Life Of Ockham 3
LIFE OF OCKHAM
A. D. 1339 more Gallicorum vicesima tertia mensis Februarii." It follows from this, then, that when Nominalists later interpreted "Inceptor" as meaning "Inceptor scholae Nominalium," they misunderstood an old title of Scholastic terminology.6
If Ockham did not become a " Magister regens," the question naturally arises as to why he was not advanced from the rank of an "Inceptor." The most plausible explanation is that he was prevented because he was accused of heresy by the former Chancellor of Oxford,
John Luterell : his academic career was thereby cut short. The accusation took place in 1323, when Luterell went to Avignon. The following year, 1324, Ockham was called to Avignon, and action was brought against him.
This year, 1324 (the second certain date in Ockham's life) , marks the end of the first period of his career. Going back from this date, we must try to throw some light on the earlier part of his life. We can reasonably presume he was a "Baccalaureus formatus" from about 1323 to 1319 (though, of course, there is still the possibility that this was earlier) ; that he commented on the Sentences from about 1319 to 1317, lectured on the Bible from about 1317 to 1315, and studied
Theology from about 1315 to 1310. Before this date, 1310, he studied the Arts .
Ockham, therefore, was born probably before 1290 — at least ten years earlier than the date given by Hofer.
Our calculation may be confirmed by two other indications hitherto overlooked.
In his letter to the General Chapter of the Franciscan Order held in 1334, Ockham writes : "Puto enim in istis quatuor annis ultimis plura de moribus nunc viventium evertisse, quam si cum eis extra istam brigam quadraginta annis conversationem habuissem."7
It seems probable that when he wrote this letter, he was at least forty years old. Another indication is found in the MS Erfurt Amploniana O 67, where at the end of the Summa Logicae of Ockham the scribe writes as follows :
"Explicit tractatus logice fratris Willialmi 6. Cf. also Ms Firenze Bibl. Naz . A. 3. 801 :
"Explicit scriptum venerabilis doctoris [corrected to " inceptoris"] Guilielmi de Ockam super primum Sententiarum." Ockham is called "Magister" at the end of the Mss of Erfurt Amploniana 0 76 and Paris Bibl. Nat. 16130, both written before 1350. Erfurt
F 301, written in 1348, has the " explicit" : "Loyca Wilhelmi Ockam qui fuit de ordine fratrum minorum. Ipse etiam fuit magister sacre pagine." Erfurt 0 67
(written in 1339) has the "explicit" :
"Explicit tractatus loyce fr. Willialmi Ockkam de provincia Anglie doctoris sacre theologie." The same in many other manuscripts. We agree with Hofer ( 1. c., p. 220 ) : "Ockham gehörte zur Kategorie der schriftstellernden non magistri," if he takes non magistri in the sense of non magistri regentes.
7. Cf. Baudry, L., "La lettre de Guillaume d'Occam au chapitre d'Assise," in Revue d'histoire franciscaine, 3 ( 1926 ) , p. 215.
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okham de provincia anglia doctoris" [this last word is erased ; another hand has written on the margin : "Quidam invidus delevit hoc nomen doctoris. Quod tamen videtur hic debere stare ut patet per prologum huius libri"] sacre theologie divisus.... Scripsit frater
[the name is erased] de custodia norwegie in [ ?
] anno domini M°CCC°XXXIX° cuius memoria sit in pace." The following work, which is an extract from Burley's Tractatus de puritate artis logicae - written against the Summa as stated there has this "Incipit" : "Hanc extractionem de logica burle ordinavit frater Johannes nicholai de custodia [
? ] provincie dacie quando studuit parisius anno domini M °CCC XXIX de cuius logice commendacione praemisit prologum in hunc modum." The Summa Logicae, therefore, was completed before 1328, perhaps before 1327.8 However, the Summa Logicae quotes Ockham's Commentaries on the Sentences, on the works on logic of Porphyry and Aristotle, and on the Physics of Aristotle. These works alone, when published in a future critical edition, will fill at least five to seven respectable volumes of the size of the Quaracchi edition of St. Bonaventure.
It is hard to believe that any man, even with such a mind brilliant as Ockham's, could have completed all these works, and probably more, at the age of twenty-seven years.
