Peter Auriol Research Articles

Potere e limiti della conoscenza da Enrico di Gand a Enrico di Harclay

Henry of Ghent can be considered the secular master of the thirteenth century who describes with a more emphasis and originality the relation between knowledge and power. Henry asserts (art. XIII, q. 3 of the Summa quaestionum ordinariarum; Quodlibet XII, q. 2) that even if Faith, as an instilled habit in us, is prior to any other form of knowledge, in order to grasp the truth of the Holy Scriptures, we need the lumen naturale. Nevertheless, in order to attain a better understanding of the terms of the theological propositions, a clarius lumen, is wanted: it is the special illumination granted to the theologians which allows them to grasp - already in this life! - those truths that ordinary man cannot grasp by means of the lumen naturale, or simply by means of the lumen fidei. Introducing a lumen speciale, intermediate between the lumen fidei, granted to every pious man, and the lumen gloriae, proper to the beati, Henry renders the theologian a special man. John Duns Scotus, Peter Auriol and Henry of Harclay, re-phrasing Henry’s doctrine, admit only the possibility that someone in this life scientifically knows the divine truths. On the other hand Henry of Ghent affirms that, at least only the theologian, really knows these truths. From this knowledge speciale derives as much power speciale related to vita activa. In accord with Henry, therefore, the theologian is the true scientist and legislator, even superior than the pope and so, maybe, he could be considered the happiest human being in via.

Medieval Trinitarian Thought from Aquinas to Ockham (review)

Reviewed by: Medieval Trinitarian Thought from Aquinas to Ockham Matthew Levering Russell L. Friedman . Medieval Trinitarian Thought from Aquinas to Ockham. Cambridge-New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Pp. viii + 198. Cloth, $85.00. In this elegantly written book, Russell Friedman offers a fascinating account of Trinitarian theology in the period 1250-1350. Chapter 1 compares Aquinas's and Bonaventure's explanation of the identity and distinction of the three divine Persons. For Aquinas, the properties constitutive of the divine Persons are strictly relational properties, grounded in relations of opposition in the order of origin. Bonaventure accepts the role of relational properties, but he emphasizes the distinct way that each Person emanates: the Father is unemanated, the Son emanates as generated by the Father ("by way of nature"), and the Holy Spirit emanates as freely spirated by the Father and the Son ("by way of will"). As Friedman shows the difference between Aquinas and Bonaventure is encapsulated by the fact that the latter holds that the Father is Father because he generates (generation constitutes the distinct relation, "Father"), whereas the former considers that the Father generates because he is Father (the distinct relation, "Father," is the ground of generation). The [End Page 374] first view prioritizes emanation; the second, relation of opposition in the order of origin. Having argued that generation conceptually precedes the Person of the Father, Bonaventure has to deal with the challenge that generation can only arise from an agent. His solution to this challenge is to posit that the Father's "primitas" or innascibility is not simply what the Father is not, but rather contains a positive disposition (or fontal plenitude) to generating another Person. For Bonaventure, this is a conceptual move rather than an alternative to the relational account, but soon other Franciscans—Friedman focuses on John Pecham—begin to consider "primity" (rather than paternity) as constitutive of the Person of the Father. In this view, the "emanational distinction" now does the work of the "relational distinction," although the latter remains present. Emanations do not constitute relations of opposition. In privileging the emanational account, Henry of Ghent goes so far as to reject the relational account entirely, on the grounds that a relation cannot be real. Radicalizing Augustine's psychological analogy, Henry also understands the two divine emanations as literally intellectual and voluntary: the Son and Holy Spirit differ because generation is an intellectual emanation and spiration is a voluntary emanation. The same view is held by John Duns Scotus. For the relational account, by contrast, strictly linking the generative power with the divine intellect and the spirative power with the divine will is a serious mistake. Although they differ from each other as regards cognitional theory, Henry and Scotus also agree in warning that Aquinas's cognitional theory assumes that the mental word is produced by the act of understanding rather than (as Augustine has it) by the intellectual memory. To ensure the role of the intellectual memory, Scotus finds himself compelled to argue that there is a formal distinction both between divine intellect and will and between the divine attributes and essence. For his part, Henry of Ghent holds that all plurality (divine and created) arises from the distinction between intellect and will in God. In response to these threats to God's simplicity, early fourteenth-century Franciscan theologians—Friedman discusses Peter Auriol, Francis of Marchia, and William Ockham in particular—stress the absolute divine simplicity. Auriol, for example, denies that the emanations of the Son/ Word and the Spirit/Love have a source in the divine attributes or essence. Rather, it is the distinction between the two emanations that grounds what Auriol terms the "connotative" distinction between divine intellect and will. Arguing against the literal construal of the psychological analogy, Francis of Marchia strongly rejects Scotus's notion of the formal distinction of the divine essence and attributes. Ockham does the same, even though he allows for a weak "connotative" distinction. According to Ockham, we can know only by faith that the Son is properly called "Word." On this basis we can define divine "intellect" as the source of the Word, so long as we do not attempt to explain this any...

