Studies in the Philosophy of William of Auvergne Bishop of Paris 1228-1249 (Marquette Studies in Philosophy)

Studies in the Philosophy of William of Auvergne Studies in the Philosophy of William of Auvergne Bishop of Paris (1...

Author: Roland J. Teske

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Studies in the Philosophy of William of Auvergne

Studies in the Philosophy of

William of Auvergne Bishop of Paris (1228–1249)

By

Roland J. Teske, S.J.

Marquette Studies in Philosophy No. 51 Andrew Tallon, Series Editor

Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data Teske, Roland J., 1934Studies in the philosophy of William of Auvergne, Bishop of Paris (1228-1249) / by Roland J. Teske. p. cm. — (Marquette studies in philosophy ; no. 51) Includes bibliographical references and indexes. ISBN-13: 978-0-87462-674-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-87462-674-9 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. William, of Auvergne, Bishop of Paris, d. 1249. I. Title. B765.G84T47 2006 189’.4—dc22 2006026815

Photo of Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris, by Andrew J. Tallon.

© 2006 Marquette University Press Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53201-3141 All rights reserved. www.marquette.edu/mupress/

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences— Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.

Table of Contents Dedication............................................................................................ 7 Acknowledgments............................................................................... 8 Introduction......................................................................................... 9 1. William of Auvergne: An Overview............................................17 2. William of Auvergne on the Eternity of the World...................29 3. The Identity of the “Italici” in William of Auvergne’s Discussion of the Eternity of the World.....................................53 4. William of Auvergne on De re and De dicto Necessity..............65 5. William of Auvergne and the Manichees....................................81 6. William of Auvergne’s Use of the Avicennian Principle: “Ex Uno, In Quantum Unum, Non Nisi Unum”......................101 7. William of Auvergne on the Individuation of Human Souls..121 8. William of Auvergne’s Arguments for the Newness of the World............................................................................................145 9. William of Auvergne’s Rejection of the Platonic Archetypal World............................................................................................161 10. William of Auvergne on the Relation between Reason and Faith..............................................................................................179 11. William of Auvergne on Time and Eternity...........................195 12. William of Auvergne’s Debt to Avicenna................................217 13. William of Auvergne on the Various States of Our Nature.. 239 Bibliography.....................................................................................261 Index of Names................................................................................271 Subject Index....................................................................................273

For my students over the years

Acknowledgments

The articles reprinted in this volume were previously published as listed below. I gratefully acknowledge their original place of publication and thank the editors for their permission to reprint the articles. “William of Auvergne: An Overview,” originally published as “William of Auvergne,” in A Companion to Philosophy in the Middle Ages, ed. Jorge J. E. Gracia and Timothy B. Noone. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2002, pp. 680–687. “William of Auvergne on the Eternity of the World,” The Modern Schoolman 67 (1990): 187–205. “The Identity of the ‘Italici’ in William of Auvergne’s Discussion of the Eternity of the World,” Proceedings of the PMR Conference 15 (1990): 189–201. “William of Auvergne on De re and De dicto Necessity,” The Modern Schoolman 69 (1992): 111–121. “William of Auvergne and the Manichees,” Traditio 48 (1993): 63–75. “William of Auvergne’s Use of the Avicennian Principle:‘Ex Uno, In Quantum Unum, Non Nisi Unum,’” The Modern Schoolman 71 (1993): 1–15. “William of Auvergne on the Individuation of Human Souls,” Traditio 49 (1994): 77–93. “William of Auvergne’s Arguments for the Newness of the World,” Mediaevalia: Textos e Estudios 7-8 (1995): 287–302. “William of Auvergne’s Rejection of the Platonic Archetypal World,” Traditio 53 (1998): 117–130. “William of Auvergne on the Relation between Reason and Faith,” The Modern Schoolman 75 (1998): 279–291. “William of Auvergne on Time and Eternity,” Traditio 55 (2000): 125–141. “William of Auvergne’s Debt to Avicenna,” in Avicenna and His Heritage. Acts of the International Colloquium. Leuven-Louvaine-La-Neuve September 8-September 11, 1999. Ed. by Jules Janssens and Daniel De Smet. Leuven: Leuven Univerity Press, 2002, pp. 153–170. “William of Auvergne on the Various States of Our Nature,” Traditio 58 (2003): 201–218.

Introduction

M

y interest in William of Auvergne began in 1985 when the Reverend Francis C. Wade, S.J., my friend and mentor, undertook a translation of William’s De trinitate after his retirement from Marquette University, where he had taught philosophy for forty years. Father Wade asked me to check his translation, but died rather suddenly before I had checked much of it. I decided then to complete his translation, adding an introduction and notes. In the process I became fascinated by William’s thought and intrigued by his openness to the Greek and Islamic philosophy, which was at the time just beginning to be known in the Latin West. My growing interest in William led me to translate into English his De immortalitate animae, selections from his De universo creaturarum, and his De anima. The translations made it possible for me to offer several graduate courses on William in the Department of Philosophy at Marquette, in which I was blessed with some excellent students who went on to publish on William. During the past twenty years I also published fifteen articles and four chapters in books on William and aspects of his philosophical thought. The thirteen studies on William in this present volume have been previously published and are here reprinted with some slight, mainly editorial changes in an attempt to have greater uniformity in style. At the end I have added a new bibliography to the works on William, which includes a new volume of collected essays, Autour de Guillaume d’Auvergne (Ö1249), edited by Franco Morenzoni and Jean-Yves Tilliette. This volume, which is the fruit of a conference on William in 2000 at the University of Geneva, includes another article of mine.

I. William’s Life and Works Little is known of William’s early life. He was born late in the twelfth century in Aurillac in the Province of Auvergne. He studied in Paris and became a canon of Notre Dame. By 1223 he was a master of theology at the University of Paris. In 1228 he was made bishop of Paris by Pope Gregory IX. He remained bishop of Paris until his death in 1249, while continuing the writing of his huge work, Magisterium divinale et sapientiale, whose unity was recognized only in the twentieth century.

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The work is now seen to have the structure of one of the great Summas of the later decades of the thirteenth century, beginning with God as first principle and as triune, moving to the world of spiritual and material creatures, especially the human soul, and then recounting the return of the soul to God through the incarnation and redemption of Christ, faith and religion, the virtues, and the sacraments. Though William’s work has been overshadowed by the giants of the later part of the century, his work clearly is equal to that of Albert, Bonaventure, or Aquinas in its scope and comprehensive structure. Without the sponsorship of a religious order, William’s thought has been comparatively neglected. It is, however, well worth studying both for its intrinsic value since it marks one of the first steps in the reception of Greek and Islamic thought into the Latin West, along with Robert Grosseteste and Richard Rufus of Cornwall, and for its relation to later philosopher-theologians of the century, such as Albert, Bonaventure, and Aquinas. For one cannot, I believe, appreciate the greatness of the Thomistic synthesis or the majesty of Bonaventure’s thought unless one knows what the intellectual atmosphere was only a few decades earlier. The following articles discuss many aspects of William’s thought that drew my interest for almost twenty years. Before turning to them, I will in this introduction attempt to give some insight into the character of William the man and the bishop. I will single out a series of events in his life, which, I believe, throw light upon his character: first, his appeal to Gregory IX concerning the election of another man as bishop of Paris; second, his handling the strike of the masters and students at the university; third, his condemnation of various propositions in 1241; and fourth, his advise to King Louis about the launching of another crusade. On 10 April 1228 Gregory IX wrote to the canons of the cathedral of Notre Dame that “we have ... named for you as bishop a man of eminent knowledge and unsullied virtue, Master William. After having ordained him priest and consecrated him bishop, we return him to you.” The previous bishop, Bartholomaeus, had died on 20 October 1227. Nicolas, who was elected by the canons to replace the deceased bishop, did not meet with William’s satisfaction. As a result, William hied himself off Noël Valois, Guillaume d’Auvergne, évèque de Paris (1228-1249); sa vie et ses ouvrages (Paris: Picard, 1880), p. 11, quoted from my introduction to William’s The Trinity or the First Principle (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1989).

Introduction

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to Rome and, though merely a deacon, he appealed to the pope against the election of Nicolas. His knowledge and character—not to mention his chutzpah and energy—obviously impressed Gregory to the point that he ordained him a priest, consecrated him as bishop, and appointed him to the see of Paris, over which he ruled until his death in 1249, while continuing the writing of the Magisterium divinale. During Carnival in 1229 some students at the University of Paris rioted after too much to drink and caused sufficient property damage to bring about the intervention of Blanche of Castille, the queen-regent for her son, Louis, the future king and saint. Soldiers were sent to quell the disturbance, and several students were killed. The masters and students of the university appealed to William to redress their rights. William, however, did little or nothing to placate the university, and as a result the masters and students went on strike and withdrew from Paris to other cities. The strikers also appealed to Rome, and Pope Gregory in turn strongly rebuked William, appointed a commission to settle the dispute, and later intervened with Blanche to receive back the returning masters. The strong words of Gregory’s letter of admonition to William would have a bishop of today shaking in his boots: bearing a wound from an unexpected foe and frustrated in the hope we had conceived, we are so confounded by your actions that we are forced to say, albeit unwillingly, ‘We regret having made this man.’ ... With what great shame do you think we are covered when some people can mock us, saying, ‘Behold the man you have set over the church of Paris.’ ... ?

The papal anger was, however, short lived for William was soon back in the good graces of the pope who used the bishop as his representative in peace negotiations between England and France in 1231. The strike by the Parisian masters had several significant consequences and lessons. First of all, it provided the occasion for William to appoint to a chair in theology the first member of one of the mendicant orders, namely, the Dominican, Roland of Cremona. William also permitted Alexander of Hales to retain his position after he entered the Francis For further details on the selection of Bartholomaeus’s successor, see Valois, pp. 8–11 and Ernest A. Moody, “William of Auvergne and His Treatise De Anima,” in his Studies in Medieval Philosophy, Science, and Logic (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975), p. 2. See Valois, pp. 343–345 and The Trinity, p. 2.

