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Supple lecture
For the past three years, David Hunter has given the Supple Lecture
and has focused on marriage and the early Catholic Church. That didn't
change this spring.
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Long before he came to Iowa State as the Monsignor
James Supple Chair of Catholic Studies, David Hunter was interested in
the relationship of the early Church and marriage.
For 15 years, Hunter taught in the Department of Theology at the University
of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn.
He is the author of several books including Marriage in the Early Church
and Augustine, Marriage and Virginity, and countless articles on
the subject.
So when it came time for Hunter, professor of religious
studies, to give his annual Supple Lecture he turned to the subject
he knows best.
His first Supple Lecture revolved around early Christian views on marriage.
"I looked at developing Christian trends in marriage during the first
two centuries," he said.
The second Supple Lecture focused on St. Augustine and his views on marriage
and celibacy in the 4th and 5th centuries.
The third Supple Lecture will be held Monday, March 11, at 8 p.m. in the
Memorial Union's Sun Room. The event is sponsored by the Department of
Philosophy and Religious Studies, the St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Student
Center, the Monsignor James Supple Endowment Fund and the Committee on
Lectures.
This time Hunter will speak on "A Reluctant Heretic: Jovinian and
the Early Christian Debate on Marriage."
Jovinian was a 4th century monk who was condemned by the Pope and other
church writers at the time for his views on marriage and celibacy. Hunter
will focus his remarks on the overriding Catholic issues of sexuality,
marriage and celibacy of priests.
"As a scholar of Catholic tradition, I'm interested in how ideas
and practices from the history of Christianity have shaped the way the
Christian tradition has evolved," Hunter said. "The study of
history shows why Catholics believe what they do today.
"It's important to understand where we came from."
Hunter says he started conducting his scholarly work in the late '80s
at a time when many scholars were examining the ascetic and monastic movements.
"I thought it would be interesting to look at individuals who resisted
the monastic movements of early Christianity - people like Jovinian,"
he said.
Hunter is particularly interested in this time frame because it was not
until the 4th century that the Catholic Church made it a requirement for
priests to be celibate. And then, it was only the Western (Latin) Church
had made that doctrine. The Eastern branch of the Catholic Church never
did adopt this requirement.
That time frame is the subject of a new book that Hunter hopes to complete
by the end of the year. Like his talk March 11, the book will focus on
Jovinian and the debates on marriage and celibacy.
And for his next project, Hunter will stay in the same time period. He
will again tackle Augustine and his views of celibacy and marriage and
"how his views evolved over his lifetime."
"Augustine saw a lot of truth in what Jovinian said," Hunter
said. "He took a much more aggressive approach to the questions of
marriage and celibacy in the Catholic Church. He was very concerned that
celibate Christians might think that they were better than other Christians
and he thought it was important that they didn't."
For Hunter, the Catholic Church's past is important, especially with the
crisis the Church is experiencing with an aging priesthood.
"I think it is inevitable that the Catholic Church will change its
requirement for priests to be celibate," he said. "They have
to rethink their position."
Around LAS
March 11-31, 2002
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