§ 111. Roger Bacon.
§ 111. Roger Bacon.
Literature: Works.—Among the early publications were Speculum alchymiae, Nurnb., 1541, Engl. trans. London, 1597; De mirabili potestate artis et naturae, Paris, 1542, Engl. trans. 1659; De retardandis senectutis accidentibus, Oxford, 1590, Engl. trans.; The Cure of Old Age and Preservation of Youth, by the great mathematician and physician, Roger Bacon, ed. by R. Browne, London, 1683; Opus majus (six books only), by Samuel Jebb, London, 1733, reprinted Venice, 1750; Opus minus and Opus tertium, with valuable Preface by J. S. Brewer, London, 1859, Rolls Series; Opus majus, with valuable Preface, by J. H. Bridges, all the seven books, 3 vols., London, 1900.
Biographical: Emile Charles: B. Bacon, sa vie, ses ouvrages, ses doctrines, Paris, 1861.—L. Schneider; R. Bacon, etc., Augsb., 1873-the Prefaces of BREWER and BRIDGES as above.—Professor R. Adamson, in "Ency. Britt." III. 218–222, and Dict. of Natl. Biog., II. 374–378. White: Warfare of Science and Theol. I. 386–393.
Duns Scotus was a Schoolman and
nothing more. Roger Bacon, his contemporary, belongs to a different order of
men, though one of the greatest theological thinkers of his age. He did not
take up the great questions of theology and seek to justify them by dialectical
processes. The most he did was to lay down principles for the study of
theology; but it is as the pioneer of modern science and the scientific method
of experiment that he has his distinguished place in the mediaeval galaxy of
great minds. The fact that he had to suffer for his boldness of speech by
imprisonment and enforced silence increases the interest felt in his teachings.
His method of thought was out of accord with the prevailing method of his
times. He was far ahead of his age, a seer of another era when the study of
nature was to be assigned its proper place of dignity, and theology ceased to
be treated as a field for dialectical ingenuity.
Born in Somersetshire, England, Roger Bacon, called the Wonderful doctor, mirabilis doctor, 1214(?)-1294, studied in Oxford, where he came into close contact with Robert Grosseteste and Adam Marsh, whom he often mentions with admiration. He went to Paris about 1240, continued his studies, and entered the Franciscan order. He speaks in his Opus tertium of having been engaged more than twenty years in the study of the languages and science, and spending £2000 in these studies and the purchase of books and instruments, or £600 or £700 present value.1593 He went back to Oxford, but was recalled to Paris by his order, at the head of which Bonaventura then stood, and placed in more or less strict confinement, 1257. At first he was denied the privilege of writing, but was allowed to give instruction to young students in the languages.
Clement IV. who, before his elevation to the papal chair and as legate in England, had been his friend, requested copies of his writings. In about eighteen months, 1264–1266, Bacon prepared the Opus majus and then its two appendages, the Opus minus and the Opus tertium, and sent them to the pope. In 1268, he was again in Oxford. In 1278, he was relegated to closer confinement on account of "certain suspected " about which we are not more particularly informed, adduced by the Franciscan general, Jerome of Ascoli, afterwards Nicolas IV. He was set free again in 1292, as we know. His body lies buried in the Franciscan church of Oxford. It was said that his books were nailed to the walls of the library at Oxford and left to perish. The story may be dismissed as untrue, but it indicates the estimate put upon the scholar’s writings.
If we were to depend upon the influence he had upon his age, Roger Bacon would have no place here. At best he was thought of as a dabbler in the dark arts and a necromancer. He had no place of authority among his contemporaries, and the rarest notice of him is found for several centuries. D’Ailly, without quoting his name, copied a large paragraph from him about the propinquity of Spain and India which Columbus used in his letter to Ferdinand, 1498. It was not till the Renaissance that his name began to be used. Since the publication of his writings by Samuel Jebb, 1733, he has risen more and more into repute as one who set aside the fantastical subtleties of scholasticism for a rational treatment of the things we see and know, and as the scientific precursor of the modern laboratory and modern invention. Prophetic foresight of certain modern inventions is ascribed to him, but unjustly. He, however, expounded the theory of the rays of light, proved the universe to be spherical, and pronounced the smallest stars larger than the earth.1594 With Anaxagoras, he ascribed the Nile to the melting of the snows in Ethiopia.1595 He was not the inventor of gunpowder of which the Arabs knew.