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cans. Secondly, the intervention of the pope marked a reduction in the control of the university by the local bishop. The strike and the papal reaction also shows that the Church clearly recognized the importance of the university to the Church already within the first decades after its foundation. The student drinking and riotous behavior also remind us that university life has not changed all that much since the thirteenth century. Thirdly, as bishop of Paris William along with his chancellor and the masters in theology of the University of Paris condemned a series of ten propositions in theology on 13 January 1241. The condemned errors are interesting since they reveal the bishop’s concern about certain doctrines being taught. The propositions condemned were “that the divine essence will be seen in itself neither by an angel nor by a man,” ... “that, although the divine essence is one in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, in the character of form, it is still one in the Father and the Son, but is not one with them in the Holy Spirit, and yet this form is the same thing as the divine essence,” ... “that the Holy Spirit, as he is bond or love, does not proceed from the Son, but only from the Father,” ... “that glorified souls are not in the empyrean heaven with the angels, but are in the aqueous or crystalline heaven, which is the firmament,” ... “that the evil angel was evil from the beginning of creation and never was anything but evil,” ... “that at the same instant an angel can be in different places at the same time and can be everywhere if he wills,” ... “that there are many truths from eternity, which are not God,” ... “that the first moment of time and making and being made could not be created,” ... “that one who has better natural gifts will necessarily have greater gifts of grace and glory,” ... and “that the evil angel never had the means by which he could remain upright, nor did Adam in the state of innocence.” While the condemnation of such propositions may not have been a momentous event in itself, it foreshadowed the more famous condemnation of 219 propositions by another bishop of Paris, Etienne Tempier, in 1277, which had a significant impact on the Aristotelian character of philosophy and theology taught at the university. Fourthly, William was active and influential at the court of King Louis, often in quite outspoken ways. Valois recounts how in 1244 after recovering from a fever that had brought him near to death, Louis immediately asked William, who was at his bedside, for the cross of a Chartularium universitatis Pariesienis I, no. 128 (Paris: Delalain, 1889–1897), p. 170 (my translation).

Introduction

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crusader. Although William resisted, he eventually gave in, saying,“Sire, in order to bother you no more, I grant you what you ask. When your health has been completely restored, you will reflect, you will consult, and you will stop what you are planning to do.” Thoughts of a crusade did not go away. Again in 1247 when Louis again attempted to take up the cross, William said to him, “Sire, put down the cross lest you throw France into confusion. You were in a delirium and did not have use of your faculties.” When Queen Blanche, the brothers of the king, and the Pope took the side of the bishop, Louis gave in, but only briefly. For Louis soon replied, “Am I in a delirium now? Do I have the use of my faculties? So then, give me the cross of our Lord, Jesus Christ. As God lives, I will not take nourishment until I have the cross back.” And so, Louis had his crusade, and by the time he returned, William was dead. The bishop had died on Palm Sunday 1249 and was buried in the church of the Abbey of St. Victor.

II. The Articles The studies in this volume are reprinted in the order in which they were originally published rather than grouped around particular topics, except for the first article, which was published later, but seemed deserving of first place because it provides a survey of William’s thought, which, I thought, should precede rather than follow the other articles. Otherwise, the order of their origin allows the reader to see how my thinking about William developed over the course of the past fifteen or so years and where my interests led me. The first of the reprinted articles, “William of Auvergne,” attempts to provide an overview of William’s philosophical thought and is in many ways the fruit of previous studies, which follow in this volume. The second of the reprinted articles, “William of Auvergne on the Eternity of the World,” argues that William shared Grosseteste’s concern over the attempt to interpret Aristotle’s views in an orthodox sense and that he also shared Grosseteste’s belief that Aristotle had no grasp of eternity as timeless simplicity, but held that eternity was temporal duration without beginning or end. Noël Valois, Guillaume d’Auvergne, Évèque de Paris (1228-1249): Sa vie et ses ouvrages (Paris: Picard, 1880), p. 151 (my translation). Ibid., p. 152.

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In “The Identity of the Italici in William of Auvergne’s Discussion of the Eternity of the World,” I examine the position on the eternity of the world that William attributed to those whom he called Italici, look at previous attempts to identify them, and argue that Cicero was certainly one of those to whom William referred, especially for his view that time is simply a part of the whole of eternity. “William of Auvergne on De re and De dicto Necessity” explores William’s rejection of the distinction between de re and de dicto necessity in resolving that argument that, if God foreknows that something will come about, it will come about necessarily. Although he rejects that distinction as unworkable, he does offer other solutions in terms of conditional necessity and necessity of the consequent. “William of Auvergne and the Manichees” examines William’s lengthy refutation of the Manichees of his day, namely, the Cathars of southern France. William’s arguments against the Manichees are derived principally from Avicenna’s Metaphysics. In explanation of the fact that William never appeals to Augustine of Hippo, I suggest that the explanation may lie in the fact that the Cathars of William’s day had appealed to philosophy in defense of their position so that William found it necessary to refute them by purely philosophical reasoning. “William of Auvergne’s Use of the Avicennian Principle: ‘Ex Uno, In Quantum Unum, Non Nisi Unum’” explores William’s use of Avicenna’s principle that from something one, insofar as it is one, there comes only what is one, which the great Islamic philosopher uses to show that from the First there could immediately emanate only one intelligence. Curiously William does not reject the principle, but rather maintains that it does not apply to the creation of creatures because the creatures do not come from God insofar as he is one, but insofar as he wills that they come to be. In fact, William even uses the principle in De trinitate to argue that the Father could only generate one Son. “William of Auvergne on the Individuation of Human Souls” points out that William argued strongly against Avicenna’s position on the individuation of human souls, which he understood to entail that souls do not remain individual after separation from their bodies in death. Avicenna, in fact, did not hold that souls lost their individuality after death, but William clearly found his explanation of the individuation of souls inadequate, although he himself seems not to have grasped the need for a metaphysical principle to make souls individual.

Introduction

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“William of Auvergne’s Arguments for the Newness of the World” explores the arguments that William used to prove that the world had a temporal beginning and was not always existing. Unlike Aquinas, William thought that the finiteness of past time was demonstrable by arguments that ultimately stem from John Philoponus. They seem to have come into the Latin West through Arab sources and are frequently referred to as kalam arguments. “William of Auvergne’s Rejection of the Platonic Archetypal World” examines why William rejected the Platonic world of Forms and argues that his principal reason for that rejection was that it removed from the sensible world any real things and could not, moreover, locate real sensible things in the archetypal world. While rejecting ideal forms of sensible things, William retained a minimal ideal world in which are found true being, oneness, truth, goodness, and such perfections. “William of Auvergne on the Relation between Reason and Faith” explores the seemingly incompatible statements that William makes about the supernatural goal of the Magisterium divinale et sapientiale and the purely natural means that he seemed to use to attain it. The solution can, I suggest, be found in his distinction between the first Magisterium, which is purely philosophical in its way of proceeding, and the whole Magisterium, whose goal is the honor and glory of God and the salvation of the soul. “William of Auvergne on Time and Eternity” argues that William was one of the first in the Latin West to develop an extensive account of divine eternity as distinguished from temporal duration. He argues the divine eternity means not merely having neither beginning nor end, but also not having any before and after, that is, not having temporal parts. He also discusses the relation between time and eternity and provides several interesting images for thinking about their relation. Although the Boethian definition of eternity certainly lies in the background, William never cites it, perhaps because he wanted to refute Aristotle—in this case Avicenna—from the thought of the philosopher himself. “William of Auvergne’s Debt to Avicenna” concedes—as has often been stressed—that William often criticized various points of Avicennian philosophy that he found opposed to the Christian faith, but also points out—something that has gone relatively unnoticed—the fact that William was deeply influenced by the philosophy of Avicenna and accepted many points of Avicennian philosophy into his own teaching.

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The last article, “William of Auvergne on the Various States of Our Nature,” notes that in his De anima William followed Avicenna to a large extent and spoke of our human nature in a philosophical sense, but suddenly introduced an historical sense of nature in accord with which fallen human nature is quite different than the nature with which Adam and Eve were created. Only with the two senses of nature, one coming from the Aristotelian tradition and the other from the Augustinian tradition, could the problem of change in our nature arise. William struggles to maintain that our nature is unchanged in its essential characteristics, but is radically changed in other respects and will be further changed in the resurrection. I have found William’s thought fascinating in many respects, as these articles, I think, reveal, and I hope that my studies in his thought will lead others to study him as well. I am convinced that in order to appreciate the great syntheses of the later thirteenth century, one needs to see what was accomplished by thinkers in the earlier part of the century. And how a bishop like William read and critically absorbed the philosophy of Avicenna is not merely interesting in itself, but also provides a lesson for philosophers and theologians of today about how such critical openness to the thought of a different culture can lead to great benefits and intellectual growth.

William of Auvergne: An Overview

W

I. William’s Life

illiam of Auvergne (b. ca 1180/90; d. 1249) was born at Aurillac in the Province of Auvergne. Little is known of his early life, though by 1223 he was at the University of Paris with a master’s degree in theology and was a canon of the cathedral of Notre Dame. When Bartholomaeus, the bishop of Paris, died on 20 October 1227, William was so displeased by the canons’ choice for the new bishop that he went to Rome and appealed to Pope Gregory IX. The pope was apparently impressed by William, ordained him priest, and appointed him bishop of Paris on 10 April 1228. William continued as bishop of Paris until his death on 30 March 1249. After a student riot in 1229 over a tavern bill during which several students were killed by police sent by the queen regent, Blanche of Castille, the masters and students at the University went on strike because William failed to obtain redress for the violation of the students’ rights. The masters appealed to Rome and obtained from the pope greater independence of the university from the bishop of Paris. During the strike William appointed the first Dominican, William of Cremona, to a chair in theology. He also allowed Alexander of Hales to retain his chair when he entered the Franciscans in 1236. In January of 1241 William condemned ten propositions in philosophy and theology as heretical—a move indicative of his concerns over some teachings at the university and foreshadowing the more extensive condemnations by Bishop Etienne Tempier some thirty years later.

