> Date:          Wed, 04 Dec 1996 17:40:57 -0400 (EDT)
> From:          [log in to unmask]
> Subject:       beatific vision
> To:            medieval-religion <[log in to unmask]>
> Cc:            Denys Turner <[log in to unmask]>
> Reply-to:      [log in to unmask]

> Here is an answer to a request to say something more about the conflict 
> about the beatific vision, 1331-36.
> 
> Frans van Liere
> 
> 
> 
> JOHN XXII AND THE CONFLICT ABOUT THE BEATIFIC VISION
> 
> On All Saints' Day 1331 Pope John XXII touched on a subject in
> his sermon which would so vehemently move christianity during the
> last years of his pontificate that a decision of his successor,
> Benedict XII, was needed to calm the emotional climate. The
> question was whether the souls of the saints in heaven were
> directly admitted to the beatific vision of the essence of God.
> John denied this and declared that the souls in heaven 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.-
> Pourcain, 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 Belvezer. 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 Armand's 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.-Pourcain, 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 Belvezer, 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.-Pourcain 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 beatifique
> chez les theologiens du XIIIe siecle, Recherches de theologie
> ancienne et medievale, 19 (1952) 60-130  
> 
> DYKMANS, Marc, Les sermons de Jean XXII sur la vision beatifique,
> Roma 1973 (Miscellanea Historiae Pontificae, 34)
> 
> FORSTER,  K., Anschauung Gottes, Lexikon fuer Theologie und Kirche
> 2. 583-591
> 
> HOFFMANN, Georg, Der Streit ueber die selige Schau Gottes
> (1331-1338), Leipzig  1917
> 
> MAIER, Anneliese, Ausgehendes Mittelalter, gesammelte Aufsaetze
> 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 Belvezer 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.
> 
> 
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------
> 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
> 
> 
Dear Frans,

I am deeply indebted for your extremely useful material on BV.  Very 
many thanks.  I will be in touch soon.

Denys> 


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