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Pierre d'Ailly and the Teaching Authority of the Theologian

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Douglass Taber Jr
Douglass Taber Jr
Affiliation:
associate Professor of history inWayne State College, Wayne, Nebraska.
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Extract

The fourteenth-century scholastic was obsessed with the problem of truth. One manifestation of this interest was the development of the highly abstract disciplines of formal logic and epistemology, by the study of which, philosophers and theologians believed, it would be possible to arrive at the truth with greater confidence. But the successors of Ockham and Holcot were interested in more than mere abstractions: they wished to establish a means by which the truth, once discovered, could be validated and its accuracy guaranteed to laity. When the truth in question was a point of Christian doctrine, this concern took on a special urgency. Confronted by an alarming array of both academic and popular heresies, the church in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries could no longer be satisfied simply to assert the infallibility of Christian truth sub specie aeternitatis; it was ever more necessary to make determinations of Christian truth and falsehood in this life. There resulted occasionally heated and always interesting debates over the nature and distribution of doctrinal authority.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 59 , Issue 2 , June 1990 , pp. 163 - 174
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1990

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References

1. Three broad surveys of medieval theories about the teaching authority of theologians are by Congar, Y. M.-J., “Theologians and the Magisterium in the West: From the Gregorian Reform to the Council of Trent,” Chicago Studies 17 (1978): 210–224;Google Scholar by Gryson, R., “L'autorité des docteurs dans l'Église ancienne et médiévale,” Revue théologique de Louvain 13 (1982): 63–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar (in English translation as “The Authority of the Teacher in the Ancient and Medieval Church,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 19 [1982]: 176–187);Google Scholar and by Olsen, G. W., “The Theologian and the Magisterium: The Ancient and Medieval Background of a Contemporary Controversy,” Communio 7 (1980): 292–319.Google Scholar See also Congar, 's L'Église de saint Augustin à l'époque moderne (Paris, 1970), pp. 241–244,Google Scholar and his two articles, “Bref historique des formes du ‘magistére’ et de ses relations avec les docteurs,” and “Pour une histoire sémantique du terme ‘magisterium,’” Recherches des sciences philosophiques et thélogiques 60 (1976): 99–112, 85–98,Google Scholar respectively. See also Meyjes, G. H. M. Posthumus, “Het Gezag van de theologische Doctor in de Kerk der Middeleeuwen: Gratianus, Augustinus Triumphus, Ockham en Gerson,” Nederlands Archief voor Kerkgeschiedenis 63 (1983): 105–128,CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Lytle, G. F., “Universities as Religious Authorities in the Later Middle Ages and Reformation,” in Reform and Authority in the Medieval and Reformation Church, ed. Lytle, G. F. (Washington, D.C., 1981), pp. 69–97.Google Scholar

2. For an introduction to d'Ailly's life and thought and to further bibliography, see Bernstein, A. E., Pierre d'Ailly and the Blanchard Affair (Leiden, 1978).Google Scholar

3. M. Peuchmard discusses the bishop as “doctor” in “Mission canonique et prédication. Le prêtre ministre de Ia parole dans Ia querelle entre Mendiants et Séculiers au XIIIe siècle,” Archives d'Histoire doctrirnale et littéaire du moyen âage 30 (1963): 122–144, 251–276,Google Scholar at 130 n. 33 and 132 n. 40. See also Chenu, M.-D., La théologie an douzième siècle, 2d ed. (Paris, 1966), p. 326,Google Scholar and Le Bras, G., “Velut splendor firmamenti: Le docteur dans le droit de I'Église médiévale,” in Mélanges offerts à Étienne Gilson de l'Académie Françalse (Toronto, 1959), pp. 375–388.Google Scholar On d'Ailly's use of the teaching/preaching assimilation in his polemics against Blanchard, see Bernstein, , Pierre d'Ailly, pp. 157–159.Google Scholar

