ABBOTT, THOMAS KINGSMILL: Church of
Ireland, author and professor; b. at Dublin Mar.
26, 1829. He was educated at Trinity College,
Dublin (B.A., 1851; M.A., 1856; B.D., 1879),
where he was elected fellow in 1854. From 1867
to 1872 he was professor of Moral Philosophy at
Trinity College, of Biblical Greek from 1875 to
1888, and of Hebrew from 1879 to 1900, and has
also been librarian of the College since 1887. He
has been chairman of the Governors of Sir P. Dun's
Hospital since 1897. In theology he is a Broad
Churchman. His works include
Sight and Touch,
an Attempt to Disprove the Berkleyan Theory of
Vision
(Dublin, 1864);
Par palimpsestorum Dublinensium
(1880);
Elements of Logic
(1883);
Evangeliorum
versio Antihieronymiana
(2 vols., 1884);
Theory of the Tides
(1888);
Celtic Ornaments from
the Book of Kells
(1892);
Notes on St. Paul's
Epistles
(1892);
Essays, Chiefly on the Original
Texts of the Old and New Testaments
(Edinburgh,
1897 );
Catalogue of Manuscripts in the Library of
Trinity College, Dublin
(Dublin, 1900); and
Catalogue
of Incunabula in the Library of Trinity College,
Dublin (1905),
in addition to
Kant's Theory of Ethics,
a translation (1873).
ABBREVIATORS: Officials of the papal chancery
whose duty it is to prepare apostolic letters
expedited through that office. The name is derived
from the fact that part of their work consists in
taking minutes of the petitions addressed to the
Holy See and of the answers to be returned. Formerly
they were divided into two classes,
di parco
maggiore
and
di parco minore,
but the latter class
has long been abolished. In the College of Abbreviators
at the present time there are twelve clerics
and seventeen laymen. Legislation of Feb. 13,
1904, defines their duties anew. The office dates
from the early part of the fourteenth century, and
has been filled by many distinguished prelates.
In 1466 Paul II. abolished it because it had been
corrupted, but it was restored by Sixtus IV. in 1471.
There is also an
abbreviatore di curia
attached to
the datary, who prepares minutes of papal letters
addressed
motu proprio
to the entire Church.
