Terill (BONVILLE), ANTHONY, English theologian, b. at Canford, Dorsetshire, in 1623; d. at Liege, October 11, 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 March 16, 1647. Two months later he entered the Jesuit novitiate at San 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, Liege, 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 philosophica” (Parma, 1657), “Problema mathematico-philosophicum de termino magnitudinis ac virium in animalibus” (Parma, 1660), “Fundamentum totius theologise moralis, seu tractatus de conscientia probabili” (Liege, 1668), and “Regula morum” which was published shortly after his death (Liege, 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 antesignanum”.
EDWARD C. PHILLIPS