Theologians
vs Canonists on Heresy
by
John Scott
[The notes are at
the end.]
The first part of the Dialogue, Ockham's massive
treatise on heresy, was, on the evidence of manuscript survival,
his most popular work. There are 33 extant manuscripts, mostly
from c15 when there were also two printed editions made
available.[Note 1] It is not obvious
why it should so frequently have been copied. It is true that as
a known anti-papalist who had died impenitent and never sought
reconciliation with the Avignon papacy Ockham might have been
considered something of a model by 15th century conciliarists at
odds with the popes of their time. The ultimate purpose of his
tract on heresy, moreover, was to establish the possibility of
papal heresy and to consider what action should be taken against
a pope who had become a heretic. It is perhaps plain, therefore,
that both those who wanted to end the prolonged schism in the
Church by forcing the resignation of, or deposing, the rival
popes and, later, those who advocated the supremacy of a general
council of the Church over the papacy would be keenly interested
in the first part of the Dialogue as providing them with
a justification for action against whichever particular pope
they opposed. Papal propaganda from soon after the conclusion of
the council of Basle encouraged later historians to pursue this
line of thought -- one sure technique for consolidating the
papacy's control over the church and for underlining the
unorthodoxy of conciliarism was to provide the latter with
suspect progenitors, of whom Ockham, along with Marsilius of
Padua, was one of the most notorious.
But, in fact, as
is now well known, Ockham himself was not a conciliarist.[Note 2] While he provided plenty of
grist to the mill of those urging the possibility of papal
heresy and fallibility, he was just as insistent that the
indefectibility it was believed Christ had promised the Church
could not be found in general councils either.[Note
3] Indeed, the Master wielded the razor of logic so
ruthlessly that he produced arguments to deny that any part of
the established Church, cardinals, the Roman church, all the
clergy, all males, even all Christians having the use of reason
could be relied on to maintain the faith, ending book 5 of the
first part of the Dialogue with the conclusion that
'therefore, Christ's promises can be kept through baptised
infants.' No section of the Church could buttress its privileges
on the basis of the first part of the Dialogue.
But it seems to
me likely that this very first book of the treatise would at
once have captured the attention of 15th century theologians and
persuaded them that this was a book which they should have. The
very first question asked by the Student after the Prologue
to the whole work has established the subject matter and means
of proceeding is:
Since I am going
to investigate many matters in the context of the disagreement I
see in Christianity about heretical and catholic assertions ...
I have reckoned to seek to find out first to whom it chiefly
belongs, that is to theologians or to canonists, to decide what
assertion should be considered catholic and what heretical.
We will see in a
moment that the competition which this sets up between
theologians and canon lawyers was a lively concern for the
former in the fifteenth century, but let us note first Ockham's
own answer to the question he has posed. Now, as is well known,
one of the difficulties about using the Dialogue as a
means of determining Ockham's own opinions is that it is one of
his recitative works. In these he does not affirm his own views,
as in polemical works like the Contra Iohannem or the Breviloquium,
but recites or records various opinions about the subject on
hand without indicating what his own view is, in the hope
perhaps that such works would meet less resistance from orthodox
copyists.[Note 4] This technique is
made explicit in the Prologue to which I have already
alluded where the Student says:
Do not set out
only one opinion but ... several opinions about the same
question. But would you consent not to indicate to me what you
yourself in your wisdom think. For although I certainly do not
want you to neglect your own opinion when you examine different
and conflicting assertions, would you nevertheless not make
clear what your own is?
Despite this
method of proceeding we can in some places determine pretty
easily what Ockham's own views were. This first book is one such
place. The first chapter lists three brief arguments affirming
the superiority of canonists while the second deals more
substantially with eight arguments for the superiority of
theologians; the next three chapters reply at length to the
three arguments of chapter 1, while no reply is offered to the
eight arguments of chapter 2. That is the procedure that is
followed throughout the book -- arguments in favour of canonists
are always answered, those in favour of theologians are not.