Our conjectures have been confirmed by a recent and unexpected finding. Father Conrad Walmesley, O. F. M., has discovered in Archbishop Winchelsley's Register (fol. 116 ) an entry to the effect that "a William of Ockham, O. F. M., was ordained subdeacon by Archbishop Winchelsley in the Church of St. Mary, Southwark, on February
26, 1306."
This leads us again to postulate a date earlier than 1290 for the birth of Ockham : probably around 1280 .
It is probable, though by no means certain, that Ockham was born at Ockham in the County of Surrey, south of London. This is only a conjecture based on his name ; and , even as a conjecture, it has not much cogency because in most of the oldest manuscripts Ockham is called simply "Guilielmus Ockham" and not " Guilielmus de Ockham."
A very faint indication that his home was near London may be found in the Tractatus de successivis, or better in the Expositio super libros
8. Before 1327, because, as we shall see later, before May, 1328, Ockham studied for a few months the problem of poverty. The manuscript-tradition of the Summa Logicae clearly points to an earlier date than 1339, because at this time different families were already established. On the other hand, the time from 1328-1340 was so troublesome for Ockham that he hardly could have found leisure to write purely philosophical works in addition to his numerous political works.
9. Cfr. Guillelmi de Ockham Opera politica, accuravit J. G. Sikes (Manchester, 1940) , p. 288.
LIFE OF OCKHAM
Physicorum, and in his Quodlibeta, where he illustrates some points by references to London.10
II. OCKHAM AT AVIGNON
When Ockham was accused of heresy by John Luterell (at the earliest, in 1323 ) , he went to Avignon
( in 1324) at the command of Pope John XXII . There is no evidence that what had brought him to the Papal court was the struggle about the question of poverty, 11 which was being agitated by the Friars at that time and had divided the Order into two parties. As Ockham later wrote, he became acquainted with that question only in the last year of his stay at Avignon.
It is certain, therefore, that it was in connection with his own philosophical and theological doctrine that he had gone to the French city.
Pope John created a commission to take charge of his cause, even before August 26, 1325, as we know with certainty from a papal letter. To this commission there belonged, besides John Luterell, three
Dominicans (Raymundus Bequini, Patriarch of Jerusalem ; Durandus de St. Porciano, Bishop of Meaux ; and Dominicus Grima, Bishop-elect of Pamiers) , and two Hermits of St. Augustine (Gregory, Bishop of Belluno-Feltre, and John Paynhota) .
His process was drawn out over three years, without any definite settlement being reached . Two acts were elaborated by 1326, the basis of both being the list of fifty-six articles composed by Luterell. The acts of the commission, however, retained only thirty-three of these
10. Only if such a name occurs in the oldest manuscripts may it be an indication of a certain relation of the author to localities. Federhofer, "Ein Beitrag zur Bibliographie und Biographie des Wilhelm von Ockham," in Philosophisches
Jahrbuch ( 1925 ) , pp. 26-48, abuses this argument in basing his reasoning even on the printed text of the Quodlibeta. There occurs, indeed, the name of Strassburg; but the oldest known manuscript of the Quodlibeta (Vaticana lat.
3075, written in 1333 ) refers to London and Rome instead of Strassburg and Tübingen.
11. John XXII wrote in a letter of May 28, 1328 :
" Cum Gulielmus Okam de ordine fratrum minorum, qui super crimine haeresis in curia Romana delatus extiterat, pendente inquisitionis negotio in eadem curia contra ipsum .
... ""
In his letter to the King of Bohemia (July 22, 1330 ) , he wrote:
" Gulielmum quoque Okam, Anglicum ordinis fratrum minorum haeresiarcham, qui haereses varias dogmatizabat publice et scripta fecerat haeresibus et erroribus plena; propter quae fuerat vocatus ad curiam eiusque scripta fuerant pluribus doctoribus assignata ( ut ea deberent examinare cum diligentia et quae invenirent haeretica seu erronea declarare, qui iam multos articulos declaraverunt haereticales) , qui quidem male sibi conscius, fugae se praesidio confidens, vitare voluit canonicam ultionem.
(Cf. Hofer, 1. c., p. 440. ) Cf. also Koch, J., "Neue Aktenstücke zu dem gegen Wilhelm Ockham in Avignon geführten
Prozess," in Recherches de Théologie ancienne et médiévale, 7 ( 1935 ) , p . 362.