Bacon’s works, so far as they are published, combine the study of theology, philosophy, and what may be called the physical sciences. His Opus majus in seven books, the Opus minus, and Opus tertium are measurably complete. Of his Scriptum principale or Compendium studii philosophiae, often referred to in the writings just mentioned, only fragments were written, and of these only portions are left. The work was intended to be in four volumes and to include a treatment of grammar and logic, mathematics, physics, and last metaphysics and morals. The Communio naturalium and other treatises are still in manuscript.
The Opus majus in its list of subjects is the most encyclopaedic work of the Middle Ages. It takes up as separate departments the connection of philosophy and theology, astronomy including geography, astrology, barology, alchemy, agriculture, optics or perspective, and moral philosophy, medicine and experimental science, scientia experimentalis.
By agriculture, he meant the study of the vegetable and animal worlds, and such questions as the adaptation of soil to different classes of plants. In the treatment of optics he presents the construction of the eye and the laws of vision. Mathematics are the foundation of all science and of great value for the Church. Alchemy deals with liquids, gases, and solids, and their generation. A child of his age, Bacon held that metals were compound bodies whose elements can be separated.1596 In the department of astrology, in accordance with the opinions prevailing in his day, he held that the stars and planets have an influence upon all terrestrial conditions and objects, including man. Climate, temperament, motion, all are more or less dependent upon their potency. As the moon affects the tides, so the stars implant dispositions good and evil. This potency influences but does not coerce man’s free will. The comet of 1264, due to Mars, was related to the wars of England, Spain, and Italy.1597 In the department of optics and the teachings in regard to force, he was far ahead of his age and taught that all objects were emitting force in all directions. Experimental science governs all the preceding sciences. Knowledge comes by reasoning and experience. Doubts left by reasoning are tried by experience, which is the ultimate test of truth.
The practical tendency of Bacon’s mind is everywhere apparent. He was an apostle of common sense. Speaking of Peter of Maricourt of Paris, otherwise unknown, he praises him for his achievements in the science of experimental research and said: "Of discourses and battles of words he takes no heed. Through experiment he gains knowledge of natural things, medical, chemical, indeed of everything in the heavens and the earth. He is ashamed that things should be known to laymen, old women, soldiers, and ploughmen, of which he is himself ignorant." He also confessed he had learned incomparably more from men unlettered and unknown to the learned than he had learned from his most famous teachers.1598
Bacon attacked the pedantry of the scholastic method, the frivolous and unprofitable logomachy over questions which were above reason and untaught by revelation. Again and again he rebuked the conceit and metaphysical abstruseness of the theological writers of his century, especially Alexander of Hales and also Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas. He used, at length, Alfarabius, Avicenna, Algazel, and other Arabic philosophers, as well as Aristotle. Against the pride and avarice and ignorance of the clergy he spoke with unmeasured severity and declared that the morals of Seneca and his age were far higher than the morals of the thirteenth century except that the ancient Romans did not know the virtues of love, faith, and hope which were revealed by Christ.1599 He quoted Seneca at great length. Such criticism sufficiently explains the treatment which the English Franciscan received.
This thirteenth-century phiIosopher pronounced the discussion over universals and individuals foolish and meaningless. One individual is of more value than all the universals in the world. A universal is nothing but the agreement between several objects, convenientia plurium individuorum convenientia individui respectu alterius. That which is common between two men and which an ass or a pig does not possess, is their universal.
In the department of philology,1600 and in the interest of a correction of the Vulgate and a new translation of Aristotle is works, he urged the study of Arabic, Hebrew, and Greek. He carried down the history of the translations of the Bible to Jerome.
