[log in to unmask] wrote:
>
> I just heard on the RAI midnight news that Georges Duby has died at
> Aix-en-Provence, aged 77 years. He had been suffering from cancer for
> some time. He was an influential and popular scholar, and a
> gentleman.
>
> George Ferzoco
Bonne initiative de saluer ce grand pédagogue. A titre personnel, il m'a
permis d'éclairer et de moderniser ma perception de l'histoire du MA. Un
grand merci à Georges DUBY
Philippe REUL (Belgique)
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n are only
happy about the expectation of the award they will receive at the
last Judgement, and enjoy only reconciliation in the humanity of
Christ, seeing God only unclearly, as in a mirror. This caused
much disturbance and several sermons, treatises, pamphlets and
letters were written to reject his opinion. The first sermon
being a mere paraphrase of the sermons of Bernard of Clairvaux
for the same occasion, John treated the subject more systemati-
cally in his sermon on the third Advent (15 December 1331), and
expressed similar views in his sermons on the vigils of Epiphany
(5 January 1332), Purification (2 February 1332) and Annunciation
(25 March 1332?).
It is evident that it was his intention to make a theological
decision on this question, as there was no agreement among
theologians about the state of the soul directly after death:
could it, separated from the body, already enjoy the beatific
vision face to face before it would receive the glorified body?
The question here is as much epistemological as it is eschatolo-
gical, and at stake was the doctrine of Thomas Aquinas, whom John
XXII had canonized only years before, and whose ideas on heavenly
beatitude he was now openly contradicting.
The pope sent his sermons to his theological advisers, Cardinal
Jacques Fournier (the later Pope Benedict XII), Durand of St.-
Pourçain, a former Magister Curiae, and probably also John Regina
of Naples and Cardinal John of Aragon, to ask for their opinion.
Simultanely, he gave order to make elaborate lists of Quotations
from Bible, Churchfathers and Liturgy, to support his opinion.
Towards the end of 1332, the subject was bitterly discussed in
quodlibetal disputations at the universities of Avignon, Paris,
Naples and at the imperial court in Munich. The scholars at the
latter had a special interest in proving the Pope to be hereti-
cal: the court of Louis the Bavarian was a refuge to all Francis-
cans who found themselves in conflict with the Pope on the matter
of Christ's Poverty. Most Dominican theologians also took a stand
against John XXII, to defend Aquinas's orthodoxy. Other theologi-
ans, most notably in the Franciscan order, expressed a variety of
subtle epistemological theories, that even by modern scholars
have been confused with papal point of view.
At the University of Avignon, the disputations were opened by the
Magister Curiae, Armand of Belvézer. There are indications that
among others the former chancellor of Oxford University, John
Lutterell, and Cardinal Annibald of Ceccano took part in the
discussions. The latter held the Pope's view, while Armands own
Quaestio was opposed to it: he argued (in accordance with Aquin-
as) that the souls in heaven see God now as perfectly as they
will after the Judgement, from face to face, and that they will
obtain a glorified body at the general resurrection, only to
enjoy this happiness even better. This Quaestio was used as a
source for several anti-papal writings by the Franciscans in
Munich, who must have been pleased by the fact that not even
John's own curial lecturer supported his opinion.
The conflict intensified on 3 January 1333, when a Dominican
friar, Thomas Waleys, sharply attacked the Pope's opinion. He had
to account for himself before the Inquisition, and although the
errors found in his sermon had only a remote connection with the
beatific vision, everybody assumed he was imprisoned because of
his opposition to the Pope. Annibald of Ceccano presumably played
a major role in his imprisonment: most of the polemic passages in
the sermon were directed against him.
After the trial had been dragging on for a long time without much
progress, a commission of theologians gathered in September 1333,
to examine a list of 18 articles, taken from Waleys' sermon and
statements made before the Inquisition, and from the earlier
mentioned treatise of Durand of St.-Pourçain, written on request
of the Pope. The commission, presided by Annibald of Ceccano, and
with prominent theologians such as John Lutterell, John of
Clarano, Gerald Ot (the General of the Franiscan Order), Cardinal
Peter Roger and Walter of Chatton attending it, condemned all
articles, except the sixteenth. There was disagreement about the
twelfth. All absent theologians who happened to be at the Curia
were ordered to give their opinion in writing: the only remaining
answers, of Jacques Fournier and Armand of Belvézer, do not share
the views of their fellow-theologians. After the condemnation by
the commission, Thomas Waleys appealed to the Pope, and his trial
was transferred to the Curia on 22 October 1333. He would not be
released before 1338. In the mean time, his case had been brought
to the attention of the king of France, Philip VI. He expressed
his concern about the fate of the Dominican friar to the Pope in
several letters.
