93 - [MANUSCRIPT]

[MANUSCRIPT] Tractatus de actibus humanis de peccatis de legibus de gratia, presented by the Most Reverend Depret, president of His Excellency’s seminary and Licentiate of the University of Leuven 18th-century manuscript, 610 pp., bound in one square 8vo volume. Full antique calfskin. Spine with 5 raised bands, decorated with gilded panels and fleurons. Title label (THEOLOGIA) and volume number (TOM. II) in oxblood morocco. Red edges. Losses on the spine, split joints, rubbing. Interior fresh. Old signature “E. Jacques, parish priest” on the title page. Under the Ancien Régime, the title “His Celsitude” (Sua Celsitudo) was reserved for a Prince-Bishop. This course was therefore taught by Father Depret while he was directing the Major Seminary of a Prince-Bishop, most likely the Prince-Bishop of Liège (the Episcopal Seminary of Liège). The content of the manuscript is precise. Indeed, the title perfectly describes the classical curriculum of moral theology taught in the second or third year of seminary in the 18th century, modeled after Saint Thomas Aquinas’s *Summa Theologica*: • *De actibus humanis*: the study of human freedom, the will, and the morality of actions. • De peccatis: the nature of sin and the vices. • De legibus: divine, natural, and human laws. • De gratia: the theology of grace (a hot-button issue in Leuven in the 18th century due to the controversies surrounding Jansenism).