He recommended the study of comparative religions which he arranges in six classes,—Pagan, Idolater, Tartar (Buddhist), Saracen, Jew, and Christian,—and concludes that there can be only one revelation and one Church because there is only one God.1601 He finds in miracles especially the power to forgive sins, the chief proof of Christ’s divinity, and gives six reasons for accepting the testimony of the Christian writers; namely, sanctity, wisdom, miraculous powers, firmness under persecution, uniformity of faith, and their success in spite of humble origin. It is characteristic of this philosopher that in this treatment he avails himself of the information brought to Europe by William Rubruquis whom he quotes.1602
He regarded philosophy as having been revealed to the Jewish patriarchs, and the Greek philosophy as having been under the guidance of providence, nay, as having been a divine gift, as Augustine said of Socrates.1603 Aristotle is the great phiIosopher, and philosophy leads to the threshold of revealed truth, and it is the duty of Christians to avail themselves of it.1604 As Solomon, a type of Christ, employed Hiram and other outside workers at the temple, so the Church should utilize heathen philosophers.1605 He gives five reasons why the early Church did not make use of Greek philosophy except for the regulation of the calendar and its music,1606 a proposition which would seem very crude to the present advocates of the theory of the dependence of the Apostolic writers upon Hellenic modes of thought. Bacon magnified the supreme authority of the Scriptures in which all truth strikes its roots and which laymen should read. All sciences and knowledge are to be subordinated to the Catholic Church, which is the appointed guardian of human interests. Theology is the science which rules over all the others.1607 It seems almost incongruous that Bacon should have brought his Opus majus to a close by arguing for the "sacrament of the altar" as containing in itself the highest good, that is, the union of God with man. In the host the whole of the Deity is contained.
The admirable editor of Bacon’s Opus majus, Dr. Bridges, has compared Bacon’s procedure to a traveller in a new world, who brings back specimens of produce with the view of persuading the authorities of his country to undertake a more systematic exploration.1608 Without entering into the discussion of those great themes which the other Schoolmen so much delighted in, Bacon asserted the right principle of theological study which excludes from prolonged discussion subjects which have no immediate bearing upon the interests of daily life or personal faith, and pronounced as useless the weary systems which were more the product of human ingenuity in combining words than of a clear, spiritual purpose. To him Abaelard is not to be compared. Abaelard was chiefly a scholastic metaphysician; Bacon an observer of nature. Abaelard gives the appearance of being a vain aspirant after scholastic honors; Bacon of being a patient and conscientious investigator.
Professor Adamson and Dr. Bridges, two eminent Baconian scholars, have placed Roger Bacon at the side of such thinkers as Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas. A close student of the Middle Ages, Coulton, has recently gone so far as to pronounce him a greater intellect than Thomas Aquinas.1609 The honor accorded to him in these recent days in circles of scientific research is as genuine as the honor given to the Angelic doctor in the Catholic communion. There is, however, danger of ascribing to him too much. Nevertheless, this forerunner of modern investigation may by common verdict, though unhonored in his own age, come to be placed higher as a benefactor of mankind than the master of metaphysical subtlety, Duns Scotus, who spoke to his age and its immediate successors with authority.
Roger Bacon contemptuously said of it that it was heavier than a horse in weight. Natl. Dict. of Biogr., I. 273. Other MSS. ascribed to Alexander are found in Oxford, etc. The summa de virtutibus, Paris, 1509, a Com. on the Apocalypse, Paris, 1647, published under his name, are of doubtful authenticity.
Videtur quod sic, et videtur quod non.
Cognitio secundum visum, cognitio secundum gustum.
See Chapter on the Sacramental System.
He speaks in his will of spending most of his life in the convent at Cologne. He appointed a brother by birth, Henry, one of his executors. Sighart, p 247.
Leo XIII., in his letter allowing Borgnet to dedicate his edition of Albert’s works to him, said: "Especially am I glad to grant this permission because our old love for the angelic doctor is not disjoined from love for his teacher." Borgnet’s ed., I. p. vii. Labbé, the Jesuit editor of the acts of the councils, wrote a poem comparing Albert with his pupil, Thomas Aquinas, and greatly praising him for his eulogy of Mary. Borgnet, I. lxxii. sq.
Sighart, pp. 148, 152, ascribes his resignation to bitter opposition, and thinks Albert had this opposition in mind when he was writing the paraphrase to Aristotle’s Politics. The slothful, Albert says, find fault with those who excel. They killed Socrates, drove out Plato from Athens, and banished Aristotle. These people have the same plan in the domain of letters and science that the liver has in the body. For everybody has gall which collects in the liver and which dispenses itself and makes the whole body bitter. Thus in the domain of letters there are some bitter men filled with gall, who would fain make all other men bitter, and will not allow them to seek after truth in sweet company.
So Von Hertling. The records of the council do not mention his name. Peter of Prussia affirms Albert was present, and is followed by Sighart, p. 225.
Averrhoes, Avicenna, Algazel, etc. The honor of first mastering all the works of Aristotle and putting them into the service of Christian philosophy belongs to Albertus, says Schwane, p. 40.