The acts against Ockham do not mention any teaching regarding poverty. That Luterell was Ockham's accuser is proved by Koch, 1. c., pp. 358ss.
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articles, excluding those which were concerned with purely philosophical doctrines and adding others not among the original articles. The first list of the commission contains fifty-one, the second forty-nine, the latter being substantially the same as the former. Koch divides the articles into two distinct groups. The first group (arts. 1-29) contains all the articles the commission considered heretical or erroneous on the doctrine of grace and sin ( 1-9) , the cognition of God ( 10-18) , the Holy Eucharist (19-23 ) , the impeccability of Christ (24) , God's attributes and the Holy Trinity (25-28) , and the theory of ideas (29) .
The other group (arts. 30-51 ) contains doctrines that the commission held to be not heretical but simply erroneous and, in any case, less important. 12
As we have remarked, Ockham's process did not reach any final solution. We are unable at the present time to give a satisfactory explanation for this, but we may suggest some possible explanations.
First, Ockham may have been allowed to defend himself: Koch has edited a document showing that Ockham made some corrections in his own text, and that the judges embodied these emendations in the acts of the process.13
Further, it is possible that the commission may not have been unanimous.
In support of this theory, we have both a fact and a conjecture. The fact : in an addition to the second set of Acts of the commission, five members (all but Durandus) declare that on one of the issues involved they do not agree. The conjecture: it seems, as Koch believes, that the participation of Durandus, whose doctrine on the universals was not far from that of Ockham, mitigated somewhat the judgment of the commission.14 Or, lastly, the reason why the commission failed to conclude Ockham's process may have been that in the meantime he escaped from Avignon.
During this process Ockham was obliged to remain in Avignon ; but it seems that, beyond this restriction, he was perfectly free, and stayed at the Franciscan convent. At any rate he was able to work, and probably wrote or completed some writings there.
In the third year of his so-called imprisonment, he was involved in the struggle over the question of poverty.
It was the conviction of the Franciscans, confirmed no doubt by the Decretal Exiit qui seminat of Pope Nicholas III, that their rule, by excluding all property, repre12. The acts of the process were published first by Pelzer, A., "Les 61 articles de Guillaume Occam censurée à Avignon en 1326," in Revue d'histoire ecclésiastique, 18 ( 1922 ) , pp . 240-270, later by Koch, art. cit., pp. 353-380, and 8 (1936) , pp. 79-93 ; 168-197.
13. Cf. Koch, art. cit., pp. 195-197.
14. Cf. Koch, 1. c., p. 194 and pp. 369ss. We must not forget, however, that Durandus was forced by his Order to return to Thomism.
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sented the highest degree of perfection ; as a consequence, they were of the opinion that Christ Himself did not possess any property. Pope
John XXII was opposed to these notions, but at first he did not openly manifest his opposition. The matter broke out into an unfortunate controversy, however, when the Friars, disturbed by the Dominican
Inquisitor, John de Belna, appealed to the Pope. John XXII then allowed a free discussion on the perfection of poverty, abolishing the old penalties of Pope Nicholas III for discussions on that topic, and asked for expert opinions.
Meanwhile, the General Chapter of the Order at Perugia (1322 ) , referring to the Decretal of Nicholas III, addressed itself to all Christendom in a declaration that Christ and the Apostles had possessed no propertythus anticipating a decision on the part of the Pope.
Highly indignant, the Pontiff answered through his Constitution Ad conditorem, published in December, 1322.
In it he reproached the Friars for abusing their privilege of poverty, stated that poverty without charity did not confer any degree of perfection, and declared that for the future the Holy See refused to assume the ownership of those things of which the Friars claimed to have only the use.15
Father Bonagratia a Bergamo was employed by the Friars to defend their cause, and this he did at the court of Avignon in the famous
Appellatio of January 14, 1323. After having shown that the Franciscan opinion was based on the Decretal Exiit qui seminat, Bonagratia claimed that the Pope had been influenced by the enemies of the Franciscans, and appealed to him and to the Church for a vindication.
Angered by this boldness, the Pontiff condemned the Friar to prison for eleven months. The efforts of Bonagratia were, however, not without some results, for the Pope mitigated and changed in some details his earlier Constitution.
