Introduction

William of Ockham was born around 1287, probably in the village of Ockham near London. After entering the Franciscan order he studied at Oxford and completed the requirements for the master's degree in theology He never became a regent master, however, probably because of the need to defend his teachings on grace, free will, and other topics from charges of heresy brought against them at the papal court in Avignon in the mid-1320s. While Ockham was in Avignon, he concluded that Pope John XXII was himself a heretic on points of doctrine held by most Franciscans at the time to be essential to Christian belief. Ockham fled the curia in 1328 with the Minister General of his order and a few confreres, taking refuge with Ludwig of Bavaria, who was at odds with the papacy over his title as Roman emperor. Ockham then wrote against the teachings of John XXII and John's successor Benedict XII, composed a massive treatise in dialogue form on heresy (with special reference to papal heresy), and discussed at some length the basis and functions of secular and religious governmental institutions. He is usually thought to have died in Munich in 1347 during an outbreak of plague.

Ockham was formally excommunicated for leaving Avignon without permission and was implicitly condemned as a heretic for his opposition to John XXII's bulls against the dominant Franciscan conception of the poverty of Christ, the apostles, and the Franciscans themselves.

Introduction

Augustine of Ancona (Augustinus Triumphus) was born around 1270\73. He studied at Paris, lectured on the Sentences of Peter Lombard there sometime between 1302 and 1306, and returned as a master in theology in 1313–15, after serving as Lector in the school of his monastic community, the Augustinian Order of Hermits, at Padua. He became Chaplain to Charles, son of King Robert of Naples, in 1322. Augustine wrote on logic (including a commentary on Aristotle's Prior Analytics), psychology, and metaphysics and composed more than a dozen theological treatises and biblical commentaries. He completed the Summa de ecclesiastica potestate, from which the present selection is taken, by the end of 1326, as evidenced by a letter dated December of that year acknowledging receipt of the work at the papal court in Avignon. He died in 1328.

The Summa on Ecclesiastical Power is the most extensive medieval articulation of the papalist, curialist, or hierocratic conception of spiritual and temporal power earlier advanced by such authors as Giles of Rome and James of Viterbo and developed (with qualifications regarding secular affairs) by Juan de Torquemada, Cardinal Cajetan, and Albert Pighi. In more than a hundred questions, each consisting of several articles, Augustine considers the pope's power first in itself, then in relation to the acts of lordship or dominion for which it is ordained, and finally in relation to the various personal statuses making up Christian society, which all derive what perfection they have from their papal source.

Introduction

John Wyclif (ca. 1330–1384) was an Oxford secular master in Arts and later in Theology who in the 1370s became involved in political and theological controversies. As diplomat, preacher, and writer he supported the government against the pope's claim to levy taxes and the claim of the clergy to have absolute ownership of property. His chief academic work in this period of his life was a theological Summa. After a massive preliminary treatise De domino divino (On Divine Lordship), the Summa included Tract I De mandatis divinis (On the Divine Commandments), Tract II De statu innocencie (On the State of Innocence), Tract III De civili dominio (On Civil Lordship, from which the chapters translated below come), and other treatises on Scripture, the church, kingship, the papacy, etc. Wyclif's elaborate treatment of lordship, divine and civil, is largely inspired by the treatise On the Poverty of the Savior by Richard FitzRalph, Bishop of Armagh, a contribution to the controversies over Franciscan poverty in which Marsilius of Padua and William of Ockham had also taken part. All these writers felt a need to clarify the various senses of lordship, property, justice, and rights. As Wyclif's Summa progressed it became more and more controversial on a variety of subjects, such as the nature of the church, the authority of the pope, and the doctrine of the eucharist.

Introduction

(For information on Henry of Ghent's life and writings, see the introduction to Translation 5.)

Thirteenth-century scholastic political and ethical thought stands in a direct and continuous line of tradition with the moral and pastoral theology of the twelfth-century schools. The academic milieu which had inspired the decrees of the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 also provided the training and the personnel which subsequently put its reforms into practice. From Robert Grosseteste onwards, there was thus an intimate connection between the teaching of Aristotle's Ethics in Paris and the provision of effective pastoral care through sermons and confession. The effects of such a direct engagement with pressing social, ecclesiological, and political concerns can be traced throughout the quodlibetic questions determined by Parisian masters. Two issues stand out as having a particular relevance to political thought: first, the longstanding tension between secular clergy (that is, clergy who did not belong to a religious order) and the mendicant orders (that is, Dominicans and Franciscans); second, the imposition of taxes by the Capetian kings of France and by successive popes in Rome.