II. William’s Works William’s Teaching on God in the Mode of Wisdom (Magisterium divinale et sapientiale) is his principal work, though it was only early in the past century that J. Kramp, following the lead of Valois, showed that seven Josef Kramp, “Des Wilhelm von Auvergne ‘Magisterium Divinale,’” Gregorianum 1 (1920): 538–613, here 550-574. Noël Valois, Guillaume d’Auvergne, Évèque de Paris (1228-1249): Sa vie et ses ouvrages (Paris: Picard, 1880), pp. 195-6.

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of his works, which were published as separate works in the printed editions of his writings, actually formed this huge summa-like opus. The parts of the Magisterium are: The Trinity (De trinitate), The Universe of Creatures (De universo creaturarum), The Soul (De anima), Why God Became Man (Cur Deus Homo), The Faith and the Laws (De fide et legibus), The Sacraments (De sacramentis), and The Virtues and Morals (De virtutibus et moribus). Other works by William of philosophical interest include The Immortality of the Soul (De immortalitate animae), two works entitled Good and Evil (De bono et malo), and Grace and Free Will (De gratia et libero arbitrio).

III. William’s Philosophy William is one of the first thinkers in the thirteenth century to make an extensive and systematic use in his writings of the newly translated Greek and Islamic philosophy. He explains in the Prologue to The Trinity that this sacred and divine teaching is communicated in three ways: by the acceptance of a prophecy or revelation, by the obedience of faith, and by knowledge through proofs and inquiry.“The third mode is that of those who philosophize.” William assures his readers that he everywhere aims at demonstrative proofs and does not appeal even to the words of Aristotle as an authority. There are two reasons for The Teaching on God in the Mode of Wisdom: “the honor and glory of the creator,” which is its chief end, and “the destruction of errors ... by which For William’s works, see Opera omnia, 2 vols, ed. F. Hotot and B. LeFeron (Paris–Orléans, 1674). There is a critical edition of De trinitate, ed. B. Switalski (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1976). There are also critical editions by J. Reginald O’Donnell of the two works entitled, De bono et malo in Mediaeval Studies 8 (1946): 245–299 and 16 (1954): 219–271, of De gratia by G. Corti (Rome: Lateran University, 1966), and of De immortalitate animae by G. Bülow in Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters II 3 (Münster: Aschendorff, 1897). For English translations, see The Trinity, Or the First Principle, trans. R. J. Teske and F. C. Wade (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1989); The Immortality of the soul, trans. R. J. Teske (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1991; selections from The Universe of creatures, trans. R. J. Teske (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1998); and The Soul, trans. R. J. Teske (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2000). William, De trinitate, Prologue. William, De anima ch. 1, pt. 1.


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one is turned from the ways of truth and the paths of rectitude.” The goals of philosophy in the mode of wisdom are “the exaltation of the creator and the perfection of our souls, which is nothing but the brilliance of the sciences and beauty of the virtues.” In these two, William adds, consists the whole of religion, and when that religion has been brought to completion, it will be the glory of our souls. In fact, the image and likeness of God to which our souls were created “is brought to its ultimate act by philosophizing,” and that ultimate act is the glorified intellect’s vision of God. In the first twelve chapters of The Trinity, a work bearing the subtitle: The First Principle, William makes extensive use of Avicenna’s metaphysics to prove the existence of God and to come to some understanding of his principal attributes. He develops an argument for the existence of a being necessary through itself in clear dependence upon Avicenna’s argument that moves from beings possible through themselves, but necessary through another to a being necessary through itself. Such a being, William argues, while appealing to Boethius, is absolutely simple. Its being (esse) and what it is are identical, though in every other being being is other than what is. Thus he follows Avicenna in holding that being is accidental to everything other than God and also anticipates the real distinction between being and essence in all creatures, a distinction that is found more clearly articulated in Thomas Aquinas.10 William even claims that being necessary through itself is the most proper name of God,11 and when he presents his account of the divine attributes he follows the order in which Avicenna presents them in Metaphysics VIII, 4.12 Being necessary through itself is alone uncaused; it is stripped of William, De universo Ia-Ia, ch. 1. Ibid. Ia-IIae, Preface. William, De trinitate ch. 26. R. Teske,“William of Auvergne on the Relation between Reason and Faith,” The Modern Schoolman 75 (1998): 279-291, especially, pp. 281-283. 10 Kevin Caster, The Real Distinction in Creatures between Being and Essence according to William of Auvergne. Ph.D. dissertation, Marquette University, 1995; see especially, pp. 186-9. 11 William, De universo IIa-IIae, ch. 10. 12 Albert Judy, “Avicenna’s ‘Metaphysics’ in the Summa contra Gentiles,” Angelicum 52 (1975): 340–384 and 541-586, here, 364–365.

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all accidents; it is not a common attribute, and it has no quiddity or definition. Even in the second and larger part of The Trinity, which attempts to prove the existence of three persons in God and to come to some understanding of their origin and distinction and of the proper way to speak of them, William uses Avicennian principles. For example, he uses the principle “From something one insofar as it is one only something one can come,” in order to show that the Father can generate only one Son.13 Despite his extensive debt to Avicenna, William rejected the teaching of the great Islamic thinker on many points. As William said, probably here equating Avicenna with Aristotle, as he often did, “But though on many points we must oppose Aristotle, as is truly right and just, and this is the case in all the statements in which he speaks contrary to the truth, so he should be accepted, that is, upheld in all those points on which he is found to have held the correct view.”14 While William accepts Avicenna’s argument for the existence of God and his view of the ontological structure of the created world, he firmly rejected many features of Avicenna’s account of the origin of creatures from God. Avicenna held that creatures emanate from the First, a name for God that William also uses, in a necessary and eternal outpouring in which the First produces the first intelligence, which in turn produces the second, and so on until the tenth and last intelligence, which created everything in the sublunar world, including human souls. William, on the other hand, insists that only God creates, that he creates freely, that he immediately creates everything apart from himself, and that he did not create a world without a temporal beginning. According to William, God, who is being by his essence, is the source of all beings other than himself, which are beings by participation. Just as if there were only one source of light, all illumination would come from it, so God is the one source of being from whom all other beings come.15 William rejects every teaching that ascribes the act of creation to any cause but God, but he is especially opposed to the Avicennian doctrine that the tenth intelligence is the creator of human souls, the source of their being, their knowledge, and their ultimate happiness. 13 William, De trinitate ch. 14. 14 William, De anima II, 12. 15 William, De universo Ia-Iae, ch. 30.


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For such a view equivalently makes that intelligence the God of human souls.16 William develops the concept of divine omnipotence as power that is not limited to one of two opposites and that cannot cease or be prevented; he says that the omnipotence of God “means that he can neither be forced to do what he does not will nor be prevented from doing what he wills.”17 Thus omnipotence implies will, and will in turn implies knowledge and wisdom. William claims all things are subject to the power of God “because nothing comes from him except through his will, and he holds in being only what he wills and when he wills and how he wills, nor can he be prevented or forced.”18 William derived his doctrine on the divine will from the Jewish philosopher, Avicebron (Ibn Gabirol), whom William calls the most noble of philosophers19 and who he suspects is really a Christian.20 For in the Fountain of Life Avicebron linked the divine will with the divine word, which he tended to hypostatize. Hence, William came to think of the Word of God as the will by which God created all things. Through his doctrine of God’s will William was able to introduce into his Avicennian world the radical contingency of everything other than God.21 William’s doctrine of the divine will also allows him to argue that the world is not, as Avicenna had taught, eternal, “because we must admit that it was created or made or drawn from its possibility into actuality.”22 In The Trinity William briefly argues against the Aristotelian and Avicennian arguments for the eternity of the world, but in The Universe of Creatures he does much more. He first develops a short treatise on eternity and time in which he distinguishes eternity, which is not only without beginning and end, but also without before and after, from time,

16 Ibid. Ia-IIae, ch. 21. 17 William, De trinitate ch. 9. 18 Ibid. 19 Ibid. ch. 12. 20 William, De universo Ia-Iae, ch. 26. 21 Kevin Caster, “William of Auvergne’s Adaptation of Ibn Gabirol’s Doctrine of the Divine Will,” The Modern Schoolman 74 (1996): 31–42, here, p. 37. 22 William, De trinitate ch. 10.