On November 12 in the same year, John XXII issued another Constitution, Cum inter nonnullos, which declared that the contention of the Friars, viz., that Christ and His Apostles possessed no property, was heretical. A small group of the Friars assented to the definition of the Pope, and the General, Michael of Cesena, tried to moderate the discussion of the opposing faction.
But as a matter of fact, the greater part of the Friars, and even the General himself, were in opposition to the Pope. The situation became more and more fraught with 15. Cf. the excellent exposition of the struggle on poverty by Holzapfel,
Heribert, O. F. M., Manuale historiae ordinis Fratrum Minorum, latine redditum a P. Gallo Haselbeck, O. F. M.
(Herder, 1919) , pp. 58-71 .
Cf. also Müller, Ewald, O. F. M., Das Konzil von Vienne 1311-1312 : Seine Quellen und seine
Geschichte (Vorreformationsgeschichtliche Forschungen XII ) (Münster, 1934) .
Vide pp. 236-386 for further details and recent literature.
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danger when the German Emperor, Louis the Bavarian, seized this opportunity for his own political purposes. The Emperor attempted to show, in his Declaration of Sachsenhausen
(May 22, 1324 ) , that the Pope in his statements about Christ's poverty was a heretic. To this John answered with his Constitution Quia quorundam, at the close of which he called the adversaries of the Constitution Cum inter nonnullos heretics, and the opponents of the Ad conditorem rebels.
This unfortunate mixture of political and theological struggles plunged the Order into the greatest crisis of its existence. Although
John was at first favorable to the General, Michael of Cesena, he became suspicious when the Emperor went to Italy against the papal power in 1327. The Pope, therefore, thought it advisable to remove the Franciscan General from Italy, and ordered him to come to Avignon. Cesena arrived December 1 , 1327 , and was forbidden to leave the town.
In a stormy audience on April 9, 1328, he revealed his adherence to the Order's declaration of Perugia . The Pope, greatly angered, forbade Cesena to attend the General Chapter to be held that year.
It was at this juncture that Ockham joined in the struggle on poverty, and his move was to prove a decisive moment in the life of the "Venerabilis Inceptor." We conclude that about this time Michael ordered Ockham to study the Constitutions of the Pope, because Ockham later wrote to the Chapter of Assisi
(1334) :
"Be it known to you and all Christians that I stayed almost four whole years at Avignon before I recognized that the superior there [ "praesidentem," i . e ., the Pope] had fallen into the impiety of heresy.
Because I did not wish readily to believe that a person constituted in such a great office should decree that heresies were to be held, I had not read his Constitutions nor did I try to procure them. An occasion was later afforded me when at the bidding of my superior [ Michael of Cesena] I read and studied attentively the three Constitutions seu potius destitutiones haereticales, namely, Ad conditorem, Cum igitur, Quia quorundam." 16
In the spring of 1328, at Pentecost, Michael of Cesena was reelected General against the will of the Pope. Very shortly thereafter, it seems, the newly reëlected General, together with Bonagratia, Francis of Ascoli, and Ockham, decided to flee. Michael wrote an Appellation against the Pope and refused to see him again; the other three were witnesses to the document. On May 26 they fled from Avignon under cover of night to Argues-Mortes, where Peter of Arrablay, Cardinal of Porto, tried in vain to change their decision . They then embarked and 16. Cf. the text in the edition of Baudry, art. cit., p . 202.
LIFE OF OCKHAM
left for Genoa on a boat of the Ghibellines (not of the Emperor ! ) .
From Genoa, they went on to Pisa ; in September they met the Emperor there and remained in Italy for a time in his company.
From that time onward the resistance to the Pope took on more and more the nature of an open revolt. On June 6, 1328, after receiving the news of the reëlection of Michael of Cesena, the Pope had deposed him and excommunicated the four Friars who had escaped.
But as yet he was unaware that Ockham had already for several months adhered to the party of his adversaries on the question of poverty, because the Pope writes : "Et quidam Anglicus vocatus Guilelmus Ockham ordinis praedicti, contra quem ratione multarum opinionum erronearum et haereticalium, quas ipse scripserat et dogmatizaverat, pendebat in eadem curia inquisitio auctoritate nostra diu iam incepta, et propter hoc erat, ne absque nostra licentia de curia memorata discederet, arrestatus."'17
The excommunication by the Pope was answered by the publication of the Appellation written at Avignon which, together with a similar declaration of the Emperor, was posted on the porch of the Cathedral of Pisa, December 12, 1328. This Appellation was signed by Ockham and the other Franciscans.