A quodlibetal disputation in Paris in December 1333 by a supposed
spokesman of John XXII, the general of the Franciscan order
Gerald Ot, on a mission to England, provided the King an opportu-
nity for a sharp attack on the Pope. He assembled all theologians
of the university and many leading bishops and abbots in his
palace in Vincennes, to condemn what he thought was the Pope's
opinion: in fact, it was for the greater part Gerald's private
opinion. As a counter-move, John opened a consistory to declare
that it was the task of the Holy See to take a decision on this
matter: the Pope had only uttered his opinion to evoke discussi-
on. It had not been his intention to state anything against the
Church's doctrine, but so far nobody had found a good argument
against his. The political situation contributed to the fact that
the conflict with the king of France ended quickly and silently:
he and the Pope stood together in the struggle against Louis of
Bavaria, whom they did not recognise as Holy Roman Emperor.
Fate prevented John from making a papal decision on the subject
of the beatific vision, although there is evidence that his
advisers were preparing a declaration about it, very much the
same as the declaration he made on 3 December 1334, one day
before his death, in which he declared that the souls of the
saints are now in heaven, seeing God face to face, as far as the
separate state of the souls permits. His successor Benedict XII
ended the conflict with the constitution Benedictus Deus: it
rejected John's original opinion.
The conflict about the beatific vision and the trial against
Thomas Waleys and Durand of St.-Pourçain show clearly John's urge
to interfere in theological matters. His attempt to centralise
the church in the making of theological decisions brought him
into conflict with the University of Paris and the King of France
as it's protector, who always had seen itself as the leading
force in the field of theology. The conflict over the beatific
vision and the trial against Thomas Waleys are not isolated
cases: together with the conflict with the Franciscan order about
poverty and the condemnation of the doctrines of John de Pouilly
(1321), John Olivi (1326), William Ockam (1326), Marsilius of
Padua (1327), and Master Eckhart (1329), they are all examples of
this centralising tendency. His successes in these previous cases
might even have encouraged him, but this time he failed to
establish unity between the theologians.
I add here some literature on the subject, with an emphasis on
the ideas on the beatific vision BEFORE the conflict of 1331-
1336.
DONDAINE, H.-F., l'Objet et le medium de la vision béatifique
chez les théologiens du XIIIe siècle, Recherches de théologie
ancienne et médiévale, 19 (1952) 60-130
DYKMANS, Marc, Les sermons de Jean XXII sur la vision béatifique,
Roma 1973 (Miscellanea Historiae Pontificae, 34)
FORSTER, K., Anschauung Gottes, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche
2. 583-591
HOFFMANN, Georg, Der Streit über die selige Schau Gottes
(1331-1338), Leipzig 1917
MAIER, Anneliese, Ausgehendes Mittelalter, gesammelte Aufsätze
zur Geistesgeschichte des 14. Jahrhunderts, vol. 3, Roma 1977
(Storia e Letteratura, 138)
VAN LIERE, Frans, Johannes XXII en het conflict over het moment
van de visio beatifica, Nederlands theologisch tijdschrift 44
(1990) 208-222
VAN LIERE, Frans, Armand of Belvézer on Eschatology. An Edition
of his «Responsiones ad 19 Articulos» (1333), Archivum historicum
ordinis Praedicatorum 62 (1992) 7-134
WICKI, Nicolaus, Die Lehre von der Himmlischen Seligkeit in der
Mittelalterlichen Scholastik von Petrus Lombardus zu Thomas von
Aquin (Studia Friburgensia, neue Folge, 9), Freiburg 1954
This bibliography was compiled in 1991. More recently, Caroline
Walker Bynum (The Resurrection of the Body, Columbia UP, 1995),
and Christian Trottmann (La vision be'atifique des disputes
scholastiques, Roma 1995, B.E.F.A.R. 289) have published on this
subject.
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Frans van Liere
College of Charleston 0 Bee Street
Charleston SC 29424 Charleston SC 29403
tel. (803) 953-8103 (803) 723-4051
fax (803) 953-6349
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