This is brought out by J. Guttmann, in his Die Scholastik des 13ten Jahrhunderts in ihren Beziehungen zum Judenthum und zur judischen Lateratur, Breslau, 1902.
He again and again says: "Aristotle erred,"e.g. Borgnet’s ed., III. 545, etc. He says: "He who believes Aristotle to have been a god, can believe he never erred. But if he was a man, then he could err like ourselves." Borgnet’s ed., III. 553
Sent., II. xiii., F. Borgnet’s ed., XXVII. 249 sq.
An interesting survey of Albert’s knowledge of nature is given by Sighart, pp. 302-356; also Stöckl, II. 359 sqq.
Summa de creaturis, vols. XXXIV., XXXV., in Borgnet’s ed.
Theologia verissima scientia est et, quod plus est, sapientia. Summa theol., I. 1, 1; Borgnet’s ed., XXXI. 9.
Summa, I. 3, q. 17; Borgnet’s ed., XXXI. 116.
Physic, VII.; Borgnet’s ed., III. 483-502.
Philosophi pro propria ductu naturalis rationis non potuerunt cognoscere trinitatem personarum. Borgnet, XXXI. 60.
Summa, I. 7, q. 31; Borgnet, XXXI. 326 sqq.
De locutione angelorum. Summa, II. 9, q. 35; Borgnet, XXXII. 376-387. He draws in his discussion from Augustine, St. Basil, and John of Damascus.
Sent., IV. 50; Borgnet’s ed., XXX. 699. Albert even goes so far as to discuss whether unborn infants destroyed by abortion rise from the dead.
in quid cecidit diabolus. Summa de creaturis, IX. 67; Borgnet’s ed., XXXIV. 682 sqq. Summa theol., II. 5, q. 23 sqq.; Borgnet’s ed., XXXII. 266-286.
Adjunctus autem finis est qui secutus est ex isto: et ille est reparatio ruinae angelicae. Summa, II. 12 sq., 74; Borgnet’s ed., XXXIII. 57.
Quare est creatus homo vel angelus? Brevi sermone, respondere potest. Propter bonitatem ejus. Sent., II. 1, E.; Borgnet’s ed., XXVII. 35.
Summa, II. 14; Borgnet’s ed., pp. 131 sq.
Habet potestatis plenitudinem quia est ordinarius omnium hominum et quia est vice Dei in terris. Summa, II. q. 141, 3; Borgnet, XXXIII. 484.
Encyclical, Aug. 4, 1879. See text in Mirbt, pp. 391 sqq. Thomas is praised as "inter scholasticos doctores omnium princeps et magister ... ingeniodocilis et acer, memoriae facilis et tenax, vitae integerrimus, veritatis, unice amator, divina humanaque scientia praedives." The preface to the papal edition attacks the Lutheriana pestis and the Lutherianum virus, which are to be counteracted by the works of Thomas in cujus limpidissima et angelica mente veritas divinitus nobis patefacta. See Schaff, Thos. Aq. and Leo. XIII., p. 179.
William of Thoco, ipse talem dabit in doctrina mugitum quod in toto mundo sonabit.
This title was given to the work after Thomas’death. Thomas, in his dedication to Urban IV., calls it exposito continua. The Catena is so contrived that it reads like a running commentary, the several extracts being dovetailed together. The compiler introduced nothing of his own but connecting particles. See Preface to Oxford ed., p. iv.
Summa de veritate Catholicae fidei contra Gentiles. The first three books include the arguments from reason, the fourth the argument from revelation.
Contra errores Graecorum andde unitate intellectus contra Averrhoistas.
See Koch, Kirchenlied, I. 137; Wackernagel, Kirchenlied, I. 143 sqq.; Werner, I. 791 sqq.
Eicken, D. Philosophie d. Th. von Aq., p. 4, says, er gëhort nicht so wohl zu den schaffenden als zu den ordnenden Geistern. "He belongs not so much to the originating as to the organizing minds." He repeats this judgment in his Thomas von Aquino und Kant, p. 27. He who would charge the Middle Ages with confused and abstruse deductions must look for examples elsewhere than in Thomas.
Following Sighart, Life of Albertus Magnus, and Landerer, in art. Albertus in Herzog, 2d ed. XV. 575, Stöckl says, II. 421, 734, that "Thomas stands wholly upon Albert’s shoulders. Thomas finished what Albert began." Thomas received a strong impulse from Albert, but he went out especially in the departments of ethics and apologetics into regions not fully explored by his great teacher.