4. In The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (Notre Dame, Ind., 1970), p. 209,Google Scholar commenting on Peter the Chanter's famous distinction between Iectio, disputatio, and predicatio, Beryl Smalley concluded that “the line between lectio and praedicatio is thinly drawn.” See the comments of Baldwin, J. W., Masters, Princes and Merchants; The Social Views of Peter the Chanter and his Circle, 2 vols. (Princeton, 1970), 1:91, 107–116,Google Scholar and Chenu, , Douzième siècle, p. 262.Google Scholar The distinction the thirteenth century made between teaching and preaching has been noted frequently; see Peuchmard, , “Mission canonique,” p. 131,Google Scholar and Leclercq, J., “Le magistère du prédicateur au XIIIe siècle,” Archives d'Histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen âge 15 (1946): 105–147, esp. 144–147.Google Scholar

5. Dom Leclercq contends that the medieval preacher was required to have both theological training and unexceptionable purity of life, and that in contrast the teaching of theology required only adequate intelligence and completion of the necessary studies (“Le magistère du prédicateur,” p. 146). But see Henry of Ghent's arguments that a doctor of theology should both lead a proper life and teach from the proper motives (Sommae Quaestionum Ordinariarum Theologi recepto praeconio Solennis Henrici a Gandavo ‘1520; reprint, St. Bonaventure, N.Y., 1953’, fol. 80r;Google Scholar Quodlibet I, q. 34, in Henrici de Gandavo: Quodlibet 1, ed. R. Macken, O.F.M. [Leiden, 1979], pp. 193–194).Google Scholar The recurring concern with the extra-academic dimension of the teaching profession is suggested by some of the disputations indexed by Glorieux, P., La littérature quodlibétique… 2 vols. (Le Saulchoir KAIN, Belgium, 1925; Paris, 1935),Google Scholar “Table idéologique,” s.v. “Doctores in theologia,”“Magistri in theologia,” and “studium.” See Le Bras, “Velut splendor firmamenti,” and Gabriel, A. L., “The Ideal Master of the Mediaeval University,” The Catholic Historical Review 60 (1974): 1–37.Google Scholar

6. Gondras, A.-J., “Pierre de Falco: Quaestiones disputatae de Quolibet,” Archives d'Histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen âge 33 (1966): 105–236, esp. 228–230;Google Scholar Henry of Ghent, Quodlibet I, q. 35, pp. 195–202, and Summae Quaestionum Ordinariarum, Art. 12, q. 6, fol. 87vf. See Guelluy, R., “La place des théologiens dans l'Église et Ia société médiévale,” in Miscellanea Historica in Honorem Alberti de Meyer, Universitatis catholicae in oppido lovaniensi iam annos XXV professoris (Louvain, 1946), pp. 579–589, esp. pp. 578–580.Google Scholar

7. Bernstein, Pierre d'Ailly, analyzes the context, course, and implications of the Blanchard affair in detail. D'Ailly's most important works against Blanchard are two disputations from early 1386, “Radix omnium” and “Super omnia” (Bernstein, , Pierre d'Ailly, pp. 197–236, 237–298);Google Scholar for an analysis of d'Ailly's polemical strategy, see ibid., pp. 150–176. G. Post, K. Giocarinis, and R. Kay discuss the history of the idea that theology is a spiritual good whose sale is simony in “The Medieval Heritage of a Humanistic Ideal: ‘Scientia Donum Dei est, unde Vendi non Potest,’” Traditio 11 (1955): 195–234;Google Scholar see also Baldwin, , Peter the Chanter, 1:126–128.Google Scholar

8. For the twelfth and thirteenth-century debates about preaching and the cure of souls, see the two articles by Peuchmard, M., “Le prêtre ministre de Ia Parole dans Ia théologie du XIIe siècle (Canonistes, moines et chanoines),” Recherches de théologie ancienne et méivale 29 (1962): 52–76,Google Scholar and “Mission canonique.” Y. M.-J. Congar offers a broader discussion of the ecclesiological issues taken up by William of St. Amour and his opponents in “Aspects ecclésiologiques de Ia querelle entre mendiants et séculiers dans Ia seconde moitié du XIIIe siècle et Ie début du XIVe,” Archives d'Histoire doctrinale et littéraire do moyen âge 28 (1961): 35–151.Google Scholar Finally, an exhaustive study of William of St. Amour can be found in Dufeil, M.-M., Guillaume de Saint-Amour et Ia polémique universitaire parisienne 1250–1259 (Paris, 1972).Google Scholar