Moreover, while theologians are always referred to respectfully
we find this remark from the master in chapter 3:
I want you to
know that I am acquainted with some theologians who in their
hearts very much look down on canonists of the modern time as
being unintelligent, presumptuous, heedless, liars, deceivers,
scoffers and ignorant, reckoning that they do not know the
meaning of the sacred canons.
This theme of the
ignorant and dangerous canonist was one that was eagerly taken
up by many fifteenth century theologians, only too well aware
that they had fallen behind in the competition. So we find
hostility to canonists in both Pierre d'Ailly and Jean Gerson.
The former frequently attacks rudas iuristas and
believed that the legalistic spirit of the times encouraged
people to forget epikeia in interpreting positive laws.
It was not the law itself that he was critical of but its
practitioners who did not plead for those who needed help but
were driven by a love of gain. The canonists' approach to the
scriptures is a sign of their magnae ruditatis et
ineruditionis, he argued.[Note 5]
Gerson, in his capacity of chancellor of the University of
Paris, delivered a number of addresses still extant to graduates
of the Faculty of Canon Law. In each of them he delineates
carefully the contribution canon law can make to the church,
emphasising its inferiority to theology, the architectonic
science to which it is to be subordinated, and warning the new
graduates that they must not presume to involve themselves in
matters that theologians should deal with. The presumption of
contemporary canonists had led to many of the contemporary
church's problems, he believed. In particular, he insists that
the determination of heresy is something that should be left to
theologians.[Note 6] Later
conciliarists, caught up in the conflict between Eugenius IV and
the council of Basle, were even more distressed by the influence
of canonists. For Heimerich van der Velde the lamentable state
of the church was due to men who undervalue 'the revelations of
theology' and who prefer 'human wisdom', that is legal knowledge
which is 'foolish in the eyes of God.' Juan de Segovia was
another who believed in the primacy of theology and blamed the
jurists for the development of the theory of papal sovereignty.[Note 7] Perhaps the clearest statement
of the theologians' case is found in a letter from the Council
of Basle to the emperor in 1439 exhorting him to seek advice
from universities on the question of which side to support,
because they have 'many very expert and studious doctors and
masters in theology, whose proper office by the nature of their
profession and studies it is to decide on faith'; bishops may no
longer decide alone 'now that the weeds of human laws, to which
bishops of modern times give such importance, have grown up.'[Note 8]
It is not
surprising that theologians committed to the reform of the
church and to a general council's role in that reform should
have been suspicious of canonists -- one constant and powerful
argument of the papalists was that a general council could be
summoned only by the pope and similarly could be prorogued only
by him. This argument, like most of the papal case derives from
the Decretum.[Note 9] Overall the papal
position, as van der Velde recognised, rested on 'the very
numerous judgements of the jurists.'[Note 10]
But, in addition to the theologians' intellectual opposition to
the canon lawyers, there was very probably another factor in
their frequent diatribes against canonists in the 15th century,
and that was the gradual but inexorable supplanting of theology
by law as more popular with students and, more importantly, as
more highly valued by those who would be employing graduates.