III. OCKHAM AT MUNICH
At the time the Franciscans found refuge under the protection of the German Emperor, it was only the controversy over poverty that had brought them into the camp of the declared enemy of John XXII .
Not until several years later did Ockham take part in the political issue between Pope and Emperor. It is not our intention here to give a detailed account of the struggle between the two powers of the Middle
Ages ; yet some remarks are necessary in order to elucidate the position taken by Ockham.
Pope John, former Chancellor of Charles II of France, and former Bishop of Avignon, made Avignon the papal residence and followed a policy friendly to France. A man of great tenacity, he claimed the absolute supremacy of the Papacy even in secular matters, as his immediate predecessors had done.
He was without doubt a great Pope, a prelate of truly world-wide interests, and a leader alive to the social needs of his time. While he was unselfish, energetic and personally blameless, he was possessed of a violent temper. He enjoyed a reputation as a canonist, and as a theologian he felt a great admiration for St. Thomas, whom indeed he canonized ; in his private sermons and conferences, however, he unfortunately drew some false conclusions
17. Cf. Eubel, Bullarium Franciscanum, V, p. 714.
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about the condition of the soul after death and about the Beatific Vision, conclusions which he retracted on his deathbed.
Louis the Bavarian, the other figure in the struggle, was one of the great Emperors of the fourteenth century. According to the most recent views, he was a religious man, though he often allowed his own interests to take precedence over the demands of his religion. His election as German King was disputed by a minority, whose resistance he broke in 1322 at the Battle of Mühldorf, after a war of eight years.
Despite this fact, Pope John XXII claimed that as it was a disputed election, he had the right to decide the legitimate king and, in consequence, the candidate for the crown of the Holy Roman Empire.
Both King and Pope were adamant in maintaining their opposite views. The first step in the unfortunate struggle (which injured both
Papacy and Empire) was taken by the King, who in his Appellation of Nuremberg and that of Sachsenhausen accused the Pope of heresy because of his stand in the question of poverty. The Pope answered, as we have related, with the Constitution Quia quorundam of November 10, 1324. In 1328, the King went to Italy, and on May 12 of that year set Peter Rainalducci up as Pope, under the name of Nicholas
V. On his return to Germany, Louis met Ockham and the other Franciscans at Pisa. From then on, the fate of Ockham and that of the King were intimately intertwined. The greater part of Germany, the Ghibellines of Italy, and for a time even England, favored the King; but he was finally overthrown.
Complete defeat was prevented only by his sudden death on October 11 , 1347.
Louis, as we have seen, used every available weapon, even theology, against the Pope.
In his service were many theologians, the most famous of whom were Marsilius of Padua, and Ockham. Trithemius writes, in a frequently quoted passage, that at his first meeting with the Emperor Ockham had said :
"O Imperator, defende me gladio, et ego defendam te verbo."
Although these words were never actually spoken, they yet express the actual situation.
Ockham became the theological leader in the struggle between Pope and Emperor.
When on June 6, 1328, Pope John XXII deposed Michael and excommunicated the other Franciscans, he then caused Gerald Odoni to be elected General at the General Chapter of Paris in 1329 (to which, incidentally, most of the Friars refused to go) . The four Franciscans, who had meanwhile arrived at Munich with the Emperor, protested against these measures.
In this connection Ockham wrote the Appellation Allegationes religiosorum virorum. On November 16,
1329, the Pope published his Constitution Quia vir reprobus. Ockham answered through his work, Opus nonaginta dierum (so called because it was written within the space of ninety days) .
LIFE OF OCKHAM
Although the four Friars at Munich tried to remain within the bosom of the Order and were, as a matter of fact, in possession of the official seal of the Order, they were expelled by Gerald Odoni at the Chapter of Perugia, in 1331. The new General, however, had to face an ever-increasing opposition on the part of his Order, because he attempted to relax the poverty as imposed by the Franciscan Rule.
