CANO, ca'no (Canus), MELCHIOR: A scholastic Dominican of the University of Alcala; b. at Tarancón (38 m. w. of Cuenca), Spain [Jan. 1, 1509; d. at Toledo Sept. 30, 1560]. He took part in the deliberations of the Council of Trent, especially in those concerning the doctrine of the Eucharist, opposing the efforts made at the instance of the emperor Ferdinand that the cup should be given to the laity. Having returned from Trent, Philip II. made him bishop of the Canaries, without residence there, as he became provincial of his order in Castile. His principal works are: Prœlectiones de pœnitentia and De sacramentis (both Salamanca, 1550), and his Loci theologici (1563), consisting of twelve books about the sources whence doctrinal proofs may be derived; the "authoritas" has its place before the "ratio," and the principal source is of course tradition. Although an opponent of the Jesuits, Cano was a thoroughgoing papal theologian, and he was a scholastic, although he opposed "false" scholasticism. For his opposition to the Jesuits he had to suffer denunciations which caused his citation to Rome in 1556 as "perditionis filius, Melchior Canus, diabolicis motus suasionibus, non erubuit prœdicare, antichristum venisse." By the exertions of the Spanish government the citation was not headed. But the Loci theologici were placed on the Lisbon index in 1624, and were much altered by the expurgator.

K. BENRATH.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: F. H. Reusch, Der Index der verbotenen Bücher, i. 303 et passim, Bonn, 1883; F. Caballero, Conquenses

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illustres. II. Melchior Cano, pp. 279, 382, Madrid, 1871.

CANON: A word used in a variety of senses in ecclesiastical terminology, all more or less related to the primary meaning of the Greek word kanon, "a straight rod or bar, rule, standard." (1) The decisive list of the books considered as forming part of the Holy Scriptures (see CANON OF SCRIPTURE). (2) In ancient usage, any official church list, as of those who were to be commemorated in the liturgy, whence the term canonization, or of the clergy attached to a certain church, whence (3) A member of a body of clergy living together under a more or less definite rule in connection with a cathedral or collegiate church or in a quasimonastic organization as canons regular (see CHAPTER; AUGUSTINIANS; PREMONSTRATENSIANS). (4) The decree or decision of a council for the regulation of doctrine or discipline (see CANON LAW). (5) The fixed, most important portion of the mass, from the Sanctus to the Pater noster. (6) In the hymnology of the Eastern Church, an important class of long and elaborate hymns usually sung in the morning office, founded mainly on the Old Testament canticles then used, and composed of either eight or nine odes.