22


which has both beginning and end as well as before and after.23 Then he then both argues at length against arguments for the eternity of the world and proposes arguments to prove the finiteness of the world’s past.24 William, like Bonaventure after him, held that the finiteness of the world’s past time could be demonstrated and was not merely an article of faith, as Thomas Aquinas held. William claims that philosophers “erred, attributing more to nature than it can do and not realizing that nature’s total power is completely subject to divine choice.”25 William says not only that there is no necessity in nature, but also that natures are unable to produce other things by themselves. At times William seems to speak like an occasionalist. He says, for example, that creatures are causes only in an improper sense, that is, in the way a window is a cause of the illumination of a house or in the way a riverbed is the cause of the water that flows through it.26 At other times, however, William clearly seems to ascribe a genuine causality to secondary causes. Miller argues that those who have branded William as an occasionalist have overstated their case and have failed to see the instances in which he speaks of the causality of creatures.27 In The Universe of Creatures William examines philosophical questions about the created universe in two principal parts. In the first of these he examines questions about the material universe or the universe in general, while in the second he deals with the spiritual universe. The first principal part has three parts. In the first of these, after an introductory chapter, William argues against the Cathars, that is, the Manichees of William age, destroying their claim that there are two first principles, one good and the other evil. William’s argument against them is developed first in terms of Avicenna’s metaphysics of the First as “being necessary through itself ” and absolutely simple. Without any appeal to scripture or ecclesiastical teaching, William shows the impossibility of two simple first principles, one of which is good and the other evil. William also argues that there is no sense of “evil” in which evil could be a principle. 23 William, De universo Ia-IIae, chs. 1-5. 24 Ibid. IIa-Iae, chs. 7-11. 25 William, De trinitate ch. 11. 26 Ibid. 27 M. Miller. “William of Auvergne on Primary and Secondary Causality, The Modern Schoolman 75 (1998): 265–277, especially, 272–277.


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In chapters 11 through 15 William argues that the universe is one in opposition to some unidentified thinkers who held a plurality of universes. Here William perhaps had in mind those who thought of an afterlife in another material world separate from this world. In chapter 16 William begins a long discussion of how the universe proceeded from the First. After exploring various images of the production of the universe, William settles on the view that the world proceeded from the First by his eternal Word, by which the First freely created the world, though he did not create all things at once. In chapter 24 William describes the error of Aristotle and his followers regarding the creation of the first intelligence and the heavenly bodies. He, of course, has in mind especially Avicenna who taught that, since from what is one only something one can come, there can come from the First only one being, namely, the first intelligence. This intelligence in turn produces the second intelligence and so on until the tenth intelligence, which is the creator of human souls, is reached. The second part deals with the question of the eternity of the world, and the third part is mainly concerned with divine providence. The second principal part of The Universe of Creatures deals with the spiritual universe, that is, with the Aristotelian separate substances, the good angels, and the bad angels. William argues for the strict spirituality of the separate substances and good angels, though he has some doubts about the devils. He seems to have been one of the first, if not the first, in the Latin West to break away from the Augustinian view, later bolstered by Avicebron, that everything apart from God is composed of matter, though Weisheipl argues to the contrary that universal hylomorphism was the novelty.28 William found the account of the separate substances or intelligences in Avicenna to be deficient in a number of ways. They were, he claimed, merely intelligences without wills and, hence, incapable of moral goodness or moral evil; they were thought of as having the power to create, which belongs only to God. And, worst of all, they were far too few in number to serve as attendants in the heavenly court, for no earthly king would settle for a mere ten courtiers. Apart from such differences in their functions and number, the separate substances of Avicenna are the ontologically same as the Christian angels, namely, pure forms. 28 James A. Weisheipl, “Albertus Magnus and Universal Hylomorphism: Avicebron” Southwestern Journal of Philosophy 10 (1979): 239–260, here 260.

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In the third part of his Magisterium, namely, The Soul, William devotes 163 folio pages to the human soul. Though he is familiar with Aristotle’s De anima, he is most influenced by Avicenna’s Liber sextus de naturalibus, seu de anima, in both positive and negative ways. In the Prologue he expresses astonishment that anyone would regard the study of the human soul as part of the natural sciences and insists that the science of the soul as the image of God must fall under the divine and sapiential sciences along with God himself, of whom the soul is the image. The Soul is divided into seven chapters. In the Prologue he tells his readers that he will in the first chapter establish the existence of the soul, while in chapter two he will examine its essence and essential characteristics. In chapter three he deals with the question of parts of the soul, and in chapter four he raises the question of a plurality of souls in a single human being. In chapter five he plans to deal with the manner in which the soul comes into being, and in chapter six he plans to examine the state of the soul in relation to the body. Finally, in chapter seven he will discuss the soul’s noble powers in relation to God. In chapter one William quotes Aristotle’s definition of soul as“the first act of a physical, organic body potentially having life,” but his understanding of that definition immediately places him in a clearly Platonic or Avicennian framework, since he interprets“physical, organic body” as a body made by nature as an instrument for the soul. Moreover, he can find no meaning for “body potentially having life” except the body that remains after death. Though William quotes with approval Aristotle’s claim that the soul is form and the body matter, he insists that the soul is the whole human being, not a part. He, nonetheless, notes that the soul would not constitute a human being if it were not united to a suitable organic body. He argues for the existence of the soul in two ways. First, he claims that anyone who denies the existence of his soul knows that he denies this. Hence, such knowing must be present in him either according to the whole of him or according to a part. He regards it as absurd to hold that the whole of oneself knows; hence, knowing is present in a part, and that part knows and understand properly and essentially. But that part cannot be a body; hence, it must be an incorporeal, living substance, and that is what he means by a soul. Secondly, he argues from the instrumental character of the body that, since no instrument exists for its own sake, but for the sake of the worker who uses it, there must be present in the body a worker who uses the members of the body and


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has command over the body. This worker, then, must be a non-bodily substance that has command of the body and uses its members; that is, this worker must be a soul. Twice William appeals to Avicenna’s thought-experiment in which one is asked to suppose “a man in the air with his face covered and who is without the use of any sense and who had not used any sense.”29 William argues that such a flying man will know that he exists though he will not know that he is a body or has any bodily parts. Hence, he will know that he is not a body or any part of a body. Later William uses the same argument to show that the soul is the whole human being, not just a part of it.30 As William sees it, the body is organic, that is, instrumental; he appeals to images of an inhabitant and a house, of a helmsman and a ship, of an artisan and his workshop, and of a prisoner and his cell in order to illustrate the relation of soul to body. Like the separate intelligences, the human soul is an immaterial or spiritual substance. It is indivisible into parts, or simple. The powers or potencies of the soul are not accidents of the soul, but identical with the soul and differentiated only in terms of their operations. There are many powers of the soul—at least fifteen. Besides the powers of the five external senses, there are the internal senses: the estimative, memorative, and imaginative powers, and common sense; there is also the higher apprehensive or intellective power and the higher moving or appetitive power, namely, the will, and the lower moving powers, namely, the concupiscible and irascible powers. Each of these powers, however, is identical with the soul, not a part or accident of the soul. William’s main interest lies in the higher apprehensive and moving powers, namely, the intellect and the will. He uses the image of the will as king or emperor in the whole kingdom of the soul. If the soul is rightly ordered, the will has command (imperium) over all the other powers, including the intellective power, which serves as a counselor to the will.31 William expresses astonishment that Aristotle has all but completely neglected the will in his writing on the soul, though he de29 William, De anima ch. 2, pt. 13. 30 Ibid. ch. 3, pt. 11. 31 R. Teske,“The Will as King over the Powers of the Soul: Uses and Sources of an Image in Thirteenth-Century Philosophy,” Vivarium 32 (1994): 62–71, especially, 64–67.

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voted so much time to the intellective power, which is far less noble.32 The will is absolutely free to will or not to will, and William compares its absolute power of willing to the omnipotence of the creator, though in our fallen state the lower apprehensive and appetitive powers often rebel against the will’s reign.33 William clearly sides with the voluntarist tradition in making the will or noble moving power the highest power in the soul that commands even the intellect.34 William was concerned with Avicenna’s account of the individuation of the human soul since, as he saw it, human souls would on Avicenna’s account lose their individuality upon separation from their bodies. On the other hand, William seems not to have grasped the problem of the individuation of souls as it arises in the Aristotelian context and simply insists that souls were created by God as individual and remain that way after death.35 William devotes much of chapters five and six of The Soul as well as The Immortality of the Soul to proofs of human soul’s immortality, something that he regards as basic to morality and religion.36 Though he regards the animal soul as an incorporeal substance, he insists that the soul of an animal ceases to exist at the death of the body since it has no operations that can be carried out without the body. The human soul, on the other hand, has operations for which the body is not required as an instrument or tool, such as the operations of the intellective power in the apprehension of intelligible things. William appeals to states of ecstasy or rapture as clear examples of the soul’s independence of the body, for he regards such states as ones in which the soul quite literally stands outside the body and is rapt up in special illuminations.37 He draws further arguments for the immortality of the human soul from various attributes of God, such as his goodness, providence, justice, magnificence, and generosity. 32 William, De anima ch. 3, pt. 7. 33 Ibid. ch. 5, pt. 15. 34 R. Teske, “William of Auvergne on Freedom of the Will,” in Moral and Political Philosophies in the Middle Ages, ed. B. C. Bazán, E. Andújar, and L. G. Sbrocchi. 2 vols (New York: Legas, 1996), II, 932–938, here 937. 35 R. Teske, “William of Auvergne on the Individuation of Human Souls,” Traditio 49 (1994): 77-93. 36 William, De immortalitate animae 1. 37 William, De anima ch. 5, pt. 22.