Hostility between secular and mendicant masters within the University at Paris was the source of acrimonious controversies in the 1250s and 1270s. In 1281, Martin IV issued Ad fructus uberes, a bull which granted privileges to mendicant friars and, in the process, appeared to dispense them from the statutes passed by the Fourth Lateran Council.

Introduction

Godfrey of Fontaines was born around 1250. He studied the liberal arts at Paris during the second regency of Thomas Aquinas (1269–72) and then studied theology under Henry of Ghent and Gervase of Mt. St. Elias at the Sorbonne from around 1274. He taught as a regent master in the Faculty of Theology from 1285 to 1298–99 and again around 1303–4, before his death ca. 1306–9. Like Henry of Ghent, Godfrey of Fontaines produced his most important work in metaphysics, epistemology, and moral theology in the form of quodlibetic questions. Unlike Henry, however, Godfrey was a close adherent of Thomas Aquinas and, perhaps as a result of an education in the Faculty of Arts under Siger of Brabant, a more sympathetic reader of Aristotle. Thus, not only was Godfrey a firm opponent of Bishop Tempier's 1277 condemnation, but some of his most distinctive positions were established in dialogue with, and in opposition to, arguments set out in Henry's quodlibets.

Godfrey's approach to the issues raised by Book IX of the Ethics exemplifies much that is characteristic of his thought: direct engagement with Henry of Ghent, a close reading of Aristotle, and an attachment to Aquinas. In his tenth quodlibet, delivered in 1294–95, he sets out the problems presented by the passage in Ethics IX in which Aristotle appears to suggest that a virtuous individual's act of self-sacrifice is motivated primarily by desire to secure the greatest good for himself.

Introduction

Jean Buridan's dates of birth and death are uncertain, but he is known to have been active in the University of Paris between 1328 and 1358. He spent his whole working life as a Master of Arts (unlike many other wellknown medieval philosophers, who were theologians). He wrote on logic and produced commentaries in question form on many texts of Aristotle. His questions on Aristotle's Ethics break off at the beginning of Question 6 of Book X and may be his last work.

The questions on Book X are concerned with two main topics, freedom and happiness. The connection is that freedom in one sense, namely, ‘freedom of final ordering,’ is to be attributed to the activity that is the ultimate end of human life, which is also happiness. Freedom of final ordering is not what philosophers these days mean by free will. ‘Final ordering’ means ordering or directing toward an end (finis); freedom of final ordering is characteristic of something that is an end in itself and not a means ordered to some further end. We can understand why this is called freedom by considering Aristotle's understanding of the difference between free persons and slaves: Free persons live for themselves, slaves exist for the benefit of others. Hence Aristotle's description of ‘the free’ as that which exists ‘for its own sake and not for the sake of another.’ The act in which happiness consists will be free with freedom of final ordering since it is not for the sake of anything else.

Introduction

Peter of Auvergne was regent master in the Faculty of Arts at Paris between 1272 and 1295. The connection between his appointment as Rector in 1275 and his role in the controversy with more radical Aristotelians in the faculty is unclear. Traditionally considered to be a follower of Thomas Aquinas, at least initially, he also came under the influence of Henry of Ghent and Godfrey of Fontaines, finally becoming a master of theology by 1296. He was made Bishop of Claremont in 1302 and died in 1303.

Peter of Auvergne produced two commentaries on Aristotle's Politics. The first of these was a continuation of Thomas Aquinas's unfinished commentary on the work, which had broken off in the middle of Book III (at 12 80a6). Peter's completion of this text stands alongside his work on modist logic as his most significant contribution to the teaching of the Faculty of Arts at Paris. Although it cannot be dated with any greater precision than to the period in which Peter was regent master, his part of the commentary was probably composed some time in the 1270s. Far more certain is the influence it soon exerted as it became the standard exposition of William of Moerbeke's translation of Aristotle's text. The primary aim of this ‘literal’ (that is, phrase by phrase) commentary was to impose order and discipline on a difficult and often opaque original.