Multiplicatio inutilium quaestionum, articulorum et argumentorum. Prologue.
De Dei simplicitate, I. q. 3; Migne, I. 626 sqq.
Summa, I. 32, 1; Migne, I. 888, I. 1, 1; Migne, I. 607.
Summa, I. 1, 8; Migne, I. 615.
Tum propter certitudinem tum propter dignitatem materiae. Summa, I. 1, 5; Migne, I. 610.
Seine Darstellung will gar nichts anders sein als das wissenschaftliche Bewusstsein der kirchlichen Lehre. Baur, p. 354.
Non eodem ordine utraque doctrina procedit, etc. See Werner, II. 151, and his quotation from the contra Gentiles.
See Köstlin, Beweise fürs Dasein Gottes, in Studien u. Kritiken, 1876, pp. 10 sqq.
Sicut sagitta a sagittante. Summa, I. 2, 3; Migne. I. 622 sqq.
Mundum incepisse est credibile, non autem demonstratibile vel scibile. Summa, I. 46; Migne, I. 1008.
Ideo scriptores locorum de hoc loco mentionem non fecerunt. Summa, I. 102, 1; Migne, I. 1433.
Summa, I. 103, 7; Migne, I. 1446. Comp. Werner, II. 396 sqq., for the passages from contra Gentiles.
In locum angelorum cadentium substituti sunt homines. Summa, I. 23, 6; Migne, I. 828.
Summa, I. 2, q. 72, 5; Migne, II. 633 sq. Thomas replies that in this case original sin would not have passed down to Adam’s posterity, for according to philosophers, the active principle in generation is the father. But if Adam had sinned and Eve had not sinned, original sin would have passed down to Adam’s descendants.
Haereticum est dicere quod anima intellectiva traducatur cum semine. Summa, I. 118, 2; Migne, I. 1556.
Superadditio gratiae. Summa, I. 95, 1; Migne, I. 1405 sq. Comp. Loofs, Dogmengesch., pp. 292-295.
Ad diligendum Deum naturaliter super omnia. Migne, II. 909.
Migne. II. 603.
Summa, III. Prologus; Migne, IV. 10.
Justificatio impii non est successiva. Summa, I. 2, q. 113, 7 sqq. Migne, II. 955. Justification is defined as "an infusion of grace whereby the freewill is moved and guilt is pardoned."
Per baptismum pueri liberantur a peccato originali et ab inferno. Summa, III. 57, 7; Migne, IV. 485, 486.
Summa, III. 65, 1; Migne, IV. 595. See Werner, II. 676-699.
Summa, II. (2), 10, 12; Migne, III. 101 sqq.
Totus Christus sub utraque specie. Summa, III. 76, 2; Migne, IV. 734.
Praecipue propter meritum Christi, etc. Supplem., XXV. 1; Migne, IV. 1014.
Summa III. 94; Migne, IV. 1343 sqq. See Werner, II. 712.
Not infrequently are there two or three references to Aristotle on a single page, e.g. I. (2), 2, 2; I. (2), 4, 2, Migne, II. 22, 46.
Baur, pp. 429 sqq., pronounces Thomas’method descriptive rather than consequential. The system is not developed from fundamental principles.
Summa, II. (2), 150, 4; Migne, III. 1051.
Summa I. (2), 2, 1 sqq.; Migne, II. 19-37.
In visione divinae essentiae. Migne, II. 43.
No less than forty-six questions are devoted to the religious virtues, Migne, III. 9-375 and one hundred and twenty-four to the philosophical, Migne, III. 375-1194.
Per se et essentialiter consistit perfectio christianae vitae in charitate. Summa, II. (2), 84, 3; Migne, III. 1295.
See Werner, I. 760 sqq., 794 sqq. Köstlin, art. Staat und Kirche, Herzog Enc., 2d ed., XIV. 629 sqq. Reusch, Die Fälschungen, etc.
De regimine principum ad regem Cypri. Two of the four books of this famous work are certainly genuine. The last two books are probably by Thomas’disciple, Ptolemy of Lucca. Poole has some judicious remarks on this work, Illustr. of Med. Thought, pp. 240-266.
Eicken, D. Philosophie d. Thomas, etc., p. 38.
successor Petri, Christi vicarius Romanus Pontifex cui omnes reges populi Christiani oportet esse subdito sicut ipsi domino Jesu Christo. De reg. principum, I. 14.