9. Bernstein, , Pierre d'AiIIy, pp. 159–162.Google Scholar D'Ailly reinforced the implied parallel between the theologian and the priest by repeatedly using the analogy between preaching/teaching and ministration of the sacraments. See Bernstein's, discussion, Pierre d'Ailly, pp. 157–159,Google Scholar and, for examples in “Super omnia” and “Radix omnium,” ibid., pp. 230, 240, and 281. A. Murray discusses the medieval scholars' views on the “‘clergy’ of the educated” and the “priesthood of the wise” in Reason and Society in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1978), pp. 263–270.Google ScholarBoehm, L. discusses the ceremonial manifestation of such attitudes in German universities in “Libertas scholastica und Negotium scholare: Entstehung und Sozialprestige des akademischen Standes im Mittelalter,” in Universität und Gelehrtenstand, 1400–1800, ed. Rössler, H. and Franz, G. (Limburg/Lahn, 1970), pp. 15–61.Google Scholar

10. Bernstein, , Pierre d'Azlly, pp. 165–166.Google Scholar An interesting inversion of d'AiIly's idea is found in a sermon delivered by his famous protégé Jean Gerson at the Council of Constance in 1416. When they received the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, Gerson would declare, the Apostles were made “doctorizatos” (Jean Gerson: Oeuvres complètes, ed. P. Glorieux, 10 vols. in 11 [Paris, 1960–1973], 5:537).Google Scholar

11. William of Saint-Amour's “Collectiones”—the work d'Ailly adapted—can be found in the 1632 edition of his works (Magistri Guillelmi de Sancto Amore… Opera omnia [Constance, 1632]),Google Scholar in which the crucial discussion of direct and indirect mission begins on page 135; the analysis of indirect mission on pages 144 to 146 is cited extensively by Congar, , “Aspects ecclésiologiques,” p. 54Google Scholar n. 34a, and is analyzed by him on pp. 54–56. Bernstein, , Pierre d'Ailly, p. 160,Google Scholar identifies the passage cited by Congar, as the source of “Super omnia,” pp. 242–246.Google Scholar

12. For Monzon, see the article by G. Mollat in the Dictionnarie de theqiogiecatholique. s.v. “Jean de Monzon”(8:791–79). Editions or notices of most of the official documents from the affair can be found in the Chartutarium Universitatis Parisiensis…, ed. H. Denifle and E. Chatelain, 4 vols. (Paris, 1889–1897),3:486–533,Google Scholar nos. 1557–1583. The dossier is completed byDoncoeur, P., “La condemnation de Jean de Monzon par Pierre d'Orgemont, évéque de Paris, Ie 23 août 1387,” Revue des questions historiques 81 (1907): 176–187,Google Scholar which also gives the best published history of events at Paris. For the entire affair, see Mortier, D. A., Histoire des maîtresgénéraux de l'ordre des Frères prêcheurs, 8 vols. (Paris, 1903–1920), 3:616–647.Google Scholar

13. d'Argentré, Charles Du Plessis, Collectio judiciorum de novis erroribus …, 2 vols. (Paris, 1724–1736), 1 (2):82, 84Google Scholar (hereafter cited as d'Argentré). In support of his thesis Monzon evoked the authority of canon law: X, 3.42.3 declares that “Maiores ecclesiae causas, praesertim articulos fidei contingentes, ad Petri sedem referendas” (Corpus Juris Canonici, ed. E. A. Friedberg, 2 vols. [Leipzig, 1879–1881], 2:644–646Google Scholar [hereafter cited as Friedberg]).

