Egidio Forcellini, Priest and Scholar
On April 5, we commemorated the 250th Anniversary of a Priest most people have never heard of, but in whose debt many lovers of history and Ancient Civilization remain: Egidio Forcellini (1688-1768), an Italian philologist and lexicographer, who was the author of the voluminous Lexicon Totius Latinitatis, which was published posthumously in 1771. It took 35 years of painstaking labor, even working throughout his nights, to complete the work. To further emphasize the scale of the project, it took eight years to transcribe his handwritten notes. Even a cursory look at the work, here translated into English, demonstrates its thoroughness and the depth of his erudition.
Paul VI, in his address (49 years ago today) to the Twelfth Vaticanum Certamen conference in Rome, recalled the great Latinist Leo XIII’s praise of him as “Clarissimum lexicographum, de christiana et literraria republica egregie meritum”, or “The most famous lexicographer, greatly merited concerning [Latin] both Classical (Republican) and Christian.” Paul VI remarked moreover that his accomplishments were not limited to the scholarly. His scholarly work directly interlinked with his Priestly ministry:
“…Cuius tamen praecipuae laudes non modo in mirifica paene eruditione et priscae antiquitatis scientia constiterunt, sed etiam, atque in primis, in praeclara sacerdotali vita, in demissa animi comitate, in numquam intermissio caritatis et oboedientiae studio: cui scilicet hoc unum fuit propositum atque statutum, ut adulescenti clero solida instrumenta pararet et Sanctae Ecclesiae decori et emolumento consuleret.”
“[Forcellini’s] particular praises consist not only in his marvelous erudition and knowledge of antiquity, but also foremost in his famous Priestly life, in his unassuming courtesy, in his never ceasing study of charity and obedience: certainly his was one purpose and statute, that he would prepare for younger clergy solid instruments [for study] and be mindful of the beauty and benefit of Holy Church.”
As I have remarked before on this blog, it is a serious mistake to bifurcate the “pastoral” and the “intellectual” as if they were non-overlapping spheres of apostolic labor. Even as modern a Pope as Paul VI, not to mention all his predecessors and successors, never made that mistake. Instead, he recognized the love and holiness which impelled Father Egidio to spend his whole life’s labor to prepare a future generation of clergy for Classical Studies, knowing as he did, what an inestimable aid that was to their intellectual and moral formation.
Finally, we do well to remember Father Egidio Forcellini’s final exhortation, given in the Preface of his Lexicon, and recalled also by Paul VI:
“Macti igitur animis, studiosi clerici: Romanam eloquentiam amate, quae vobis olim sanctae Ecclesiae inservientibus magnopere est profutura!”
“Therefore you are honored by God in your souls, studious clerics: love Roman eloquence, which is given to exceedingly profit you, servants of Holy Church!”
True to his expertise, he makes use of the nearly untranslatable adjective “mactus“, which means to be honored, glorified or worshiped, but with very strong implications of divine favor. (It is somewhat like the impersonal “fas est”, for those who know Latin) Hence, in his great exhortation, for the studious cleric, to be skilled in the Latin tongue is both to give glory to God, and to be glorified by God. So may it be pro adulescenti clero.