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Much of William’s treatment of the intellective power argues against the views of others, especially Aristotle and Avicenna, though William is also positively influenced by them. William is deeply opposed to the Aristotelian—or perhaps Averroist—doctrine of an agent intellect and to the Avicennian doctrine of an agent intelligence. The Aristotelian position implies a division between the material or receptive intellect and the agent or productive intellect within the soul, and the indivisibility of the soul rules out any such parts.38 The doctrine of an agent intelligence, which William attributes to Aristotle, is unacceptable for other reasons, some of which we have already seen. But William also rejects the role of such an intelligence in the acquisition of human knowledge because it makes the human intellect merely the passive recipient of knowledge rather than the active seeker and acquirer of knowledge. If our intellect acquired knowledge passively through receiving it from the agent intelligence, we would have no need to study, to read books, to attend lectures, or to do anything else but to receive the illumination from that intelligence.39 Sensation requires the reception of sensible forms, but consists in the judgment upon these forms, which is an activity of the soul. So too, intellectual knowing is not merely the reception of intelligible forms, whether from an agent intelligence or from God, but is an activity of the intellective power. The human soul stands at the horizon of two worlds with God above and the sensible world beneath and receives illumination from both. From God it receives the first principles of the sciences and of morals. For William the role of divine illumination is greatly reduced, as Marrone showed.40 But the intellective power is also illumined from the side of the sensible world in three ways: by sensation, by abstraction, and by connection or conjunction. Through sensation the intellective power attains the sensible accidents of things, but must infer from them the existence of an underlying substance. Through abstraction the intellective power omits various details so 38 R. Teske, “William of Auvergne’s Rejection of the Agent Intelligence,” in Greek and Medieval Studies in Honor of Leo Sweeney, S.J., ed. W. J. Carroll and J. J. Furlong New York: Peter Lang, 1995), pp. 211–235, here, p. 222. 39 William, De anima ch. 5, pt. 8. 40 Steven P. Marrone, William of Auvergne and Robert Grosseteste. New Ideas of Truth in the Early Thirteenth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), pp. 46 and 51.

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that an image of a particular individual becomes representative of any individual of its kind. And through connection one infers effects from causes and causes from effects.41 The intellective power is active in knowing. William frequently appeals to Aristotle’s “quickness of wit” for finding connections or middle terms and is fond of the example from Chrysippus of the spider that infers the presence of prey and food from one striking of one thread in its web. So too, he appeals to Augustine’s claim about the soul’s being able to form images in itself from itself. The intellective power builds up in itself habits of the sciences; once the habit of a science has been generated, the soul can by itself bring it into act.42 In The Virtues and Morals, William sets out first to attain certain knowledge in this area, but aims to add to the clarity of knowledge the pleasing attraction by which our souls are drawn to perfection and armed against the vices. He examines Cicero’s definitions of virtue as “a habit of a well-ordered mind,” which he discusses in the light of Aristotle’s views that he knew mainly, it seems, from the second and third books of the Nicomachean Ethics.43 He argues that a well-ordered human life must pay honor to God, be beautiful in itself, and be useful or beneficial for others.44 William discusses intellectual habits, or sciences, as well as both moral and theological virtues and the contrary vices. Though William’s thought and work has been to a large extent overshadowed by Bonaventure and Aquinas, the great philosopher-theologians who followed him, he did influence such thinkers as Henry of Ghent, and his work remains worth studying if only because it allows us to appreciate the early reception of Avicenna in the West and the greatness of William’s immediate successors.

41 William, De anima ch. 7, pt. 7. 42 Ibid. ch. 7, pt. 8. 43 G. Jüssen, “Die Tugend und der gute Wille: Wilhelm von Auvergnes Auseinanderstezung mit der aristotelischen Ethik,” Philosophisches Jahrbuch 102 (1995): 20–32, here, 20. 44 William, De virtutibus ch. 2.

William of Auvergne on the Eternity of the World

I

n a recent study Richard C. Dales has claimed that “on the question of the eternity of the world, as in so many other contexts, Grosseteste was an important link between the twelfth century discussions and the university milieu.” Dales gives only a qualified acceptance to the claim of Ephrem Longpré that the Franciscan position on the eternity of the world was derived from Grosseteste. For, he argues, subsequent Franciscans seemed perversely to have misunderstood his major argument: namely, that the simplicity of eternity was not apprehended by Aristotle (or Plato), and that this led them to think of eternity as being the same as what Boethius had called perpetuity.

Furthermore, Dales points out that Grosseteste “was very much concerned with the claim, derived from William of Conches and Maimonides, but apparently known to Grosseteste through the questions of Alexander of Hales, that Aristotle’s teaching on the eternity of the world was not contrary to faith.” Dales maintains that “[t]here can be no doubt of Grosseteste’s central importance in medieval discussions of the eternity of the world.” He claims that Grosseteste sounded the alarm against the attempt to interpret Aristotle in an orthodox sense on this point and states, “But as the matter appears at present, Grosseteste’s extreme concern was not shared by his contemporaries. However, when people did begin taking the matter seriously, it was to the works of Grosseteste that they turned.” Dales admits that “[t]he “Robert Grosseteste’s Place in Medieval Discussions of the Eternity of the World,” Speculum 61 (1986): 544–563, here 563. Ibid., 560; cf. Ephrem Longpré,“Thomas d’York et Matthieu d’Aquasparta. Textes inédits sur le problème de la création,” Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen âge 1 (1926): 269–308, here 270. Dales, p. 560. Ibid., 561. Ibid., 562. Ibid.

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period from 1235 to the early 1250s needs much more study” and that it has not received the scholarly attention that has been given to the 1260s and 1270s. This paper is meant to contribute some scholarly attention to the period of the 1220s and 1230s on the question of the eternity of the world. It will contend that William of Auvergne, certainly a contemporary of Grosseteste’s, shared Grosseteste’s serious concern over the attempt to interpret Aristotle in an orthodox sense and that William either anticipated or at least shared Grosseteste’s major argument that Aristotle had not grasped the simplicity of eternity and that he did not possess any other sense of eternity than temporal duration with neither beginning nor end. The paper will, finally, suggest that the Franciscan position on the eternity of the world may be as much indebted to William as it is to Robert.

I. The Question of Dates William became bishop of Paris in 1228 by appointment of Gregory IX and remained in that position until his death in 1249. He was a canon of Notre Dame and a master of theology in Paris by 1223 and a professor of theology by 1225. Since one ordinarily had to be thirty five for the latter position, the date of William’s birth has been set at 1190 or earlier, at times as early as 1180. William began his Magisterium divinale et sapientiale around 1223. His De trinitate has been dated as Ibid. For biographical data on William, cf. R. J. O’Donnell,“William of Auvergne (of Paris),” The New Catholic Encyclopedia 14, p. 941; R. Heinzmann,“Wilhelm v. Auvergne,” Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche. 2 ed. Vol. 10, p. 1127; Bruno Switalski, William of Auvergne: De trinitate: An Edition of the Latin Text with an Introduction (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1976, pp. 1-3. Noël Valois, Guillaume d’Auvergne, Évèque de Paris (1228–1249): sa vie et ses ouvrages (Paris: Picard, 1880), though dated in some respects, remains the only book-length biography of William. This large work has many parts: De trinitate, De universo, De anima, De causis cur deus homo, De fide et legibus, De sacramentis, and De virtutibus et moribus. The order of these works was established by Josef Kramp in “Des Wilhelm von Auvergne ‘Magisterium divinale,’” Gregorianum 1 (1920) 538–584, 2 (1921) 42–78 and 174–187.


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ca. 1223; his De universo dates from 1231–1236.10 Grosseteste began writing, it seems, somewhat earlier than William, though Marrone has concluded that they “were almost exact contemporaries, and the period of their greatest literary activity in the areas of philosophy and speculative theology nearly coincided.”11 Robert Grosseteste was born in England ca. 1168.12 After receiving his training in the arts—probably either at Oxford or at Paris, Robert, it is generally held, taught at Oxford during the first years of the thirteenth century and then went to Paris to study theology. His later letters indicate his friendship with a number of Parisian masters, including William. Marrone says that “it seems most likely that he established these ties as a fellow student with these men early in the thirteenth century.”13 He returned to Oxford to teach theology and became one of the first chancellors of the university. In 1229 and 1230 he became the first lecturer to the Franciscans at Oxford; he became bishop of Lincoln in 1235 and died in 1253. With regard to Grosseteste’s treatment of the eternity of the world, Dales says, “There is no evidence that Grosseteste had addressed this question before the early 1230s.”14 He dates his Hexaemeron and his 10 Cf. Kramp, p. 78. Kramp’s ordering of the works and their dating has been accepted with minor variations by Steven P. Marrone, William of Auvergne and Robert Grosseteste: New Ideas of Truth in the Early Thirteenth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), p. 23, n. 4. 11 Marrone, p. 137. Similarly, Etienne Gilson says, “Robert Grosseteste (1175-1253) was almost exactly contemporary with William of Auvergne (1180-1249) and their careers are strikingly parallel” (History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages [New York: Random House, 1955], p. 261). Cf. Marone, pp. 137-143, for a survey of the current views regarding the dating of Robert’s works. Especially if one claims that William’s later works “represent a polishing of ideas worked out in the 1220s,” it is safest, as Marrone argues, to consider the ideas of William and Robert as developed simultaneously; cf. p. 137, n. 1. 12 For an excellent introduction to Robert’s life and work, cf.“Robert Grosseteste,” by James McEvoy, in Dictionaire de spiritualité 13 (Paris: Beauchesne, 1988), 722-734. 13 Marrone, p. 138. 14 Dales, p. 547. Dales suggests that Grosseteste might have been “jolted” into action by the appearance of the Latin version of Averroes which probably reached Paris in 1231.

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De finitate motus et temporis, the two treatises in which Robert warned against the errors of Aristotle and argued for the finitude of time and of the world, “within a few years after 1230.”15 William first dealt with the question of the eternity of the world in his De trinitate (ca. 1223) and returned to the question with a more extensive treatment of it in his De universo (1231–1236).16 Hence, if one accepts Dales’s dating for the beginning of Robert’s concern with the question of the eternity of the world as “within a few years after 1230,” it would seem that one would have to admit that William of Auvergne argued against the doctrine of the eternity of the world almost a decade before Robert of Lincoln began writing on the question.

