NOLDIN, HIERONYMUS

Jesuit moral theologian; b. Salurn of the South Tyrol, Austria, Jan. 30, 1838; d. Vienna, Nov. 7, 1922. Ordained in 1861, Noldin entered the Society of Jesus four years later, and after ten years of study and teaching became rector of the Jesuit theologate at Innsbruck. There, in 1883, he wrote his first book, Die Andacht zum Heiligsten Herzen Jesu (11th German ed. 1923; first English tr. W. K. Kent, OSC, The Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, 1905). From 1886 to 1890 Noldin edited Zeitschrift für Katholische Theologie and then taught moral theology for 19 years at the University of Innsbruck. In 1902 he published his major work, Summa Theologiae Moralis, a three-volume Latin textbook including sections on the fundamental principles of morality, the Commandments, and the Sacraments, and two appendixes, one on the Sixth Commandment and the use of marriage, and the other on ecclesiastical penalties. This influential textbook was in its 16th edition before the author's death and enjoyed several later editions under the direction of A. Schmitt, also of the University of Innsbruck. The 33d edition appeared in 1961 under the editorship of G. Heinzel. Noldin wrote three other smaller works, including Decretum de Sponsalibus et matrimonio cum declaratione (c. 1900) and De iure matrimoniali iuxta codicem (1919).

Bibliography: a. schmitt, Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie 47 (1923) 11–20. g. heinzel, "Hieronymus Noldin und sein Werk," ibid., 80 (1958) 200–210.

[j. upton]