Ecclesiastical courts, which had been staffed predominantly by
theologians in the early 14th century, came to be dominated by
law graduates later in that century and particularly in the 15th
century. Such statistical data as have been extracted from the
(mainly English) sources show this fairly conclusively. For
instance, a study of the academic degrees of English bishops
shows that in the reign of Henry III there were 15 theologians
and 1 lawyer, but in the years from 1377-1509 there were 48
theologians and 55 lawyers.[Note 11] A
study of the qualifications of Exeter canons shows that there
was a steady growth in the number with legal qualifications from
39% in 1300-1325 to 61% in 1426-1450.[Note 12]
Alan Cobban's studies of the colleges at Oxford and Cambridge
lead to the same conclusion. He sums up the situation thus, '
... by the time of the foundation of New College [1379], a
degree in civil or canon law or both had come to supersede a
qualification in theology as a prerequisite for a successful
career in ecclesiastical administration.'[Note
13]
Anecdotal
evidence confirms the same trend. We can note, for instance, the
late 14th century sermon lamenting that fathers are putting
their sons to law not to divinity, and d'Ailly's accusation
'that the apostolic see promotes more lawyers and canonists than
theologians to prelacies of the church.'[Note
14] Even Richard de Bury, bishop of Durham, who
quite deliberately had few law books in his library and was
early in his career the patron of Bradwardine, Burley,
Fitzralph, Holcot and other theologians, was forced by the needs
of his diocese to employ more lawyer clerks than theologians
towards the end of his life.[Note 15]
In these
circumstances it is not surprising that Ockham's 15th century
readers embraced his dismissive opinions about canonists. More
puzzling is their place in, or, rather, the primacy of their
place in his treatise. Why did Ockham begin his treatise on
heresy with the question of the respective merits of canonists
and theologians? Despite the fact that John XXII, like most of
his predecessors since Innocent III, was a lawyer, or, as Ockham
says of him in Contra Benedictum 'a quarrelsome advocate
completely ignorant of theological learning'[Note
16], his pontificate provided great employment for
theologians. Ironically, as though he had read Ockham and been
persuaded by him, it was his zealous pursuit of heretics that
led to this. The reason for Ockham's own presence at Avignon,
for instance, was to allow an examination of suspect opinions of
his by a commission of theological experts - as John XXII put it
in a letter to King John of Bohemia in 1330, '[Ockham] had been
called to the Curia and his writings had been assigned to many
doctors so that they might examine them with diligence and make
clear what they found that was heretical or erroneous'.[Note 17] Moreover, a contemporary
resident at Avignon was Meister Eckhart, whom Ockham believed to
be an outrageous heretic, whose opinions were also being
examined by theologians.[Note 18] And
it is well known that John's overturning of traditional
Franciscan views on poverty followed a full debate on the
question by theologians whose opinions he had sought. His
encounter with Marsilius of Padua also provoked a widespread
canvassing of the views of theologians.[Note
19] The situation is nicely summed up in a letter
from one Stephen of Kettleburg to his friend John Lutterell,
former chancellor of Oxford and Ockham's accuser before the pope
at Avignon.
The situation at
the Curia these days has changed, in that our Lord the supreme
Pontiff has shifted wholly and completely his special affection,
which heretofore he directed towards jurists thinking them the
wise ones, to theologians - and especially to masters in sacra
pagina. The result has been that any master proficient in
fact and by reputation in theology, who is worthy to bear the
title of master and who comes to the apostolic see, does not
depart from the Curia. For in the first place, our Lord the Pope
liberally provides them with great honours and prebends, and
depending on varying conditions some he elevates to episcopal
dignity and others to archiepiscopal sees ...[Note
20]
That Kettleburg
speaks of the situation as having changed shows that there was
nonetheless tension between the two disciplines, and Ockham was
not the first to compare the practitioners of the two
disciplines. As early as 1240 Humbert of Romans in the chapter
'On those studying canon law' of his De eruditione
praedicatorum had complained that 'There are others who so
extol their own science that they have reached such a level of
stupidity as to say that the church of God is better ruled by
their laws than by theology.'[Note 21]
Aquinas thought it unsuitable and laughable for professors of
sacred doctrine (theologians) to adduce iuristarum glossulas
as authorities 'since we ought to assent to divine more than to
human judgement'[Note 22] and Dante's
lament that 'the Gospel and the great Doctors are neglected and
only the Decretals are studied' is well known.[Note
23] There is a Quodlibet of Godfrey of
Fontaines on the subject and a quaestio disputata of
Francis Caraccioli on whether a lawyer or a theologian would be
