Domenico Palmieri

Domenico Palmieri (Piacenza, Italy, 4 July 1829 – Rome, 29 May 1909) was an Italian Jesuit theologian.

He studied in his native city, where he was ordained priest in 1852. On 6 June 1852, he entered the Society of Jesus, where he completed his studies. He taught in several places, first rhetoric, then philosophy, theology, and the Sacred Scriptures. In these courses, especially during the sixteen years that he was professor in the Roman College, he acquired a reputation as a philosopher.

On the election of Cardinal Andreas Steinhuber in 1893, Palmieri was appointed to succeed Steinhuber as theologian of the S. Pœnitentiaria.

In philosophy he published: "Animadversiones in recens opus de Monte Concilii Viennensis" (Rome, 1878); a more interesting work is his "Institutiones Pbilosophicæ" (3 vols., Rome, 1874–76). In this he followed the scholastic method; but the doctrines in many points differ from those common to the Peripatetic philosophers. As regards the composition of bodies he admits the dynamic theory, and considers the first elements of bodies to be formally simple, endowed with an attractive and repulsive force, but which he says are virtually extended. On the other hand, he does not admit the real accidents, and to explain the permanence of the Eucharistic Species, he has recourse to the phenomena of ether, which persist by Divine operation, the substance of bread and wine ceasing to exist.

He held a conception altogether his own of the life of plants, and assigned simple souls to animals, which expire with their death. As regards the origin of the idea, he was true to the scholastic principles in admitting that the intellectual apprehension has its origin in the apprehension of the senses; but to his last day would not admit the necessity of the intelligible species.

In Scriptural study also he made his mark. Having taught the Holy Scriptures from 1880–87, and Oriental languages to the scholastics of his society in Maastricht, he published "Commentarius in epistolam ad Galatas" (Gulpen, 1886); and "De veritate historica libri Judith aliisque ss. Scripturarum locis specimen criticum exegeticum" (Gulpen, 1886). Many others of his minor works can be placed under this head. When Alfred Loisy's book, "L'Evangile et l'Eglise", appeared, he was one of the first to attack it, in a treatise in the form of letters. He examined more minutely another work of Loisy's, "Autour d'un Petit Livre", in his "Esame di un opuscolo che gira intorno ad un piccolo libro". To this demonstration he joins a more complete one, on the Synoptic Gospels, also treated in "Se e come i sinottici ci danno Gesù Cristo per Dio" (Prato, 1903). Only the first part of this book, concerning the Gospel of St. Matthew, was published.

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