Romanae ecclesiae magistrae et matris omnium ecclesiarum cui obediendum est tanquam Domino Deo Jesu, etc. Contra errores Graecorum, Reusch’s ed., p. 9. Also Mirbt, Quellen, pp. 143 sq. This work contains a discussion of four points: the Procession of the Holy Ghost, the primacy of the pope, the use of unleavened bread in the eucharist, and purgatory. It was written at the time when the reunion of the Greeks and Latins was the subject of negotiations. In the preparation of this treatise, Thomas used a work put into his hands by Urban IV., once patriarch of Jerusalem. Thomas refers to it as libellum ab excellentia vestra mihi exhibitum sanctissime Pater Urbane Papa diligenter perlegi. It is full of citations from Cyril of Jerusalem, Cyril of Alexandria, Chrysostom, and other Fathers, as Reusch, following Launoy, learnedly shows. Thomas accepts the quotations without a question as genuine. The tract has never been published in full. It was known to the abbot Uccelli from a MS. in the Vatican, and parts of it bearing on the papacy were issued by his hand, 1870. Reusch prints a portion of the Vatican MS., and also a part of the unpublished MS., the Thesaurus veritatis fidei by the Dominican Bonacursius, who wrote later than Thomas, and drew from the same source as Thomas did. The Dominicans were specially active in urging the extravagant claims of the papacy as against the Greek patriarch.
Cum tota ecclesia sit unum corpus, oportet si ista unitas debet conservari, quod sit aliqua potestas regitiva respectu totius ecclesiae supra potestatem episcopalem, qua uniquaeque specialis ecclesia regitur, et haec est potestas papae. Summa, Supplem., 40, 7; Migne, IV. 1075.
Quod subesse Romano pontifici sit de necessitate salutis. contra errores Graecorum. Döllinger, in Das Papstthum, says that "Thomas was the first theologian to discuss the theory of papal infallibility as an integral part of systematic theology." Leitner, pp. 10-14, etc. denies this. See Chapter XV.
A number of MSS. left by Ware are preserved in Oxford.
In the controversiae theol. inter Thomam et Scotum, by De Rada, the Franciscan bishop of Trani, Cologne, 1620. Werner devotes the whole third volume of his Life of Thomas, filling 876 pages, to the posthumous influence of Thomas. It takes up the teaching of his pupils, the conflicts with the Franciscans and Jesuits, etc., and brings in the names of Des Cartes, Leibnitz, Malbranche, Schelling, etc. See also art. Thomismus und Scotismus in Wetzer-Welte, XI. 1699-1710.
Thomas war der Brunn und Grundsuppe aller Ketzerei, Irrthumb undVertilgung des Evangelium wie seine Bücher beweisen. Erl. ed., 24. 240.
Köstlin, Leben M. Luthers, I. 431.
In the tract, Thomas von Aquino und Kant, Eicken contrasts Thomas and Kant as the representatives of two antagonistic types of thinking and study, the mediaeval and modern, that which is mechanical and bound by external authority, and that in which the individual, the subjective, have their proper place as the determining principles. Kant is the creator of ideas, the thinker; Thomas, the compiler and systematizer of ideas previously announced.
Prologue to his Life of St. Francis.
De paupertate Christi. Peltier’s ed., XIV. 364-409. A few years later he presented the subject more at length in his Apologia pauperum. Peltier’s ed., XIV. 410-520.
Sabatier, Vie de S. François, lxxi.-lxxxviii., compares Bonaventura’s life to the figures of saints exposed for sale on a dealer’s shelves, all having a downcast, pious, but unreal look. The biography is given by Peltier, XIV. 293-363.
His body, it seems, was burnt by the Calvinists in 1562. Only the head was saved. The right arm had before been removed to Bonaventura’s birthplace. See Hergenröther. Kirchengesch., II. 529; Wetzer-Welte, II. 1022.
Quae veritatis sunt credenda de necessitate salutis. Du Pin’s ed. of Gerson’s Works, 1728, I. 21. See also Gerson’s Epistola in lauden S. Bonaventurae Du Pin’s ed., I. 117.
Paradiso XII. 127.
Sixtus V. in his encyclical admitting Bonaventura into the company of the Doctors of the Church places them side by side and brings out their distinguishing characteristics. He calls them potissimum gloriosi doctores —"those most illustrious teachers.
Sie sind die beiden leuchtenden Sterne am Horizont des 13ten Jahrhunderts. Stöckl, II. 882.