a better ruler of the church. In the latter, the argument in
favour of the theologian takes up about 3 pages, with liberal
quotations from St. Bernard's De consideratione, a
widely known source of anti legal gems, while the lawyer is
allowed only the following single line, 'And when it is argued
in reply that a jurist can better defend the rights of the
church, it should be said that it is not so (quod non).'[Note 24]
Nevertheless,
these general barbs directed against canonists can not, I think,
explain why Ockham would begin his major treatise on heresy with
a consideration of canonists and theologians. The work is a
sustained and well argued theoretical investigation, 'the most
extensive single discussion of heresy in our period'[Note 25], not a work an engaged thinker
as Ockham was at this time would introduce with a popular
debating topic. Why then did he begin in this way? I suggest
that there were two pressing reasons for this, and for his
implicit but unmistakable conclusion that the determination of
heresy belongs to theologians. The first is that it was
essential to the whole practical purpose of the treatise that
the authority of canon law be impugned. Ockham was convinced
that John XXII was a heretic; most of his contemporaries, even
among his fellow Franciscans, did not agree but rather accepted
John as a legitimate pope. It was therefore necessary for Ockham
to define heresy in such a way that he could turn the tables on
John who had condemned him and the other Michaelists as
heretics. The accepted view was that a heretic was someone who
obstinately maintained an opinion that had been condemned by the
authority of the universal church. Ockham agreed with this, but
the key question for him was who possessed such authority. The
standard opinion was that it was the pope,[Note
26] and the justification for this opinion lay in
canon law. Aquinas is explicit about it in his Summa Theologica:
'This authority resides principally in the highest pontiff', he
affirms, buttressing this opinion with a reference to the
Decretum.[Note 27] Given his own
position relative to that of Pope John XXII this is just what
Ockham could not accept. As is well known, he wanted to replace
the institutional authority of the pope with the cognitive
authority of theologians like himself.[Note 28]
Hence, since the papal claim to the right to make authoritative
decisions about heresy relied on canon law there was for Ockham
a need from the very start to affirm the superiority of
theologians to canonists.
The second reason
why this first book was a necessary introduction for Ockham was
because in fact the investigation and prosecution of
heretics were governed by canon law. Despite John's own
employment of theologians to examine particular opinions the
theoretical basis for the examination of heretics was to be
found in the Decretals, the second volume of canon law.[Note 29] Although heresy had become a
vital a problem throughout the 12th and 13th centuries it had
not been well pondered by theologians, or at least not at the
theoretical level, although there was a number of detailed
examinations of the beliefs and practices of particular
heretics. Alan of Lille's De fide catholica which treats
of the Cathars, the Waldensians, the Jews and the Muslims is a
well known early example,[Note 30] and
contemporaries of Ockham who were writing tracts on heresy fell
into this pattern too. One example is Alvarus Pelagius whose Collirium
contra novas hereses deals, like Alan of Lille, primarily
with the beliefs of heretics; for instance, he writes typically,
'Again, the heretic Marsilius dogmatised that any priest has as
great a power as has the pope, which is a heresy because ... .'[Note 31] Apart from these specific
analyses of a variety of particular heresies theologians had not
explored the concept of heresy as such in depth.[Note
32] Of course, in commentaries on Lombard's
Sentences there were references to heresy, but usually only in
connection with specific questions, such as the validity of
sacraments administered by heretics or the church's role in the
punishment of heretics.[Note 33] Even
Aquinas's account in the Summa Theologiae consists only
in one question with four articles, namely, Is heresy a kind of
unbelief? What is its field? Are heretics to be tolerated?
Should those returning from heresy be received?[Note
34] Even the ecclesiological treatises that were
written by the generation before Ockham, by men such as Giles of
Rome or James of Viterbo, did not treat of heresy.
Ockham admits
frankly this problem for the theologian. The Master presents
this argument in chapter 11 of book 1:
Some canonists
seem to think that it pertains chiefly to them to judge between
heretics and catholics. It can be argued as follows. ... To
judge between heretics and catholics pertains more chiefly to
those who reflect on heretics more carefully and with more
application. However, such people are canonists. So it is that a
sufficiently long special title on heretics has been inserted in
the book of Decretals. ... However mention is rarely made of
heretics in theology.
So Ockham was
writing the first medieval theoretical treatise on heresy[Note 35] and as a result had to
establish first of all his, or rather theology's, credentials.