II. The Eternity of the World and William’s De trinitate The question of the eternity of the world first arises in De trinitate, ch. 8, where William is dealing with the various senses of potency, power and possibility. He mentions that some of the better philosophers insist that possibility is a relation that matter possesses and that, for this reason, everything that begins to be is made out of something. ...17 15 Ibid. In his earlier “Robert Grosseteste’s Treatise De finitate motus et temporis,” Traditio 19 (1963) 245-266, Dales concluded that “we may put forth the date of ca. 1235 for the composition De finitate” (p. 250). 16 The most extensive previous study of William’s role in the discussion of the eternity of the world is: Amato Masnovo, Da Guglielmo D’Auvergne A San Tommaso D’Aguino. 3 vols. (Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 1946), especially the second volume: L’Origine delle Cose da Dio in Guoliemo D’Auvergne, chs. 7-9. Cf. also Leo Donald Davis, “Creation according to William of Auvergne,” Studies in Mediaevalia and Americana, ed. by G. G. Steckler and L. D. Davis (Spokane: Gonzaga University Press, 1973), pp. 51- 75; Jan Rohls, Wilhelm von Auvergne and der mittelalterliche Aristotelismus: Gottesbegriff and aristotelische Philosophie zwischen Augustin and Thomas von Aquin (Munich: Chr. Kaiser, 1980); Aimé Forest,“Guillaume d’Auvergne, critique d’Aristote,” Etudes Médiévales offertes à Augustin Fliche (Montpellier: Déhan, 1952), and my introduction to: William of Auvergne: The Trinity or The First Principle. Trans. by Roland J. Teske and Francis C. Wade (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1989). 17 De trinitate ch. 8, p. 51 [95]: “Quoniam autem insistunt sibi quidam ex nobilioribus philosophantium possibilitatem esse relationem, quam sustinet


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They argue that in everything that begins to be, possibility precedes actuality. But the possibility cannot be nothing; otherwise, nothing precedes actuality. Hence, the possibility in question must be a relation of matter, and matter must be eternal.18 William attempts to turn the argument back against these philosophers. He claims that an eternal matter does not avoid the problem of an infinite series. For it is necessary that possibility precede its actuality, if not in time, still by nature. ... Granted the priority of possibility to actuality, it is necessary that the same thing happen in the order of nature that would happen in time, if that priority were granted.19

William argues that “truth requires that possibility not be said to be in matter at all apart from that which ... is by its nature receptive or materia, et propter hoc, omne quod coepit, materiatum esse. ...” For the critical edition of William’s De trinitate, cf. Switalski (supra, n. 8); for an English translation, cf. Teske and Wade (supra, n. 16). I have made some adaptations in the texts cited here. Page references to the De trinitate are to the Latin text with the pages of the translation in parentheses. The immediate source of the argument in William is Avicenna’s Metaphysics IV, 2, p. 208. References to Avicenna’s Metaphysics are to the critical edition: Avicenna Latinus: Liber de Philosophia Prima sive Scientia Divina. Edition critique de la traduction latine médiévale par S. Van Reit; introduction doctrinale par G. Verbeke (Louvain: E. Peeters; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1977, 1980, 1983). 18 Aristotle argued in PhysicsVIII, 1, 251a that a first motion in the universe is impossible because “each motion necessarily involves the [prior] presence of the things that are capable of that motion.” There is no reason to suppose that William knew the argument from any other source than Avicenna. Cf. St. Thomas’s use of the argument in S.T. I, qu. 46, a. 1. obj. 1. 19 De trinitate, ch. 8, p. 52 [95]: “Quia etsi non tempore, natura tamen necesse, ut possibilitas praecedat effectum ... quod accideret in tempore, posita prioritate possibilitatis ad suum effectum, idem accidere necesse est, posita prioritate, in ordine naturae.” William’s argument is not very clear; it may be that it is a somewhat garbled version of an argument of John Philoponus. Cf. Herbert A. Davidson, “John Philoponus as a Source of Medieval Islamic and Jewish Proofs of Creation,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 89.2 (1969) 357–391. Davidson’s study shows that arguments from Philoponus’s Contra Aristotelem, in which he argued against Aristotle’s proofs for the eternity of the world, were at least partially available to Arabic philosophers of the Middle Ages. Cf. Davidson, p. 359, n. 22, for Philoponus’s rebuttal of Aristotle’s argument.

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which is by nature a principle accidentally.”20 Ultimately William argues that the possibility of the world before the world existed did not lie in matter, but in the power of the creator. Thus we have made it clear that not everything possible is possible in virtue of the possibility possessed by matter. The truth of the faith confirms this. For it was possible for the world to be before the world was, but this possibility was the potency of the creator. ...21

William returns to the question of an eternal world in Chapter 10. After having shown that the power, wisdom and will of the First are not acquired, but essential, William mentions that some of the leaders among those doing philosophy, namely, the Peripatetics, have thought that his actions are eternal, because nothing external to him induced him to will in a certain way at particular time, nor did he become capable of some action. ...22

That is, the First is from eternity the entire sufficiency of those things that have their being from him. Hence, there must exist something eternal besides the first maker, and this holds for what has its being from him mediately as well as for what has its being from him im-

20 De trinitate, ch. 8, p. 52 [96]: “Cogit enim veritas, ut possibilitas omnino non ponatur in materia, sed ea sola, quam diximus, quae scilicet nata est secundum se recipere, aut quae nata est esse principium ex accidente.” 21 Ibid., p. 53 [96]): “Manifestum igitur fecimus non omne possibile esse possibile possibilitate, quam sustineat materia. Et hoc ipsum veritas fidei approbat. Possibile namque fuit mundum esse antequam mundus esset, sed possibilitas ista fuit potentia creatoris. ...” I have not followed Switalski’s text, but read “non” where he has “in”—a reading that he notes was found in five manuscripts. Davidson notes that “Averroes’ account adds that Farabi’s On Changeable Beings attributed to Philoponus an explanation of creation ex nihilo according to which the potentiality for the generation of the world is not to be located in a preexistent matter ... but ‘in the agent’” (p. 360). Davidson admits, however, that he has not found this notion in any surviving texts of Philoponus. 22 De trinitate ch. 10, p. 66 [106]: “Opinati sunt inter philosophantes praecipui, scilicet peripatetici, eiusdem operationes aeternas esse, eo quod externa non induxerunt ipsum ut vellet aliquando sic, nec factus est potens alicuius. ...”


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mediately. Hence, William claims that “they are forced to say that all things are eternal.”23 William’s response involves a series of arguments. He first draws a distinction between the divine will willing that something be absolutely and the divine will willing that something be now. Therefore, the willing it to be without qualification makes it be without qualification, and the willing the thing to be now makes it be now, and the willing that it be always makes it be always.24

Thus God’s will intends that there be an order in things and that one be after the other; accordingly, each thing exists as long as he wills, and each thing begins when he wills. William concludes, then, that “the world is not eternal, because we must admit that it was created or made or drawn from its possibility into actuality.”25 Since for the Peripatetics the creation of the world took place neither in time nor in eternity, the world “is eternal and has no beginning of its existence and will have no end.”26 But William regards this idea of a creation of the world that is not created as silly (frivolum), and he thus concludes that the world must be created in time or from a time. William’s second argument claims that the first maker’s activity by which he made the world either had some duration or it did not. If it did, the duration was either finite or infinite. If it was finite, then the world acquired being in time or from a time. If the duration was infinite, then “it seems impossible that the world was created, since the infinite cannot be traversed.”27 If it has no duration, then the activity of 23 Ibid., p. 67 [107]:“Haec igitur via deducet eos ad hunc finem, ut cogantur dicere omnia esse aeterna.” 24 Ibid.: “Voluntas igitur essendi simpliciter facit eam esse simpliciter, et voluntas essendi nunc, facit eam esse nunc, et voluntas essendi semper, facit eam esse semper.” Cf. Augustine, Confessions 11.8.10: “Omne quod esse incipit et esse desinit, tunc esse incipit et tunc desinit, quando debuisse incipere vel desinere in aeterna ratione cognoscitur, ubi nec incipit aliquid, nec desinit.” 25 De trinitate, ch. 10, pp. 67–68 [107]. As Masnovo has pointed out, William here follows the argumentation of Alexander of Hales; cf. Masnovo, II, pp. 120–122. 26 De trinitate, ch. 10, p. 68 [107]. 27 Ibid.: “Tunc impossibile videtur mundum creatum esse, eo quod infinitum et intransibile est.” The arguments for creation in time based on the infinite not being able to be traversed seem to stem from Philiponus. Cf. the

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the maker of the world was instantaneous and completed in a moment (ipso nunc). William’s third argument concerns past time. Either the whole of time that has already passed is infinite or not. If it is infinite, how has it already passed? Once again, William insists: “For the infinite without qualifiction cannot be traversed; the infinite in number cannot be traversed by counting.”28 Furthermore, if the infinity of past time did not prevents its passing, the infinity of future time will not prevent its passing. But then the whole of past time and the whole of future time will have passed; hence, time cannot be infinite since it is limited at both ends.29 William indicates that the Peripatetics rest their argument upon the principle: “A pure and true intellect testifies that, if the one essence is now as it was before when nothing came forth from it, something will not now come forth from it.”30 William’s first argument against this principle is that, if it were true, God could not create anything other than the things that do exist. Hence, he would not have had a choice to create another or better world. His power, however, extends over not merely this universe, but over all that is possible. Hence, he could create something new that depends in no way on what already exists. The absolute and first potency, then, is necessarily power over the absolutely possible. Hence, it is over every possible, as we said. It is article by Davidson, as well as chapters one and nine, both by Richard Sorabji, in Philoponus and the Rejection of Aristotelian Science, ed. by Richard Sorabji (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1987). 28 De trinitate, ch. 10, p. 68 [107]: “Infinitum enim simpliciter intransibile est; infinitum in numero, intransibile est numerando.” 29 Ibid., pp. 68–69 [107–108]. 30 Ibid., p. 69 [108]: “Intellectus purus et verus testatur, quod, si essentia una sic est modo, sicut erat ante, cum non erat ab ea aliquid, nec modo erit ab ea aliquid. ...” William derives this principle from Avicenna, Metaphysics IX, 1, p. 440, 23-25. In the De trinitate William does not specifically identify the source of the principle, though he does so in the later De universo IIa-Iae, ch. 8, 691bB. References to the De universo are to the second part of the first principal part; they indicate chapter, page, column and section from the first volume of Guilelmi Alverni Episcopi Parisiensis Opera Omnia, 2 vols., ed. F. Hotot, with Supplementum, ed. Blaise Le Feron (Orléans-Paris, 1674; reprinted Frankfurt am Main, 1963). Cf. Masnovo, II, pp. 100–102, where he points to other texts in Avicenna and to its occurrence in William of Auxerre’s Summa aurea.


