount of manual labour, keep silence at certain times, and go to confession twice a year. They did not take the vow of poverty and they could hold a life interest in property. The canons then as now formed the council of the bishop and assisted him in the ruling of his diocese. Those attached to the cathedral churches, being regularly models of the vita canonica, were soon known as canonici par excellence, and in time formed a special corporation, with all the rights proper to such bodies. (CE)