Dalla pagina alla scientia. L’identificazione tra libri e sapere scientifico nel Medioevo scolastico e il caso anomalo della teologia

The official documents of the Parisian Faculty of Arts (starting from the Statute of March 1255) show a close identification between the philosophical sciences and the corresponding textbooks: to learn a particular science means essentially to read certain, prescribed books. The case of theology seems to be different, however. In spite of the fact that the Bible served as a paradigm for the ‘textualization’ of all kinds of knowledge, and even of the whole world, it did not fit perfectly the epistemological criteria which Aristotle’s Posterior analytics established as necessary for every science. Already in the second half of the 13thcentury, both Thomas Aquinas and Henry of Ghent tried to construct theology as a science, in the Aristotelean sense, by appealing respectively to the theory of the subalternation of the sciences and to the doctrine of the lumen medium. The different reactions to these two models by Godfrey of Fontaines, Durandus of Saint-Pourçain and Peter Auriol seem to indicate a process in which theology can constitute itself as a true science only through a broadening of its textual basis, outside the scope of Sacred Scripture.

Landulph Caracciolo on Intentions and Intentionality

This article presents a critical edition from the six surviving witnesses of Landulph Caracciolo’s (d. 1351), Scriptum in I Sententiarum, d. 23, a text that has never appeared in print before. A short introduction begins to set Landulph’s treatment of intentions and intentionality in this text into its historical, philosophical, and theological context, in particular linking it to the positions of John Duns Scotus and Peter Auriol.

Peter Auriol the Rhetorician: A Recently Discovered Treatise on Rhetorical Figures

Peter Auriol the Rhetorician: A Recently Discovered Treatise on Rhetorical Figures

Divine Simplicity and Predestination in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century

The doctrine of divine simplicity as developed by Patristic writers suggests that the divine essence is identical to actions of the undivided divine nature, such as knowing and willing. However, natures or essences, on the one hand, and actions, on the other, appear to be fundamentally different. The first belongs to what God is in and of Himself, while the second belongs to the category of the Godhead’s undivided action. Can operations of the divine essence, whether in se or ad extra, be identical to the divine essence, to God’s very being? If so, how? And if not, how are they to be understood? This article examines the way in which four scholastic theologians from the second half of the twelfth century - Peter Lombard, Roland of Bologna, Alan of Lille, and Peter of Poitiers - answer these questions. In doing so, it illuminates the origins of theological techniques that persist and continue to play an important role in fourteenth- century discussions of predestination by theologians such as Peter Auriol, while also demonstrating the inadequacies of describing theologians from the second half of the twelfth century in terms of schools.

Review: Theology at Paris, 1316-1345. Peter Auriol and the problem of divine foreknowledge and future contingents

Review: Theology at Paris, 1316-1345. Peter Auriol and the problem of divine foreknowledge and future contingents

Book Review: Theology at Paris, 1316–1345: Peter Auriol and the Problem of Divine Foreknowledge and Future Contingents

Book Review: Theology at Paris, 1316–1345: Peter Auriol and the Problem of Divine Foreknowledge and Future Contingents

The Debate between Peter Auriol and Thomas Wylton on Theology and Virtue

The Debate between Peter Auriol and Thomas Wylton on Theology and Virtue

The Immaculate Conception in the Works of Peter Auriol

The Immaculate Conception in the Works of Peter Auriol

The Doctrine of Place in a Commentary On the Physics Attributed To Antonius Andreae

AbstractThe Quaestiones in libros Physicorum contained in the Cambridge Ms Gonville & Caius 368 (590) is an interesting piece of early Scotist philosophy of nature. The doctrine of place, contained in three questions on the fourth book of Aristotle's Physics, is based mostly on the solutions given by Duns Scotus. The question on bilocation offers a combined summary of the opinions given in Scotus' Ordinatio and Reportata parisiensia or of a text that combines the two, for example the Abbreviatio Operis oxoniensis Scoti attributed to Antonius Andreae. In his question about the nature of place, our anonymous author presents a more original assemblage of Scotist views, adding arguments from Scotus' Quodlibel XI and from Francis of Marchia. The latter thinker appears to be the most important source for the question concerning the place of the ultimate sphere. In all questions, the author argues against the views of Peter Auriol, his main opponent throughout the commentary.