Probably encouraged by this opposition, Ockham wrote a letter to justify himself to the General Chapter of Assisi in 1334, but the letter met with no success.18
The reasoning of Ockham in all his writings is briefly this : The absolute poverty of Christ was defined by Pope Nicholas III in his
Decretal Exiit qui seminat, and is proved by the Holy Gospel ; Pope John XXII by defining, on the other hand, that Christ possessed property, destroyed a dogma and a Catholic truth ; he therefore was a heretic and, as such, could not be a legitimate Pope .
Ockham's reasoning, of course, was groundless, because although Nicholas III was certainly convinced that Christ had no property, he had not defined it as a dogma.19
Ockham was soon afforded a seemingly better opportunity to impugn the Pope's authority. About 1332 the Pope expressed some theological opinions in his sermons which pained even his friends. He maintained, for example, that after death the human soul remains in a state of sleep until the resurrection of its body, and that therefore during that period the soul is not able to enjoy the Beatific Vision or suffer punishment. This strange doctrine gave Ockham a welcome occasion to challenge John XXII once more.
He did so in many writings, even after the Pope's death.
Ockham wrote feverishly at that time. Was his pen inspired only by hatred and resentment against a Pope whom he considered an enemy of his Order and his person ? Or was it his own troubled conscience that plunged him into ceaseless work? Or, lastly, was it for the sake of religious liberty and because of his belief in the justice of his cause, that he published pamphlet after pamphlet against John
18. This is the letter reedited by Baudry, op . cit., pp. 201-215.
19. Ockham writes (cf. Baudry, 1. c., p . 205 ) of John XXII :
"In constitutione autem Cum inter nonnullos intendens, ut ipse testatur, finem concertationi imponere que inter scolasticos versabatur, quorum aliqui asserebant
Christum et Apostolos nonnulla habuisse jure proprietatis et dominii nec in speciali nec etiam in communi, alii autem contrarium affirmabant, partem negativam determinat esse hereticam, quam tamen partem negativam tenuit Nicholaus papa tertius, ex scripturis divinis accipiens fundamentum." Cf. the Decretal of Nicholas III : "Dicimus quod abdicatio proprietatis huiusmodi omnium rerum tam in speciali quam etiam in communi propter Deum meritoria est et sancta, quam et Christus viam perfectionis ostendens verbo et exemplo firmavit"
(quoted in Baudry, p. 204, note 4) .
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XXII ? We do not know. And, in any event, we are not warranted in judging a man who still remains a puzzle. Although we cannot approve of his attitude as an objective fact, nevertheless in view of the general confusion and uncertainty it would be unfair for us to question his sincerity and good faith. A document of a very personal character may serve to throw some light on the inner state of this tragic Franciscan. At the end of his letter to the General Chapter in Assisi in the spring of 1334, he wrote:
"Because of the errors and the heresies mentioned above and countless others, I turned away from the obedience of the false Pope and all who were his friends to the prejudice of the orthodox faith. For men of great learning showed me that because of his errors and heresies the same pseudo-pope is heretical, deprived of his papacy and excommunicated by canon law itself without need of further sentence .
...In proof thereof several volumes have been published . And with my own hand and in all my slight ability of mind, I myself wrote on these same errors and heresies and on all that is connected with them, fifty sexterns20 of the ordinary size of paper, and in addition have yet to write forty more. For against the errors of this pseudo-pope
I have turned my face like the hardest rock, so that neither lies nor calumnies nor any persecution (which cannot touch my innermost self in any bodily fashion) , nor great numbers of men who believe in him or favor him or even defend him, shall be able to prevent me from attacking or reproving his errors, as long as I shall have hand, paper, pen and ink...
"If anyone should like to recall me or anyone else who has turned away from the obedience of the false pope and his friends, let him try to defend his Constitutions and sermons, and show that they agree with Holy Scripture, or that a Pope cannot fall into the wickedness of heresy, or let him show by holy authorities or manifest reasons that one who knows the Pope to be a notorious heretic is obliged to obey him.
Let him not, however, adduce the great number of his adherents, nor base his arguments on reproaches, because those who try to arm themselves with great numbers or with lies, reproaches, threats and false calumnies, show that they are void of truth and reason. Therefore, let none believe that I mean to turn away from the recognized truth because of the great number of those in favor of the pseudo-pope, or because of proofs that are common to heretics and to orthodox men, because I prefer Holy Scripture to a man unlearned in holy science, and I have a higher esteem for the doctrine of the Fathers who reign with Christ than for the tradition of men dwelling in this mortal life.