In this regard it is significant that, despite the Student's
framing of the question in terms of canonists and theologians,
an important part of the debate is conducted by comparing the scientia
of the canonists and of the theologians. An key issue dealt with
is which of the two is subalternating and which is
subalternated. The locating of one's subject matter as a scientia
within one of the various schema of sciences that had been drawn
up had become a standard practice since the translation of
Aristotle's Posterior Analytics in the late 12th
century. In particular, related sciences were analysed in order
to determine which was superior to which, which relied on
principles derived from its superior or subalternating science.[Note 36] I have noted an allusion to it
already in Humbert of Romans. Indeed by Ockham's day the
Prologue to most Sentence commentaries began with a
consideration of the scientia of theology. The first
question in Scotus's Ordinatio was Utrum theologia sit
scientia and this is the second question that Ockham
treats in his commentary. Most of the theologians of the day
have left treatments of this question, either in their Sentence
commentaries or in Quodlibetal disputations. Augustinus
Triumphus asks specifically which of the scientie of
theology and canon law subalternated the other.[Note
37] I think that we must see it, therefore, as an
important preliminary task in a new intellectual endeavour to
establish its status as a scientia prior to an
exposition of it.
I believe that
this was especially important for Ockham because there was
available a widely known and powerful presentation of the claims
of the status of the scientia of canon law. This is in
the Prologue to the Summa aurea of Hostiensis, perhaps
the best known and most highly regarded of medieval canonists.
After the usual invocation to God, called 'the head and author
of all sciences', and some standard self-justification, the
author has a section headed Unde habuit originem liber iste.
This begins with the Creation and after a brief history
of the development of law we read this:
You have three
kinds of scientia, that is, civil wisdom ... then
theological scientia. But canonical scientia
comprehends both these, and indeed all law, whether it be divine
or human, public or private. ... This scientia of ours,
therefore, is not purely theological or civil but participates
in both. ... This scientia of ours can truly be called
the scientia scientiarum ... since it is the art of
arts.. ... For if it is understood and known well, both
spiritual and temporal matters can be ruled by it, so it should
be accepted and maintained by everyone ... and all ought to be
led by it and not by their own understanding.[Note
38]
After showing by
natural reason that this scientia is worthier than all others
and should be preferred to all, he concludes the Prologue
thus:
Thus canonical scientia
seems to embrace all philosophy ... and so it seems that we
should not ask to what part of philosophy it should be
supposited but to what scientia the whole of philosophy
should be supposited, and one can reply, to the canonical scientia
which comprehends everything.[Note 39]
We can not be
sure that Ockham read Hostiensis, but it seems highly likely
given his wide knowledge of the canonists and the latter's
reputation. But even if he had not, the Prologue shows both the
ambitious claims that were being made for canon law, which
Ockham had to counter, and the importance of the idea of scientia
in contemporary thought. I believe that such claims and the
increasing importance of canon law provide the background
against which the first book of Ockham's treatise on heresy can
best be understood.
Return to Table of Contents
NOTES
Note
1: See the list of manuscripts
in the introduction to the Dialogue at this web site.
Note
2: Alberigo refers to 'la nature
mitica del preteso conciliarismo del francescano inglese'; see
G. Alberigo 'Il movimento conciliare (XIV_XV sec.) nella ricerca
storica recente', in Studi Medievali, xix, 1978, pp.
913-50 at p. 925.
Note
3: Book 5 of the first part of the Dialogue
considers, in the context of Christ's promise that he would be
with the Church always, who would maintain the faith and not be
tainted by heresy. Arguments against its being the pope are
found in chapters 1 to 5 and arguments against its being a
general council are rehearsed in chapters 25 to 28.
Note
4: On Ockham's recitative works see
John Kilcullen, 'The
Political Writings', in
Paul Vincent Spade, The Cambridge Companion to Ockham,
Cambridge University Press, 1999, pp. 307-8 and Arthur Stephen
McGrade, The Political Thought of William of Ockham:
Personal and Institutional Principles, Cambridge
University Press, 1974,
Note
5: For d'Ailly's view of canonists see
Francis Oakley, The Political Thought of Pierre d'Ailly: The
Voluntarist Tradition, New Haven, Yale University Press,
1964, pp. 22-3. See also Bernard Guenee, Between Church and
State, University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London,
1991, 153-4.
