PREFACE
PREFACE I have long been interested in making Duns Scotus's philosophical and theological writings available in bilin gual editions. It seemed appropriate before the close of the present Marian Year to add this collection under the title of John Duns Scotus: Four Questions on Mary. Couched in the technical format used by professional medieval theologians in their academic presentations, these questions on particu lar aspects of Mariology, hardly make for easy reading. Fur thermore, the fact they were authored by one whose involved style and depth of thought earned him the title of "The Subtle
Doctor" does not increase their popular appeal. The question on the Immaculate Conception, however, did have a profound influence in the decades that followed its composition, so much so that Scotus also came to be called the "Marian Doc tor" and "The Doctor of the Immaculate Conception." There is even considerable evidence that the sobriquet "Subtle Doc tor" itself may have taken on its honorific meaning because of his defense of Mary's prerogative, especially at the Uni versity of Paris, the center for Christian theological stud ies in the Middle Ages. His proof that Mary could well have been sinless in every sense of the word and his statement that "if the authority of the Church or the authority of Scrip ture does not contradict such, it seems probable that what is more excellent should be attributed to Mary" may seem modest enough and cautiously worded to us today. But both at Oxford and even more so at Paris this "new theology" as it came to be called not only provoked heated opposition in the theological faculties, even to the point of being called hereti cal, but it also found support in academic circles that would never be fully extinguished. What Scotus said professionally first at Oxford and then at Paris would be repeated, adopted, first cautiously and then more boldly. Not only would it find expression in popular sermons to nourish the devotion of the faithful but also in the official lectures by bachelors and
Masters of theology, first among the Franciscans but eventu ally by devotees of Mary both religious and secular in uni versity circles. And through the providential guidance of the Holy Spirit the theological solutions Scotus proposed some five and a half centuries earlier would find confirmation in Pius IX's dogmatic proclamation of Mary's Immaculate Con ception in 1854. All this has been recognized by historians of theology, but there is another aspect of this question they seem to have ignored. At least I am not aware of any mention made of it. It is what Scotus did for the maculist theologians who could not accept his own belief. And that was to rework
Henry of Ghent's well meaning but nonsensical theory into a reasonable philosophical form. For by so doing he provided his more traditionally minded colleagues with a theologically acceptable alternative that would not dishonor the Mother of God, and for all practical purposes would shrink her needed state of unredemption to a zero point in time.
Of the remaining questions, that of the predestination of Christ is the most interesting. Though Scotus did not explic itly apply this Christological theory to Mary his mother, the later Scotists often did so, especially in their defense of her
Immaculate Conception. Scotus's questions on Mary's mater nity and marriage to Joseph may be of less interest to con temporary readers, but they are still of some importance to historians of medieval thought and seemed to deserve inclu sion in this Marian collection of translations.
I have set the questions up in the stylized tripartite for mat used by professional theologians for their academic lec tures. Each topic treated had to be couched in inquiry form and the question itself one of current interest. It began with a Pro and Con stressing especially the biblical and patristic authorities that seemed to run counter to the solution they wished to propose. It was followed by the corpus or main-body in which they laid out their position in detail along with the reasoning on which they based their conclusions, and finally it closed with an answer to the authorities to the contrary.
But "authority has a wax nose," as Alan of Lille pointed out.
(De fide catholica I, 30, PL 210, 333: Auctoritas cereum ha
bet nasum, id est, in diversum potest flecti sensum.) And the bachelor or master conducting the discussion had to show his dialectical skill in bending it in his own favor. As the bear ers of tradition, however, Scripture and the Fathers of the Church must always be treated with reverence, and never openly contradicted. For while contemporary opponents able to defend themselves might be boldly attacked and often at great length within the corpus of the question, each discus sion had to end with some gesture of respect for the past.
Needless to say, I am grateful as always for the interest and generous support of my Franciscan confreres at the Old
Mission, and in particular to Father William A. Haney, who suggested doing the present work and did so much of the edi torial drudgery necessary for our first experiment in desktop publishing.
Allan B. Wolter, O.F.M.
The Franciscan Institute December 8, 1999