20. A sextern equals 12 pages.
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Moreover, I think that the General Chapter of Perugia (at which the Friars acted indeed with fear, yet according to their conscience) must be preferred to all later meetings of the Friars where the Friars were motivated by fear or ambition or hatred . I think also that should any of the Friars have abandoned the truths of the faith and of the Order, they each and every one were better men when they held to those same truths than after they abandoned them....
"Thus I have given you an account of the cause of my absence from the greater part of the Friars.
Concerning any of my other words and deeds, I do not fear to give an account before a just judge, although I know full well the malice of men. I think that during the last four years I have learned more about the practices of men living today than I could have if I had lived with them outside this brawl
["briga"] for forty years.
For I understand better the rules of the Scripture which describe the habits of men, since I find them daily verified by experience. In this time of probation the thoughts of many hearts are revealed. Chew not the cud too long, for he who now reigns is a mortal man , and you know not what the days to come will bring forth.
May the Almighty condescend to turn to good the omens .
Amen."21
Such a document needs no commentary : it speaks for itself. We cannot approve of Ockham's lack of obedience, nor of his irreverent language, but we must not forget that it was medieval language and that we are dealing with medieval conditions. The document, too, certainly lacks the spirit of St. Francis, for in defending Franciscan poverty in such a violent and arrogant manner, Ockham abandoned the joy and humility of St. Francis — and these are essentially one with poverty.
Finally, the document expresses the soul-felt bitterness of a lonely and suffering man.
John XXII died on December 4, 1334, after having submitted his opinions to the judgment of the Church and his successors : " Praedicta omnia et alia quaecumque dicta et praedicata et scripta per nos de quacumque materia . . . submittimus determinationi ecclesiae ac successorum nostrorum."22 This, of course, was the action of a truly magnanimous and sincere Pope. One can hardly construe it as a triumph for Ockham.
Pope John's successor, Benedict XII, followed almost the same course in the question of poverty, and was attacked in turn by Ockham with the same arguments. Against him Ockham wrote the treatise,
21. Translation from Baudry, editio cit., pp. 213-215.
22. Cf. Raynaldi, Ap. , Annales Ecclesiast. ad annum 1334, and Denifle, Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, p. 441 .
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Tractatus ostendens quod Benedictus Papa XII nonnullas Joannis XXII haereses amplexus est et defendit.
Until about 1338, the struggle of Ockham against the Popes remained on a purely theological level.
In that year, the princes of Germany issued the famous Declaration of Rense, stating that whoever was elected by a majority was thereby King of Germany without the need of any confirmation by the Pope . They repeated this declaration at Frankfort in the same year, adding that the acts of the Popes against Louis the Bavarian were illegal and that, in consequence, the excommunication of the Emperor was invalid. There is some reason to believe that the theological part of the declaration and the appeal to a General Council is the work of Ockham and Francis of Ascoli . At any rate, the debate was thereafter focused on the vital point of the relation between the secular and the ecclesiastical power.
Shortly aftr 1338, Ockham wrote his Allegationes de potestate imperiali.
Other writings followed. In favor of the King of England he published the pamphlet,
An rex Angliae pro succursu guerrae possit recipere bona ecclesiarum.
In 1342 Benedict XII died and was succeeded by Clement VI.
From the very first, Ockham struggled with undiminished fervor against this Pope also. As a summary of the whole question of the relation between the secular and ecclesiastical powers, he had been preparing for a long time his Dialogus . The first mention of this work is to be found in the Chronicle of John of Vittringen. There we read that, in order to convince him of the invalidity of certain acts of the Pope, Louis the Bavarian sent to Albert of Austria, probably in an incomplete state, "a mild dialogue, published by the Englishman William Ockham of the Order of Friars Minor."23
We hear of Ockham again in 1346. The German princes, weary of the disastrous struggle between the Pope and the Emperor, tried to end the struggle by electing another King, Charles of Luxemburg.
Once again, and for the last time, Ockham defended his protector.
But in vain.
Even Germany had turned away from Louis, and with his sudden death on October 11 , 1347, a tragic chapter in the history of the Holy Roman Empire ended.
The situation of Ockham had now become desperate.