14. The “Tractatus cx parte universitatis studii parisiensis pro causa fidei contra quemdam fratrem ordinis predicatorum” is in autograph copy in Ms. BN lat. 3122, fols. 7r-48r; the only complete printed edition is in d'Argentré, 1(2):75–129. The address to the pope on which the “Tractatus” is based is the “Proposicio facta in consistorio,” extant only in truncated form; it is found in Ms. BN lat. 3122, fols. 3v-6v, and is published most conveniently in d'Argentré, 1(2):69–74. D'Ailly's polemics against Monzon have attracted considerable and diverse scholarly attention. See, for example, Chenu, M.-D., “‘Maître’ Thomas est-il une ‘Autorité?’” Revue thomiste 30 (1925): 187–194;Google ScholarGlorieux, P., “Pierre d'Ailly et Saint Thomas,” in Littérature et religion. Méelanges offerts à Monsieur le Chanoine Joseph Coppin (Lille, 1966), pp. 45–53;Google ScholarOakley, F., “Pierre d'Ailly and Papal Infallibility,” Mediaeval Studies 26 (1964):353–358;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Kelly, J. F., “The Place of Pierre d'Ailly in the Development of Medieval Theological Sources and Censures,” Studies in Medieval Culture 6-7 (1976): 141–150.Google Scholar

15. D'Argentré, 1 (2):75–76. The distinction between scholastic and judicial doctrinal authority was a medieval commonplace; the locus classicus was Gratian's Dictum to C. I d. 20 c. 1 (Friedberg, 1:65).

16. D'Argentré, 1 (2):76. Whenever d'Ailly raised a question concerning a papal doctrinal judgment, it was clearly the pope rather than the Apostolic See whose fallibility was at issue; see, for example, D'Argentré, 1 (2):80, 84.

17. D'Argentré, 1 (2):85.

18. D'Argentré, 1 (2):85–86.

19. See Congar's analysis of the similar view of the thirteenth-century seculars (“Aspects ecclésiologiques,” p. 75).Google Scholar

20. D'Argentré, 1 (2):79.

21. The form of the third conclusion suggests how d'ailly tried to avoid the danger: an analysis of the scholastic authority of “doctors of theology,” it makes no mention of the faculty until its summation, where in a seeming non sequitur d'Ailly concludes that “from the foregoing… it appears that the condemnation of heretical assertions pertains to the faculty of …theology” (d'Argentré, 1[2]:78). The implication seems to be that the faculty disposed of unusual scholastic authority by virtue of the cumulative authority of its members. The faculty's authority, then, did not derive from papal privileges but—as we shall see—from the nature of the discipline of theology and from the divine institution of the theologian's office in the apostolic church. D'Ailly was also careful to argue that while the faculty of theology's judicial authority could be exercised only over its sworn members, its scholastic authority was universal (d'Argentré, 1[2]:80).

22. D'Argentré, 1 (2):77. It is noteworthy that d'Ailly adapted a part of this passage directly from Ockham's Dialogus, (Monarchia S Rornani Imperii sive Tractatus de lurisdictione imperiali seu Regia … ed. M. Goldast, 3 vols. [Frankfurt, 1668], 2:401);Google Scholar the most important change made to fit the passage better into d'Ailly's argument was to qualify Ockham's “assertio” as “doctrinalis.” D'Ailly is known to have read the Dialogus, of which he made a summary while yet a student, the “Abbrevatio dialogi Okam,” in Ms. BN lat. 14579, fols. 88v-101v (see Oakley, F., The Political Thought of Pierre d'Ailly: The Voluntarist Tradition [New Haven, 1964], p. 143).Google Scholar For the identification of theology with Scripture, see the classic study of de Ghellinck, J., “‘Pagina' et ‘Sacra Pagina.’ Histoire d'un mot et transformation de l'objet primitivement désigné,” in Mélanges Auguste Pelzer; études d'histoire littêraire et doctrinale de Ia scolastique médiévale offertes à Auguste Pelzer & l'occasion de son soixante-dixième anniversaire (Louvain, 1947), pp. 23–59;Google Scholar see also Chenu, , Douziéme siécle, pp. 329–337.Google Scholar

23. D'Argentré, 1 (2):77. D'Argentré's edition contains an error which seriously weakens the strength of d'Ailly's association of theologian to bishop. D'Ailly actually wrote that “[Apostolus] officium episcoporum … et officium doctorum connumerat” (Ms. BN lat. 3122, fol. 9r); d'Argentré replaced “connumerat” with the unfortunate “commendat.”