Peltier gives his sermons in vol. XIII. For his works on Mary, see section 130.
A number of the works once ascribed to Bonaventura are regarded as ungenuine, e.g. de six alis cherubim, de septem itineribus aeternitatis, etc. The Venetian ed. of 1751 and Bonelli discuss the authorship of the many writings associated with Bonaventura’s name.
Peltier’s ed., VII. 240-343. Funk, Kirchengesch., p. 364. An ed. was published by Hefele, 3d ed., Tübingen, 1861, and also Vicenza, 2d ed. Freiburg, 1881. Sixtus V. said of Bonaventura’s theology that "nothing more fruitful for the Church of God" had appeared, Encyclical in Peltier’s ed., I p. viii.
II. 296-520.
Peltier’s ed., II. 298sqq. The arguments given for an affirmative answer to this question are that the angels are in a place not after a "bodily but spiritual fashion." Theyarespiritual lights, as the Areopagite said, and consequently are independent of space, etc. Bonaventura, however, answers the question in the negative.
Peltier’s ed., II. 415 sqq. Bonaventura answers that foreknowledge belongs to God alone, but that by reason of their intellectual acuteness and long experience the demons are sometimes able to accurately predict contingent events.
Stöckl, II. 880, says, Bonav. ist vorzugsweise Mystiker, and expresses the opinion that the mysticism of the Middle Ages reached its highest point in him.
e.g. Cogitatio, meditatio, contemplatio, ascendere, etc.
Itinerarium mentis in Deum. Peltier’s ed., XII. 1-22. His Meditations on the Life of Jesus, his commentaries on Ecclesiastes, the Book of Wisdom, and John and Luke belong to this class. The mystical element is also strong in the Breviloquium and the Centiloquium. Other mystical writings ascribed to Bonaventura, such as Incendium amoris, de septem verbis domini, etc., are disputed.
These three activities constitute the theologia symbolical theol. propria, and theol. mystica.
Itin., 7.
Döllinger, p. 2127, and Harnack, III. 429, agree in pronouncing Duns the "most acute thinker among the Schoolmen," der scharfsinnigste scholastishe Denker. Seeberg, Theol. d. J. D. Scotus, p.2, speaks of "the enormous difficulty"—ungeheure Schwierigkeit —whichthe reading of Duns offers to one who is not thoroughly familiar with his mode of thinking and expression. Again, p. 6, he speaks of Duns’ "sentences and arguments" as "endlessly complicated." Schwane, p. 78, says that Duns’ abstruseness of thought, lack of system in presenting his materials, and the thorny paths of his critical method have imparted to theology little glory. See also pp. 288, 292.
Die Hoffnung aus seinen Schriften ein System herzustellen ist vergeblich, Seeberg, p. 644.
"Remember ye not," said Tyndale, "how within this thirty years and far less, the old barking curs, Dunce’s disciples, and like draff, called Scotists, the children of darkness, raged in every pulpit against Greek, Latin and Hebrew ?"—Quoted by Trench: The Study of Words, p.91.
1274 is the date accepted by Wadding, Cavellus, and Schwane. Döllinger, Rigg, and Seeberg adopt an earlier date. Seeberg, pp. 36 sqq., lays stress upon the refusal of the bishop of Lincoln, in 1300, to grant to Duns the privilege of hearing confession. A rule of the Franciscans, 1292, required that members of the order should be thirty before aspiring to this privilege. In this case Duns was born before 1270.
Döllinger attaches much weight to a statement made in a MS. of one of Duns’ works in Merton College, to the effect that he was born in Dunstane, England. O’Fihely, MacCaghwell, and Wadding, all Irishmen, are loyal to the theory that he was of Irish nativity. Dempster gives twelve reasons to prove Duns was a Scotchman. See Dict. Natl. Biog., XVI. 216, and Seeberg, p. 34.
Seeberg, pp. 46 sqq. MacCaghwell in two tracts learnedly denied his being buried alive.
3 Scotia me genuit, Anglia me suscepit,
Gallia me docuit, Colonia me tenit.
It fills 3 vols. in the Paris ed.; the Opus Oxoniense, 14 vols.; the Quodlibetales, vols. XXV., XXVI.
Trithemius, 1495, distinctly speaks of two volumes of Duns’ Sermons. Seeberg, p. 63.