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certain that something of the sort that in no way depends on things that are is possible in itself. Therefore, the first powerful one has power over it. He can then give being to it, since it is in itself able to receive it.31

William offers a second argument against the Avicennian principle. He begins with the claim that “either there is something new or all things are eternal.”32 But if all things are eternal, there is no generation, no corruption, no changes of any kind. But there are such. Hence, it is false that all things are eternal. If there is something new, e.g., A, either all the conditions sufficient for the existence of A already existed or they did not. If they existed, then A already existed, i.e., A is not something new. If all the conditions for A did not exist, at least one, e.g., B, was lacking. Regarding B one can ask whether all the conditions sufficient for its existence already existed or not. If they did, then B already existed and was not the condition lacking in order for A to exist. But this either goes on to infinity, or there exists in something the conditions sufficient for the existence of B and yet B is not caused by it and will later be caused by it. William rejects as impossible the idea that an infinity of things is required for any one thing to come to exist. Thus William disposes of the testimony of Avicenna’s true and pure intellect.33 In William’s earliest writing there is found a serious concern over the Peripatetic claim that the world had no beginning. Already in the 1220s he was aware of several arguments of the Peripatetics, and he argued against this error and its basic principle which was in fact derived from 31 De trinitate ch. 10, pp. 70–71 [109]: “Potentia igitur absoluta, prima, necessario est super possibile absolutum, quare est super omne possibile, ut diximus. Certum est autem, quod huiusmodi, quod ex rebus, quae sunt, non pendeat aliquo modo, possibile est in se ipso. Primus igitur potens est potens super illud. Potest igitur dare eidem esse, cum illud sit in se ipso potens recipere.” 32 Ibid., p. 71 [110]: “Aut aliquid est novum, aut omnia sunt aeterna.” 33 William confirms his conclusion by examples of miracles from the Bible. He argues that the fire that would normally consume a bush was not changed so that it did not consume the burning bush of Exodus. He claims that, if the nature of the fire were changed when it did not consume the bush, then Moses did not witness a miracle, but was deceived by an illusion. Similarly, William appeals to the example of the sun’s not giving light at the crucifixion. Cf. De trinitate ch. 11, pp. 73–74 [111–112].

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Avicenna, though William never mentions Avicenna in the De trinitate and does not mention Aristotle in connection with this question.

III. The Eternity of the World and William’s De universo William’s treatment of the question of the eternity of the world in the De trinitate arises only as something peripherally connected with the principal topics under discussion, e.g., the nature of potency, power and possibility or the essential character of God’s power, wisdom, and will. But De universo IIa-Iae begins with the question “whether the universe is new or old, that is to say, whether it is temporal or eternal.”34 William devotes the first eleven chapters, some thirty three columns of folio pages, to the systematic investigation of the question. While in the De trinitate William deals with two objections from “the Peripatetics” or “some of the better philosophers” with no further disclosure of their identity, in the De universo William explicitly presents three arguments from Avicenna in Chapter 8 and deals with Aristotle’s arguments in Chapter 10. Furthermore, the whole discussion of the question of the eternity of the world is preceded by an examination of the nature of eternity, the distinction between eternity, perpetuity and time, the meaning of the claim that all things are present in eternity, the relation between eternity and time, Aristotle’s position on eternity, some problems from Scripture regarding eternity, and a glossary of various terms. William begins the first chapter of De universo IIa-Iae with the meaning of eternity. He warns, Know then that some have supposed that eternity is essentially the same as time. For this reason they defined time as a part of the complete eternity, and these men were the Italians.35

According to this opinion eternity differs from time as a whole differs from its part or as a longer time from a shorter time. Moreover, accord34 De universo IIa-Iae, prooemium, 682bH:“Sequitur ea, quae praecesserunt, investigare de ipso universo, an novum sit, an antiquum, quod est dicere, an temporale, an aeternale, sive aeternum.” 35 Ibid., ch. 1, 683aAB: “Scito igitur, quia opinati sunt quidam aeternitatis aliud non esse in essentia, quam tempus. Unde et diffinierunt tempus esse perfectae partem aeternitatis, et isti fuerunt Italici.”


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ing to this position eternity does not precede time, but time precedes eternity, for a part is naturally prior to its whole.36 In its common understanding eternity is infinite, that is, it neither begins nor ceases to be, but William adds, I say also that eternity is indivisible with respect to earlier and later. For the being of eternity is permanent, indeed eternity itself is endless permanence that is infinite in each direction. But permanence and changeableness are contraries. Hence, there is no change in eternity, no motion. Thus there is in it no earlier or later.37

That is, William adds to the common idea of eternity the further idea that eternity is without parts, that is, without before and after. Thus eternity is permanence without beginning or end and without any succession. William spells this concept out further, claiming: Thus it has already been explained to you that time is not eternity or a part of eternity, and that in eternity there cannot be either earlier or later in respect to succession, nor motion, nor cessation. Hence, the being of eternity is whole simultaneously. I do not mean simultaneously in terms of temporal accompaniment, but in terms of the

36 William never explicitly identifies the italici. At times he uses italicus to refer to Boethius, but he can hardly mean Boethius here, since he was the source of the classical definition of eternity as timelessness. Masnovo argues that William is referring to members of the school of Chartres who, while followers of Boethius on other matters, departed from his view regarding eternity. Cf. Masnovo, III, pp. 206-212, esp. p. 210. In his De consolatione philosophiae V, 6, 9 and 14 (CC 94, 101–102), Boethius says, “Unde non recte quidem, qui cum audiunt uisum Platoni mundum hunc nec habuisse initium temporis nec habiturum esse defectum hoc modo conditori conditium mundum fieri coaeternum putant ... Itaque si digna rebus nomina uelimus imponere, Platonem sequentes deum quidem aeternum, mundum uero dicamus esse perpetuum.” As these Platonists of old were presumably “Italici,” so the Platonists of the school of Chartres received this tag from William for their confounding eternity with endless time. 37 De universo IIa-Iae, ch. 1, 683aCD: “Dico insuper, quod aeternitas impartibilis est secundum prius et posterius; cum enim aeternitatis esse permanens sit, immo ipsa aeternitas permanentia interminabilis et ex utraque parte infinita; permanentia autem, et fluxibilitas contraria sunt, ergo nihil fluxus est in aeternitate, nihil fluens; quare nec prius, nec posterius est in ea.”

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Studies in the Philosophy of William of Auvergne denial of priority and posteriority, as if I would say that in it there is nothing before, nothing afterward.38

William admits that his position raises many questions. For instance, since eternity is indivisible and time is infinitely divisible, eternity stands to time as the indivisible present moment stands to the whole of time. Thus time seems infinitely greater than eternity. William points out, however, that no one doubts that eternity is infinitely greater than time, that time is within eternity, and that eternity precedes and follows time, that is, if time should cease, eternity would still be, and if time began, eternity already was.39 William holds that quantities that are not of the same kind and that do not have a common means of measurement cannot be compared proportionately. That is, we cannot say that the one is so much of the other, e.g., half or twice, though in a larger sense they can be compared.40 Time and eternity cannot be compared, since they differ as corporeal and spiritual greatness. For a multitude of parts and their gathering make up bodily largeness. But unity and simplicity make up spiritual largeness. ... Because stability makes up largeness, or breadth or length in eternity, while motion or changeableness does so in time, it is not possible that eternity and time be related in terms of proportion.41

Just as time, place and number cannot be proportionally compared so that one can say that a particular number is larger than a time, or vice versa, so one cannot compare time and eternity. Aristotle had said that a straight line and a curved line are incommensurable, because they do 38 Ibid., 683bB: “Jam igitur declaratum est tibi per hoc, tempus non esse aeternitatem, nec partem aeternitatis, et in aeternitate non posse esse prius, neque posterius secundum successionem, aut fluxum, sive desinentiam: quare esse aeternitatis totum simul est, non inquam simul concomitantia temporali, sed abnegatione prioritatis, et posterioritatis; quemadmodum, si dicerem, quod in ea nihil ante, nihil post.” 39 Ibid., 683bCD. 40 Cf. Aristotle, Metaphysics X, 1, 1053a41. 41 De universo IIa-Iae, ch. 1, 684aH: “Amplitudinem namque corporalem facit multitudo partium, et aggregatio: amplitudinem vero spiritualem unitas, et simplicitas. ... Quia igitur amplitudinem, seu latitudinem, seu longitudinem in aeternitate facit stabilitas, in tempore vero fluxus, seu fluxibilitas, impossibile est comparabilia esse proportionabiliter aeternitatem, et tempus.”