24. D'Argentré, 1 (2):77. It should be observed that this was not d'Ailly's first use of Quum ex iniuncto, which links his polemics in the Blanchard and Monzon affairs. Innocent III's decretal formed the basis for William of St. Amour's discussion of direct and indirect mission in the passage from the “Collectiones” used by d'Ailly against Blanchard (in particular, William, of Amour, St., “Collectiones,” p. 135Google Scholar [“Eorum autem”], reproduces both the argument and the same sequence of scriptural citations found in Friedberg, 2:786,11. 15–32). In the portion of the decretal d'Ailly now used against Monzon the key concept was “doctor” rather than “mission.”

25. D'Argentré, l (2):80.

26. Ibid. For an introduction to the controversy over the Beatific Vision, see the two works by Dykmans, M., Les sermons de Jean XXII sur Ia vision bétifique (Rome, 1973),Google Scholar and Pour et contre Jean XXII en 1333: Deux traités avignonais sur Ia vision bétifique (Cità del Vaticano, 1975).Google Scholar On Ockham, see McGrade, W. S., The Political Thought of William of Ockham: Personal and Institutional Principles (Cambridge, 1974).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

27. D'Argentré, I (2):80. On the importance of the confrontation of Peter and Paul, see Meyjes, G. H. M. Posthumus, De controverse tussen Petrus en Paulus. Galaten 2:11 in de historie ('s-Gravenhage, 1967).CrossRefGoogle Scholar For one of his scholastic exercises d'Ailly disputed a “Questio de reprehensione petri apostoli a paulo,” found in Ms. BN lat. 3122, fols. 64r-66r. Jean Gerson offers a particularly striking statement of similar ideas in a sermon delivered on the feast day of Saint Peter and Saint Paul: “Chascun de ces deux apostres a eu aucunes excellences et dignités sur terre:… Petrus preest principatu, Paulus pollet magistratu tocius Ecclesie” (Glorieux, Gerson, 7[part 21]:722). Gerson also offers an interesting statement of the belief in the “apostolic succession” of the theologian in a passage discussing “the apostles, disciples, and evangelists, … and their successors, whom we call theologians, not according to the letter of the law, which kills, but according to the inner spirit, which vivifies” (Glorieux, Gerson, 5:223).

28. See, Inter alia, Grundmann, H., “Sacerdotium-Regnum-Studium: Zur Wertung der Wissenschaft im 13. Jahrhundert,” Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 34 (1951): 1–22;Google ScholarMcKeon, P. R., “The Status of the University of Paris as Parens Scientiarum: An Episode in the Development of its Autonomy,” Speculum 39 (1964): 651–675;CrossRefGoogle ScholarMenache, S., “La naissance d'une nouvelle source d'autorité: l'université de Paris,” Revue historique 268 (1982):305–327;Google Scholar and Southern, R. W., “The Changing Role of Universities in Medieval Europe,” Historical Studies 60 (1987):133–146.Google Scholar

29. See Martin, V., Les orignes du Gallicanisme, 2 vols. (Paris, 1939).Google Scholar On the relevance of Gallicanism to the Blanchard affair, consult Bernstein, , Pierre d'Ailly, pp. 175–176;Google Scholar see also the same author's “Magisterium and License: Corporate Autonomy against Papal Authority in the Medieval University of Paris,” Viator 9 (1978): 291–307.Google Scholar

30. The controversy which called forth Gerson's discussions was the dispute over the defence of tyrannicide by Jean Le Petit. Gerson had helped arrange the condemnation of Le Petit's work at Paris but met with fierce opposition at Constance; A. Coville surveys the affair in Jean Petit: La question du tyrannicide au commencement du XVe siécle (1932; reprint, Geneva, 1974).Google Scholar Among the many works Gerson wrote in his campaign against Le Petit were two defences of episcopal doctrinal authority (the suggestively titled “Conclusiones octo de jure episcoporum in definitionibus fidei” [Glorieux, Gerson, 6:175–176], and “Conclusiones de jure episcoporum in definiendis quaestionibus fidei” [Glorieux, Gerson, 6:174]), a strong assertion of the indispensability of theological counsel in making doctrinal definitions (the sermon “Oportet haereses esse” [Glorieux, Gerson, 5:431]), and the “Nova positio” (Glorieux, Gerson, 6:146–154)—of particular interest because in it Gerson reproduced important passages from d'Ailly's treatise against Monzon.