Introduction

Bonaventure was born John of Fidanza in Bagnoregio in Tuscany around 1217. He took the name Bonaventure on entering the Franciscan order in 1243, after completing studies at Paris for the Master of Arts degree. He studied theology with the major Franciscan masters at Paris 1243–48, lectured there on the Sentences of Peter Lombard from 1250 to 1252, and taught as the Franciscan regent master at Paris until he was elected Minister General of the order in 1257, a position he held until his death in 1274. He was made Cardinal Bishop of Albano in 1273 and participated in the Second Council of Lyons the following year. Bonaventure's disposition prompted some to declare that in him it seemed as if Adam had not sinned. He nevertheless earned the enmity of many of his confreres, who contended that it was imperative for Franciscans to follow a rigorously poor style of life and one innocent of academic culture. Bonaventure defended the importance of university studies against these members of his order and justified a rule of life sufficiently relaxed to allow pursuit of such studies. He was considered a reactionary by some of his university colleagues, however, because of his antagonism to the growing dominance of the teachings of Aristotle. His most celebrated work is a compact synthesis of intellect and devotion, The Journey of the Mind to God. A similar fusion is evident in his discourses On the Ten Commandments, On the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit, and On the Six Days of Creation.

Introduction

Giles of Rome (Aegidius Romanus, Egidius Colonna) was born in Rome around 1243–47. He joined the Hermits of St. Augustine at the age of fourteen. Sent to Paris in 1260, he completed his liberal arts studies in 1266 and entered the faculty of theology. He was studying there when Thomas Aquinas returned for his second period as regent master (1269–72). As a young theologian, Giles was soon caught up in disputes within the university over the teaching of Aristotle in the Faculty of Arts. In 1277 Stephen Tempier, the bishop of Paris, condemned as erroneous 219 propositions in theology and natural philosophy, fifty-one of which were drawn from Giles's commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard. Withdrawing to Bayeux and thence to Italy, Giles nevertheless continued to work on a series of commentaries on Aristotle's philosophical texts. These included the Physics, Metaphysics, De anima, and On Rhetoric. In 1285 Giles was rehabilitated, returning to Paris as the Augustinians' first regent master in theology, and in 1287 his writings were made the official teaching of the Augustinian order. Giles was elected General of the order in 1292 and was made Archbishop of Bourges in 1295. Besides On the Rule of Princes, Giles's other major political work was a sweeping defense of papal plenitude of power, On Ecclesiastical Power (trans. R. W. Dyson, Woodbridge, 1986), which he composed in 1302 for Pope Boniface VIII. Giles died in 1316.

Introduction

For information on Godfrey's life and writings, see the introduction to Translation 6. For the place of the present selection in late thirteenth-century discussions of the rationality of self-sacrifice, see the introduction to Translation 7.

Reply to James of Viterbo on Love of God and Self

[1. An Argument that Theology Is a Practical Science in a Different Sense from Moral Philosophy]

{180} It might be argued further that it must at least be held that theology is practical in a different way from moral science, because love of the end, or of God, which ought to be a principle with respect to all possible actions pertaining to practical science, has a different character when it is considered by the theologian and by the moral philosopher. This is because the love with which human beings love God as considered by the moral philosopher (namely, as a love of the sort that arises from natural principles) is such that, with it, human beings love themselves more than God, in accordance with Ethics IX (4, 1166a1–2, b1–2; IX.8 1168b4–5): Friendliness toward another [derives] from friendliness toward oneself. The love with which God is loved as considered by the theologian, however (namely, as a love caused by a supernatural principle, i.e., by charity), is such that, with it, human beings love God more than themselves.

Introduction

After teaching at the Dominican school in Naples from around 1300, John of Naples was sent to Paris in 1310 for further theological study. He was a strict adherent of Thomas Aquinas and was commissioned in 1313 (together with Pierre de la Palu) to examine the teachings of their fellow Dominican, Durand of St. Pourcain. In 1315 John became a regent master at Paris, where he taught until returning to Naples in 1317 as Dominican lector. His work survives in the form of forty-two Disputed Questions, thirteen Quodlibets, and a series of sermons. He died around 1350.