Many Readers but Few Followers: The Fate of Nicholas of Lyra's “Apocalypse Commentary” in the Hands of His Late-Medieval Admirers

“Use Auriol's Compendium as a mould, pour in Lyre, flavor with Augustine, and sprinkle with Grosseteste.” This was John Wyclif's (1330–1384) recipe for biblical commentary. It may be the nature of biblical commentary that commentators do not follow recipes closely, but the history of how the admirers of Nicholas of Lyra's Apocalypse Commentary (1329) received and reworked it indicates that Nicholas's work served frequently as the “mould” into which other interpretations were “poured,” while his own Augustinian seasonings were largely ignored. Although later commentators often adopted Nicholas's method, they more frequently poured in the ingredients of his younger Franciscan colleague, Peter Auriol (whose Apocalypse Commentary of 1319 Nicholas sharply critiqued), serving up a dish that Nicholas would not have enjoyed eating.

Nicholas of Lyra: Apocalypse Commentator, Historian, and Critic

Famous for the literal/historical interpretation of the Bible, Nicholas of Lyra, O.F.M. (1270-1349) made his mark as a revisionist historian in the Apocalypse Commentary (1329) of the Literal postil 1 To comment on the Apocalypse, the only prophetic book of the New Testament, he used and criticized the order of history (historical-linear) interpretations of two Franciscans, Alexander Minorita (d. 1271) and a younger contemporary of Lyra, Peter Auriol (1280-1322). 2 Alexander and Peter had both written

Peter Aureoli and William of Ockham on Relations

PETER AUREOLI AND WILLIAM OF OCKHAM ON RELATIONS In the late middle ages, many scholastics debated the ontological status of categorical relations. This controversy took place largely because a number of philosophical and theological issues, such as the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the God-creature relation, to name a few, needed a coherent and illuminating theory ofrelations. As a result ofthis intellectual need, a long-standing and deep problem in the history ofwestern metaphysics finally received a protracted and sustained discussion. A number of alternative theories were adopted by the scholastics. The divergence in views can be formulated in terms of three severally necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for a real relation. The scholastics all agree on the first two conditions, but disagree on the third. Sentences of the form "a is really related by a real relation R to b" are true if and only if (i) a and b are really distinct extra-mental things; (ii) there is a real foundation in a for R; and either (iiia) there exists a relation R, an extra-mental thing with its own accidental reality really distinct from but inhering in a (strong realism; Scotus); (iiib) there exists a real relation R, a real mode ofbeing intentionally distinct from a (modalism; Henry of Ghent); (iiic) there exists a real relation R, a concept in the mind (conceptualism; Peter Aureoli); or (iiid) there exists a real relation R, which is nothing more (nor less) than the extramental fact that a and b exist in a certain way (Henry of Harclay). Speaking according to natural reason, William ofOckham adopted a version ofthe fourth alternative. Arguing against the strong realism of Scotus, he maintained that relational terms do not signify directly any thing (res) distinct from the relata. Rather, relational terms are connotative. The term "similarity," he claims, "signifies two white things immediately, apart from any intermediate relation, or it signifies one 232MARK HENNINGER principally and connotes the other."1 No relational thing or res relativa need be posited. In this paper, I would like to explore the third alternative mentioned above. According to this view, relational terms do directly signify an entity, not an extra-mental res, but a concept. It is not William ofOckham, as sometimes alleged, but his fellow Franciscan Peter Aureoli who teaches that a real relation is a concept.2 1 believe Peter Aureoli (d. 1322), in holding this novel view, exited from the medieval tradition and foreshadowed an empiricist view of relations in the early modern period. In his Sentence commentary,3 Aureoli's arguments against the extramental reality of real relations reveal an understanding of relations quite different from his fellow scholastics. In Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and to a lesser extent Henry of Harclay and Hervaeus Natalis, there I would like to thank Marilyn McCord Adams for her tireless generosity in reading and making helpful comments on this paper. Also I am very grateful to Girard J. Etzkorn of the Franciscan Institute for encouraging me in this and other projects. 1 Ockham, Quaest. in II Sent., q. 1: "... similitudo significat duo alba immediate sine omni relatione media, vel unum principaliter et aliud connotative ." (OTh V, 16). 2 For a good overview of Peter Aureoli, his life, works, and thinking, see Am. Teetaert, "Peter Auriol," Dictionnaire de théologie catholique 12, 1810-1881. For Aureoli's philosophical and theological positions, see cols. 1846-77. Also see, R. Dreiling, "Der Konzeptualismus in der Universalienfrage des Franziskaner Erzbischofs Petrus Aureoli," BGTPMA U, 6. See also Peter Aureoli Scriptum super primum Sententiarum (ed. E. M. Buytaert). Buytaert 's first volume contains the text ofthe prologue and distinction one, along with a table of seventy-five questions, and much information on Aureoli. Volume two contains distinctions two to eight. 3 Petrus Aureoli, Comment, in 1 Sent., d. 30-31 (ed. Roma 1596, ff. 659-718). Although this edition is an ordinatio, the text is in fact full of difficult and perhaps corrupt readings that at times impede discerning aspects of Peter's thought. His teaching on relations, however, is rather clear. It is indicative of the novelty of his position that he poses the question of the reality ofrelations in terms oftheir...