Universali aliquid extra correspondet a quo movetur intellectus ad causandum talem intentionem. Seeberg, p. 69.
Libris canonici sacri non est credendum nisi quia primo credendum est ecclesiae approbanti et autorizanti libros istos et contenta in eis. Seeberg, p. 120.
Quare voluntas voluit hoc, nulla est causa, nisi quia voluntas voluntas est, Seeberg, pp. 162 sqq., 660 sqq.
Harnack, Dogmengesch., III. 446, has chosen strong words to show the unwillingness of Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus to pursue the narrow way to the knowledge of God, that is, through the person of the historical Christ. And Seeberg, p. 671, lays stress upon the failure of Duns to bring God near to the soul. God remained a God afar off. According to both these modern dogmaticians, it remained for the Reformation through the principles of a living faith and God’s love to bring God into nearness to the soul.
Seeberg, Dogmengesch., II. 135, Theologie, etc., 227 sq., 293 sqq., 666 sq.; Schwane, p. 463.
Carentia justitiae originalis. Seeberg, 218 sq.; Loofs, Dogmengesch., p. 305. Harnack, III. 551, and Seeberg, p. 220, emphatically assert that Duns abandoned the Augustinian conception of sin and moral corruption.
Pronitas in appetitu rationali, i.e. in voluntate ad concupiscendum delectabilia immoderate. Quoted by Stöckl, II. 362.
He concludes his account of Anselm’s exposition by acknowledging his indebtedness to Anselm, in the words haec veraciter, ut potui, ex dictis ejus, collegi. Seeberg, p. 283. Seeberg’s full discussion of Duns’ theory of the atonement, pp. 275-296.
For quotations see Schwane, pp. 656 sqq. Seeberg finds in Duns’ definition the doctrine of consubstantiation.
Döllinger regards the story as open to grave suspicion because, at the time at which the disputation is set, there was no conflict between the two orders. Wetzer-Welte, X. p. 2129.
This is the view of such experts in the history of mediaeval theology as Schwane, p. 78, etc., and Stöckl. Stöckl, II. 868, declines to compare Duns with Thomas as a trustworthy teachers and says that Duns’ only service to theology was through his polemics, which started an impulse to search for a firmer basis of certainty for doctrinal truth in reason and revelation.
pp. 33, 668, 672, 677. Ritschl was a student of Duns and praises his clearness of thought so long as he keeps free from syllogisms. He kept the Schoolman’s Works constantly within reach. O. Ritschl, A. Ritschl’s Leben, II. 483.
See the reference to the Reportata, Schwane, p. 78,
Quoted in Dict. of Natl. Biog.XVI, 219,
In spite of this, Seeberg, pp. 683-685, tries to make out that in his conception of God, Luther, howbeit "negatively," was influenced by Duns’ view of the divine will. Luther certainly did not acknowledge any such indebtedness.
MSS. of other works are given by Ehrle, Zur Biogr. Heinrichs von Ghent, in Archiv für Lit. u. K. gesch., 1885, pp. 400 sq. See Schwane, pp. 71-76, etc., and Wetzer-Welte, V. 1704 sqq.
Publ. at Venice, 1489-1509, Brescia, 1591, etc. MSS. exist in Oxford and elsewhere. See Little, Grey Friars of Oxford; Kingsford, in Dict. of Nat. Biog., XXXVII. 356 sq.; Seeberg, pp. 16-33.
1593 Bridges’ ed., p. xxiii.
1594 Opus majus, Bridges’ ed., I. 152, 176.
1595 I. 323.
1596 As an illustration of some of Bacon’s chemical and medical advice the following receipt may be given. He says a combination of gold, pearl, flower of sea dew, spermaceti, aloes, bone of stag’s heart, flesh of Tyrian snake, and Ethiopian dragon, properly prepared in due portions, might promote longevity to a length hitherto unimagined, Op. Maj., II. 206.
1597 Op. maj., I. 385 sqq.
1598 Bridges’ ed., Op. maj., I. pp. xxv., 23.
1599 Op. maj., II. 303 sqq.
1600 Bridges’ ed., 1. 66-96.
1601 Bridges’ ed., II. 366-404.
1602 I. 303, II. 367 sq.
1603 I. 41.
1604 I. 56-59.
1605 I. 37.
1606 I. 28-30.
1607 I. 33, Una scientia dominatrix aliarum.
1608 I p. lxxxix.
1609 From St. Francis to Dante, p. 293.