WIDAWSKI, Walenty

by Walenty Widawski

£3,250 · Offered by Sokol Books

A very good copy, tall, crisp and clean, of this most uncommon C16 reference text on the controversial question of indulgences. Walenty Widawski (Valentinus Laurentius Vidaviensis) (1537-1601) was a theologian, philologist and professor at the Jagellonian University in Cracow. His Generalis Controversia de Indulgentiis is a masterful summa of the meaning, function, regulations and theology of papal indulgences. In the letter to the reader, Widawski attacks heretics who fearlessly, stupidly, and impiously deny, desecrate, attack and persecute holy indulgences . The fundamental point of the work is that with strong faith in confession a Catholic can request an indulgence from God and be granted absolution. The Controversia is divided into questions, conclusions, corollaries, and examples concerning issues like the necessity of indulgences for justification, Lutheran polemics, the theological tradition of indulgences and their typological counterparts in the Old Testament, the benefits of prayer, fasting, and alms for the penitent, and the notorious tenet that indulgences are worth as much as they sound , depending on the authority, intention and willingness of the guarantor rather than solely on the piety of the receiver and the just cause for which they were requested. The last part contains an oration in which Widawski defends Scholastic theology not only from the attacks of the Protestants but also from Catholics like Erasmus, even though Scholasticism had successfully survi

• Binding: Hardcover

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