Note
6: Gerson's addresses are found in his
Oeuvres complètes, ed. P. Glorieux, Paris, Desclee,
1960-73, vol. 5, pp. 437-46 and vol. 7, pp. 171-78 and 219-29.
For his reference to heresy see the last of these on p.228.
Note
7: For the views of van der Velde and
Segovia see Anthony Black, Council and Commune: the
conciliar movement and the fifteenth century heritage,
London, Burns and Oates, 1979, pp. 62 and 128. For Segovia's
debt to Ockham see Jesse D. Mann, 'William of Ockham, Juan de
Segovia and Heretical Pertinacity', Mediaevel Studies,
56 (1994), pp. 67-88.
Note
8: Black, op. cit., p. 111.
Note
9: On the canonistic background to the
papal views see B. Tierney, Foundations of the Conciliar
Theory: The Contribution of the Medieval Canonists from
Gratian to the Great Schism, London, Cambridge University
Press, 1955.
Note
10: Black, op. cit., p. 62.
Note
11: Cited by Guy Fitch Lytle, 'The
careers of Oxford students in the Later Middle Ages', in James M
Kittelson & Pamela J Transue, Rebirth, Reform and
Resilience, Universities in Transition 1300-1700, Ohio
State University Press, Columbus, 1984, pp. 213-53 on p. 241.
Note
12: See D. N. Lepine, 'The Origins and
Careers of the Canons of Exeter Cathedral, 1300-1455', in C.
Harper-Bill, Religious Belief and Ecclesiastical Careers in
Late Medieval England: the proceedings of the conference held
at Strawberry Hill, Easter, 1989, Woodbridge, Suffolk,
Boydell Press, 1991, pp. 87-120
Note
13: Alan B. Cobban, "Theology and Law
in the Medieval Colleges of Oxford and Cambridge", Bulletin
of the John Rylands Library of Manchester, 65 (1982), pp.
57-77 at pp. 63-4. He estimates that between the end of the
fourteenth and the end of the fifteenth century the percentage
of scholars engaged in theology must have fallen from about 40%
to about 15%, p. 67.
Note
14: The sermon, delivered by Thomas of
Wimbledon in 1388, is edited by Nancy H. Owen, in 'Thomas
Wimbledon's Sermon: "Redde racionem villacionis tue"', Medieval
Studies, 28 (1966), pp. 176-97; see p. 181. D' Ailly is
quoted by G. H. M. Posthumus Meyjes, 'Exponents of Sovereignty:
Canonists as seen by Theologians in the Late Middle Ages', in The
Church and Sovereignty c.590-1918 Essays in Honour of Michael
Wilks, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1991, at p. 312.
Note
15: See William Courtenay, Schools
and Scholars in Fourteenth Century England, Princeton, New
Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1987, pp. 131-37.
Note
16: Tractatus Contra Benedictum,
ed. H. S. Offler in Guillelmi de Ockham, Opera Politica,
vol. 3, Manchester, Manchester University Press at p. 213. Later
in the Dialogue 1 Dial., 2.30 the Student, a keen
defender of the pope, states the widely known situation clearly.
'For there have been many highest pontiffs since the time of
Innocent III who have been very learned in canon law, although
they have not been outstanding in theology.'
Note
17: The letter, dated 31 July, 1330, is
printed in MGH, Legum Sectio IV, 6. Pt. 1, sect. 2,
p.688.
Note
18: For Ockham's views on Eckhart see Contra
Benedictum, pp. 251-53.
Note
19: Some of the replies to the pope's
request for responses to the heretical views of Marsilius are
printed in R. Scholz, Unbekannte Kirchenpolitische
Streitschriften aus der Zeit Ludwigs Des Bayern (1327-1354),
Rome, 1914. See pp.3-42.
Note
20: Translated in Francis E. Kelley,
'Ockham: Avignon, before and after', in Anne Hudson and Michael
Wilks, From Ockham to Wyclif, Oxford, Blackwell, 1987 at
p. 7.
Note
21: Cited by R. James Long, '"Utrum
iurista vel theologus plus proficiat ad regimen ecclesie" A
Quaestio Disputata of Francis Caraccioli: Edition and Study', Medieval
Studies, 30 (1968), pp. 134-62 at p. 140.
