 | This article includes alist of references,related reading, orexternal links,but its sources remain unclear because it lacksinline citations. Please helpimprove this article byintroducing more precise citations.(July 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Thomas Maria Mamachi | |
|---|---|
 Portrait of Thomas Maria Mamachi | |
| Born | Francesco Saverio Mamachi (1713-12-03)December 3, 1713 |
| Died | 5 June 1792(1792-06-05) (aged 78) |
| Nationality | Italian |
| Occupations |
|
| Academic work | |
| Notable works | Originum et antiquitatum christianorum libri XX (1749-55) Dei costumi dei primitivi cristiani (1753-54) |
Thomas Maria MamachiO.P. (December 4, 1713 inChios – June 7, 1792 inCorneto, nearMontefiascone), was an Italo-Greek Dominican theologian and historian.
At the age of sixteen he entered the convent of Chios and passed later to St. Mark's atFlorence and the Minerva atRome.
In 1740 he was appointed professor ofphysics in the RomanSapienza university, and in 1743 taught philosophy at thePropaganda Fide. His residence at Florence and Rome brought him into contact with brilliant men of his order, e.g.Giuseppe Agostino Orsi,Divelli andDaniello Concina, and greatly facilitated his progress in his studies. He collaborated with Orsi in his "De Romani pontificis in synodos oecumenicas et earum canones potestate".
Soon popeBenedict XIV appointed him prefect of the Casanatensian Library, master of theology andconsultor of theCongregation of the Index. Owing to his office he had to take part in the controversy between the Appellants (Jansenists) and theJesuits, and displayed an impartiality which greatly increased the difficulties of his anxious and laborious position. He engaged in lively theological controversies withGian Domenico Mansi andCadonici.
He had likewise to intervene in the controversy concerning thebeatification ofJuan de Palafox y Mendoza. In a published writing on this question, he dealt severely with the Jesuit party who opposed the beatification; but he was not less energetic in dealing with their opponents, the Appellants and Jansenist Church ofUtrecht.
He was director of the ecclesiastical journal of Rome (1742–85), and established at his residence a reunion of the learned Roman society.
Mamachi was a zealous supporter of the power of the Roman Pontiff. Involved in all the controversy of the day, he was one of the first to take issue withJohannes Nicolaus Von Hontheim (Febronius).Pius VI made him secretary of the Index (1779) and afterwardsMaster of the Sacred Palace, and frequently availed himself of his advice and of his pen.
Mamachi's great work was to have been his "Christian Antiquities", but his labours in the field ofdogma andjurisprudence absorbed so much of his time that he published only four of the twenty books that he planned. Moreover, he lived in an age when the good method inaugurated byAntonio Bosio had been abandoned and, considered as an archaeological work, the synthesis which he had projected is valueless. A second edition, however, appeared in 1842–1851.
His chief writings are:
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Thomas Maria Mamachi".Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