John's discussion of just war provides further illustration of the close connection between teaching within the Faculty of Theology at Paris and issues of pressing political and ecclesiological concern in western Europe. In discussing whether evil can be used for a good end, in exploring the parallel drawn by Augustine between military and legal contexts, and in expounding Aquinas's reflections on the justification of war and the legitimacy of non-Christian lordship, John makes detailed use of Scripture and of the law – canon, Roman, and customary. His conclusion is nothing if not bold: It is indeed permissible for a Christian ruler to use non-Christian mercenaries to defend a Christian commonwealth. Basing his argument on the distinction between what is true without qualification (simpliciter, per se) and what is true in certain circumstances (secundum quid), John is careful to add important practical reservations.

Introduction

Henry of Ghent was born around 1217. He taught at Paris as a secular master in the Faculty of Theology from 1276 until his death in 1293. As a member of Stephen Tempier's commission of inquiry, he helped determine the 219 articles in theology and natural philosophy which were censured by the bishop in 1277. Henry's own particular fusion of Augustinian metaphysics and Aristotelian epistemology has left modern commentators both intrigued and perturbed by the tensions which such a combination produced. The core of Henry's teaching has been preserved in two major works, the Summa quaestionum ordinarium and a collection of fifteen Quaestiones quodlibetales. The quodlibet is the genre of academic inquiry which offers perhaps the most direct insight both into issues of contemporary intellectual concern and into a regent master's own opinions. Originally a penitential exercise at Easter and Christmas each year, it required a master to respond to a question on ‘any’ subject (de quolibet) and was often used to put him on the spot. Quodlibets can thus provide an index of those contentious issues which were dividing theologians at any given moment. In Henry's case, for example, this form of disputation provided the forum for his exchanges with Giles of Rome and Godfrey of Fontaines over the nature of the distinction between essence and existence. Henry's quodlibets also provide a commentary on issues of directly political and ethical import, such as the debate over the privileges of the mendicant orders, opposition to royal taxation, the connection between the moral and theological virtues, and the relationship between the individual good and the common good.

Introduction

(For information on Ockham's life and writings, see the introduction to Translation 13.)

Ockham's Dialogue between Master and Student, from which this selection is taken, grew out of disagreements between Pope John XXII and a small group of dissident Franciscans led by Michael of Cesena, of which Ockham was a member. In his constitution Cum inter nonnullos the pope had condemned as heresy a doctrine these friars believed had been endorsed by previous popes and accepted by the whole church. This, in their view, made John himself a heretic, and the majority of Franciscans who had accepted John's constitution were thus in their view either heretics or supporters of heresy. Part I of the Dialogue is accordingly a discussion of heresy, heretics, and supporters of heresy. The Master makes no assertions of his own but reports and discusses ‘the views of the learned.’

A heresy, in the definition apparently endorsed by the Master, is an assertion that contradicts catholic truth, which is found in the Bible and the teaching of the whole church. A heretic is not simply someone who believes a heresy but a baptized Christian (or one who presents himself as such) who believes some heresy pertinaciously. Pertinacity is unwillingness to accept the rule of faith, namely, the Bible and the teaching of the church. Book 4 discusses how it is proved that someone holds a heresy pertinaciously.

The idea of a series of volumes to be known as The Cambridge Translations of Medieval Philosophical Texts originated in the Cambridge University Press almost as soon as work on The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy had begun. The first volume in the series, Logic and the Philosophy of Language, edited by Norman Kretzmann and Eleonore Stump, appeared in 1988. Work on the present volume began in 1991 with the selection of texts to be translated and the gathering of a team to do the translating. We are now happy to present a body of texts in moral philosophy which we have come to appreciate increasingly while working with them. A. S. McGrade, who is primarily responsible for Translations 1–2 and 13–14 and for editing the volume as a whole, was able to devote full time to the project in early 1991, thanks to a sabbatical leave from teaching granted by the University of Connecticut and a Visiting Fellowship from Clare Hall, Cambridge, and in 1994–95, thanks to a grant from the Translations Program of The National Endowment for the Humanities and the further hospitality of Clare Hall. Supplementary grants from the University of Connecticut Research Foundation and the encouragement of its director, Thomas G. Giolas, have been a great help to him. He is also grateful to the staffs of libraries at the University of Cambridge; the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts; Harvard University; Yale University; the University of Connecticut; and St. John's College and Merton College, Oxford.