Note
22: Thomas Aquinas, Quodlibet,
XI, cited by Walter Ullmann, Medieval Papalism. The
Political Theories of the Medieval Canonists, London,
Methuen, 1949, p.47,n.2.
Note
23: Paradiso, IX, 133-35. Note
his remarks in book 3 of Monarchia that decretalists
are 'ignorant and lacking in any philosophical or theological
training'; Dante, Monarchia, Prue Shaw ed. and trans.,
Cambridge University Press, 1995, 105.
Note
24: Francis's quaestio is edited in
Long, op. cit.; the quotation comes from 158.
Note
25: Arthur Stephen McGrade, 'The
Medieval Idea of Heresy: What Are We to Make of It?' in The
Medieval Church: universities, heresy and the religious life:
essays in honour of Gordon Leff, edited Peter Biller and
Barrie Dobson, Woodbridge, Boydell Press, 1999,, pp. 111-139.
Mcgrade's article is a splendid account of how Ockham and his
contemporaries understood heresy.
Note
26: McGrade affirms that 'there is an
increasing tendency in this period to link rejection of papal
authority with heresy' (ibid., p. 128) and cites the view of
Jeffrey B. Russell that 'one is obliged to adopt a very
practical approach: heresy (at least from about 1050) was
doctrine condemned by Rome'; (ibid., p. 114).
Note
27: Summa Theologica, 2a2ae,
q.11, art.2. He cites 24, q. 1, ch. 13 as proof of the pope's
authority in the matter.
Note
28: Fully explicated in McGrade, The
Political Thought of William of Ockham, pp. 48-63.
Note
29: The subject of heresy was not
ignored in the Decretum, but the overwhelming majority
of references to it concern simony.
Note
30: Alan's tract is in PL, 210, cols
305-430.
Note
31: Alvarus's treatise is (partially)
edited in Scholz, op. cit., 491-514; the reference is from
p.513.
Note
32: See McGrade's article, 'The
Medieval Idea of Heresy', cited above for an account of
contemporary views. Commenting on the view of heresy in the
statements of Church councils he notes 'the absence of any
formal general definition of heresy or heretic.' (p. 121)
Note
33: As a typical example I mention the
commentary by Alexander of Hales: on dist. 31 of I Sentences
he lists various heresies and their errors; on dist. 44 of II
Sentences he asks whether heretics should be coerced by
the secular powers; on dist. 37 of III Sentences he
alludes to the legitimacy of capital punishment for heretics;
and on dist. 6, 13, 18, 19 and 39 of IV Sentences he
discusses different sacraments and the rights of heretics.
Note
34: Summa Theologiae, 2a2ae
q.11.
Note
35: McGrade, 'The Medieval Idea of
Heresy', p 122, quotes Augustine on the difficulty of defining a
heretic and his belief that if such a definition were available
'who does not see how beneficial it would be?' But even
Augustine did not provide such a definition.
Note
36: There is a large literature on this
subject. Helpful are W. R. Laird, 'Robert Grosseteste on the
Subalternate Sciences, Traditio, XLIII, (1987), pp.
147-169; E. Sylla, 'Autonomous and Handmaiden Science: St.
Thomas Aquinas and William of Ockham on the Physics of the
Eucharist', in The Cultural Context of Medieval Learning,
edited J. E. Murdoch and E. D. Sylla, Boston Studies in the
Philosophy of Science, pp. 349-96; and Gordon Leff, William
of Ockham. The metamorphosis of scholastic discourse,
Manchester University Press, 1975, pp. 320-49. There is a
translation of one of Ockham's discussions on the subject in
Philotheus Boehner (ed.), Ockham.
Philosophical Writings, London, Thomas Nelson, 1957, pp.
2-16.
Note
37: See the extracts from his Summa
de potestate ecclesiastica edited in Long, op. cit.,
158-62; the discussion of subalternation is on 161.
Note
38: Henrici a Segusia cardinalis
Hostiensis, Summa Aurea, Venice, 1605, p. 7.