His companions were dead, as was his protector. Although in possession of the seal of the Order after Michael of Cesena's death, and acting as Vicar General, he began to realize his anomalous position.
Probably 23. "Quem Ludovicus [ ad id induxit] miti quodam dialogo, quem Wilhelmus Ockham O. M. Anglicae nationis, de diversis materiis et sententiis sub forma discipuli quaerentis et magistri respondentis edidit." Böhmer, F., Fontes rerum Germanicarum, tom. I , p. 447. Cf. Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, t. XI ( Paris, 1931 ) , col . 871 .
LIFE OF OCKHAM
not only under pressure of the circumstances but also driven by his conscience (as Hofer remarks) and the thought of his own deathhe was then about sixty-five years old — he tried for reinstatement in his Order and reconciliation with the Church. He sent back the seal of the Order before 1348, and the General Chapter interceded with the Pope on his behalf. Whether there was any success, we do not know; it is possible, even probable.
The one document which contains the formula of Ockham's submission runs as follows: "I confess that I hold and held what the Holy Mother, the Roman Church, believes, holds and teaches, and that I believed and even now believe the Emperor has no authority to depose the Pope, the Summus Pontifex, and elect or create another.
On the contrary, I consider it heretical, and condemned as such by the same Church.
Furthermore, I swear that I will await and obey the orders of the Church and of our Lord Pope regarding inflicted injustices and contumacies ... and regarding the punishments ... , and that I will be ... faithful to the Pope in the future, and that I will not adhere to the heresies, the errors, the opinions and rebellions of Louis the Bavarian and Michael of Cesena against the Church.... "24 There is no evidence as to whether or not Ockham signed the formula. It is remarkable that the formula speaks principally about his political errors. Ockham started with philosophical and theological difficulties, was involved in the struggle on poverty, and was finally condemned for and forced to retract his political ideas. Thus the curtain falls on a brilliant man whose political views were in advance of his time ; the inaugurator of a school of thought which numbered among its followers eminent theologians and prelates of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
Ockham died soon after that formula was written, a victim, apparently, of the Black Death in 1349. His supposed tomb is to be found in Munich.
24. Bullarium Franciscanum, t. IV, n. 508a.
A BIBLIOGRAPHY ON OCKHAM
The following bibliographical study will not deal with the political writings of the "Venerabilis Inceptor." Since a new edition of those is being prepared in England, the first volume of which was recently published (Guilelmi de Ockham Opera politica, accuravit J. G. Sikes, etc. , Vol . I. Manchester, 1940) , it may be sufficient to refer to it and to the list of E. Aman in Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, t. xi (Paris, 1931 ) , col. 874ss.
At the present time it is impossible to make a final statement on either the authenticity of all the works attributed to Ockham or their chronological order. Therefore, following a systematical order, we shall merely add some remarks on each work to indicate the present state of research .
I. COMMENTARIES ON ARISTOTLE'S (AND PORPHYRY'S) WORKS
Ockham very probably intended to write commentaries on all the Aristotelean works ; from occasional remarks we can gather that he had it in mind to write on the two Analytics, on the Metaphysics and on De Anima. Only the following commentaries were actually written.
1. Expositio in librum Porphyrii, in librum Praedicamentorum, in duos libros Perihermenias, in duos libros Elenchorum
EDITION : Bononiae, 1496, by Marcus de Benevento. The printed text does not contain In libros Elenchorum; hence its title : Expositio aurea super artem veterem.
MANUSCRIPTS KNOWN : 10.1
Five of them do not have In libros Elenchorum, one (London Lambeth Palace 70) has only that book.
Ms Los Angeles University 6 contains In duos libros Perihermenias also ; the contrary remark in the Catalogue is a mistake.
TIME OF COMPOSITION : There is every evidence in favor of a date after the Ordinatio (first book of the Commentary on the Sentences), or more precisely, after the first redaction of the Ordinatio.
This theory, advanced in my article on the Ordinatio (The New Scholasticism, 16 [ 1942 ] , p . 223 ) , is confirmed by the following quotation from In Libros Elenchorum: "Et quia frequenter locutus
1. For a complete list of the manuscripts, see my article in La France Franciscaine, 1939. Though I know reliably that this list was published, I have no copy of it, and therefore cannot give complete details of volume, etc.