Anthony Terill (Bonville)

Anthony Terill (Bonville)

English theologian, b. at Canford, Dorsetshire, in 1623; d. at Liége, 11 Oct., 1676. His mother was a Catholic but his father was estranged from the Faith, and in consequence the young Anthony was reared in heresy until his fifteenth year, when he was converted and left England, taking the alias Terill. He studied for about three years at the English College of St. Omer, and then began his studies for the priesthood at the English College, Rome, where he was ordained on 16 March, 1687. Two months later he entered the Jesuit novitiate at St. Andrea. After his noviceship he was successively penitentiary at Loreto, professor of philosophy at Florence, professor of philosophy and scholastic theology at Parma, director of theological studies and professor of theology and mathematics at the English College, Liége, and for three years rector of the same college where he died with a reputation for "extraordinary piety, talent, learning, and prudence". He wrote "Conclusiones philosophicæ" (Parma, 1657), "Problema mathematico-philosophicum de termino magnitudinis se virium in animalibus" (Parma, 1660), "Fundamentum totius theologiæ moralis, seu tractatus de conscientia probabili (Liége, 1668), and "Regula morum" which was published shortly after his death (Liége, 1677). His reputation as a moral theologian was established by these last two works. In the "Fundamentum" he ably defended the doctrine of probabilism and in the "Regula morum" refuted the objections brought against his first work by the Dominican Concina, the Jesuit Elizalde, and other exponents of the Rigorist School. Amort speaks of him as "eruditissimum et probabilistarum antsignanum".

FOLEY, Records of the English Province, S. J., III (London, 1878), 420; SOMMERVOGEL, Bib. de la Comp. de Jésus, VII (Brussels, 1896); HURTER, Nomenclator, II (Innsbruck, 1893), 275-276.

EDWARD C. PHILLIPS