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not have the same means of measurement; otherwise, a chord and its arc would be equal.42 William returns to the indivisibility of eternity and examines the claim that perpetuity (perpetuitas) is half of eternity. He rejects the idea that it is half of eternity, despite fact that it is a duration that has a beginning, but no end. He distinguishes two intentions of duration: For in one intention it means the time of a life, or the permanence or existence of some thing, and it is the measure of each of them. And the term “duration” in this intention applies only to things existing in time.43

William admits that whether time is infinite or will come to an end is debated by wise men; he is adamant, however, “that Aristotle thought that it did not have a beginning and will not have an end.”44 In answer to his question whether perpetuity is half of eternity, William answers, If time were what Aristotle thought it to be, that is, without beginning and without end, perpetuity would truly be a half of time that is infinite in both directions. But this cannot be called eternity except equivocally.45

Suddenly, the question of the “Italici” takes on new interest, for they held the same position as Aristotle. William attributes to Aristotle the statement,“Time is a part of eternity,” to which he says Aristotle added, “with the certain measurement of the year [or: mind] that measures

42 Ibid., 684bF. 43 Ibid., 684bH: “Una namque intentione dicitur tempus vitae, seu permanentiae, sive existentiae alicuius rei, et est mensura uniuscujusque eorum, et non congruit verbum durationis secundum intentionem istam, nisi in tempore existentibus.” 44 Ibid., 685bA: “Aristoteli namque visum fuit, nec habuisse initium, neque habiturum finem. ...” 45 Ibid.: “Si tempus esset juxta opinionem Aristotelis, sine principio scilicet, et sine fine, revera perpetuitas esset dimidium temporis ex utraque parte infiniti: hoc autem dici non potest nisi equivoce, aeternitas.”

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and is long.”46 Despite the obscurity of the addition, the source of the citation would seem to be Cicero rather than Aristotle.47 Eternity, on the other hand, belongs only to God. “It is proper to the blessed and sublime creator. Everything else began to be after it was not and ceases to be, that is to say, that something else has being after non-being. ...”48 Though eternity is nothing but the being of the creator or the creator himself, the name “eternity” adds to his being the denial of a beginning or an end and of succession or change.49 William continues to deal with some of the common things people say about eternity, e.g., that“all present and future and past things are in eternity simultaneously present and that they are seen there simultaneously as if they were at a single time. ...”50 William explains that eternity precedes time with the whole of itself and follows time with the whole of itself. Since eternity is ever whole, it does not follow that, if the whole of eternity preceded time, there will be nothing of eternity after time. Just as, if one should say: Because God is whole in heaven and above the earth; therefore, nothing of him is in the earth. For his being in heaven and above the earth does not prevent his being in the earth and under the earth since he is whole everywhere, so eternity is whole at all times, and for this reason its being before time does not prevent its being after time.51 46 William’s text reads: “ideo cum dixisset: Tempus est pars aeternitatis, adjunxit, cum anni [or: animi] mensurantis, diuturnique certa commensuratione.” 47 Cicero says, “Tempus autem est—id quo nunc utimur, nam ipsum quidem generaliter definire difficile est—pars quaedam aeternitatis cum alicuius annui, menstrui, diurni, nocturnive spati certa significatione” (De inventione I, 26, 39). 48 Ibid., 685bB: “Ipsa est propria creatoris benedicti atque sublimis. Omne enim aliud coepit, postquam non fuit, et finit, quod est dicere, quoniam aliud habet esse post non esse. ...” 49 Ibid., 685bD-686aH. 50 Ibid., ch. 2, 686aF: “Omnia et praesentia, et futura, et praeterita esse in aeternitate, simul praesentia, et etiam simul videri perinde, ac si semel essent. ...” 51 Ibid., 686bE: “Quemadmodum, si quis dicat, quoniam, Deus totus est in coelo, et supra terram; ergo nihil ejus est in terra, vel sub terra; esse enim ejus in coelo, et super terram, non prohibet esse ipsum in terra, et sub terra,


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Though a line is greater than its beginning point by the whole of itself and eternity is greater than time by the whole of itself, the magnitudes in question are not univocal and, hence, cannot be compared. For eternity is not a point of time, and eternity and time are not, as it were, in the same plane or the same series.52

If asked whether eternity is in time, William distinguishes two ways of being in time, just as we speak of God and motion being in time in different senses. God is not in time mensurabiliter, but only comitabiliter. “That is, he is while time is and whenever some time is.”53 But this concomitant existence does not mean that God is in time, just as his being in a house or city does not mean that he is in place. To be in a place in the proper sense means to be contained by the three dimensions of the place. But a motion in time is contained only in the dimension of length. Motion, then, is properly said to be in time, because time accompanies it exactly, that is, because it has nothing before the first [motion], or the beginning of motion and nothing after the last or the end of motion. This accompaniment is what it is to be measured by time, which is remote from the creator. ...54 God abides without any motion or succession, while time continuously and irresistibly flows. Hence, between the creator and time there is the sort of concomitance that one can think of between what stands in the ultimate degree of stability and what moves in the ultimate degree of fleetingness.55 In Chapter 4 William offers several examples to illustrate the relation of eternity and time. Then he argues that nothing can share in both quoniam totus ubique sit, sic aeternitas tota semper, et propter hoc esse ipsam ante tempus non prohibet ipsam esse post tempus.” 52 Ibid., 686bF: “Non enim aeternitas punctus temporis est, nec velut in eodem situ, aut eodem serie sunt aeternitas, et tempus.” 53 Ibid., 686bG:“Non enim est in tempore mesurabiliter, sicut saepe dictum est, sed comitabiliter, ut ita dicatur. Est enim dum tempus est, et quandocumque aliquid temporis est.” 54 Ibid., 686bh: “Motus ergo dicitur esse in tempore proprie, quod ipsum praecise comitatur, videlicet quod nihil habet ante primum, seu principium motus, nihil post ultimum seu finem ipsius, et ista concomitantia est mensuratio temporalis, quae quidem longe est a creatore. ...” 55 Ibid., 687aA: “Est igitur hujusmodi comitantia inter creatorem, et tempus, qualis cogitari potest inter stantem in ultimate stabilitatis, et fugientem in ultimate fugacitatis.”

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eternity and time.56 That is, there can be no middle ground between the eternal and the temporal, or between the being of God and the being of creatures. Someone might object that the horizon of eternity and time, of which the philosophers speak, is their common boundary (medium). For it shares, it seems, in each of them. This horizon is nothing but perpetuity, and perpetuity seems to share with time a beginning and with eternity endlessness. For these two [reasons] the philosopher said that it is the horizon of eternity and time and after eternity above time. I mean that it is after eternity, because of its beginning, but above time because of its endlessness.57

In the beginning of the next chapter William makes it clear that the philosopher he has in mind is Aristotle. Know also that this is not eternity, according to Aristotle, and this talk, according to the intention of the same philosopher, concerns only eternal time, that is, duration unlimited in both directions.58

The real source of the expression is the Liber de causis II, 22, which William, like his contemporaries, considered it to be a work of Aristotle.59 56 Cf. ibid., ch. 4, 688aE. 57 Ibid., ch. 4, 688aE: “Quod si quis dixerit, quia horizon aeternitatis, et temporis, quem ponunt Philosophi, est medium; communicat enim, ut videtur, utrique, et iste horizon non est nisi perpetuitas, et perpetuitas communicare videtur cum tempore incoeptionem, et cum aeternitate indesinibilitatem; et propter ista duo dixit philosophus ipsum esse horizontem aeternitatis et temporis, et post aeternitatem supra tempus, post aeternitatem inquam propter incoeptionem: supra tempus vero propter indesinibilitatem esse. ...” In his De anima, ch. 7, pt. 6 (Opera Omnia II, Supplementum, 211b), William says, “Secundum doctrinam autem christianorum ... ponendum est animam velut in horizonte duorum mundorum naturaliter esse constitutam et ordinatam. Et alter mundorum est ei mundus sensibilium cui conjunctissima est per corpus; alter vero creator ipse est in semetipso ut exemplar et speculum universalis ac lucidissimae apparitionis universalis primorum intelligibilium.” 58 De universo IIa-Iae, ch. 4, 688bE: “Scito etiam, quod aeternitas ista non est secundum Aristotelem, neque secundum ejus philosophi est iste sermo, nisi tempus aeternum, hoc est, duratio ex utraque parte infinita.” 59 “Esse autem quod est post aeternitatem et supra tempus est anima, quoniam est in horizonte aeternitatis inferius et supra tempus” (cited from S.


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In Chapter 8 William first states Aristotle’s position regarding the eternity of the world. Obviously concerned about the fact that some were trying to excuse Aristotle, he insists: Whatever might be said and whoever might try to excuse Aristotle, this was beyond any doubt his position, namely, that the world is eternal and that it did not begin to be, and he held the same opinion regarding motion, along with Avicenna after him. And they brought forth arguments and proofs for this. Likewise, others who explained the same Aristotle held the same thing and did likewise.60

William procedes to give three arguments for the eternity of the world drawn from Avicenna. The first argument runs as follows: The creator either preceded the world or did not precede the world. If he did not precede the world, then the creator did not exist unless the world also existed. Therefore, [either] the world did not begin to exist—and that is their goal—or the creator did not exist before the beginning of the world and, hence, first began to be when the world began to be. Thus he began to be with the world.61

But this position is, of course, unacceptable, since it means that the creator is not necessary being and absolutely simple. Hence, one is left Thomae Aquinatis in Librum de causis expositio [Torino and Rome: Marietti, 1955], p. 14). 60 De universo IIa-Iae, ch. 8, 690b: “Quidquid igitur dicatur et quicunque conentur excusare Aristotelem, haec indubitanter fuit ejus sententia, quod mundus est aeternus, et quod non coepit esse, et de motu similiter sensit, et Avicenna post eum, et adduxerunt rationes, et probationes ad hoc. Similiter et alii expositores ejusdem Aristotelis id ipsum senserunt, atque fecerunt.” According to Dales, Grosseteste begins his Hexaemeron by denouncing “quidam moderni qui dicunt maxime Aristotelem non sensisse mundum carere temporis inicio, sed eum in hoc articulo catholice sensisse ...” (Hex. 1.8.2, p. 58; cited from Dales,“Robert Grosseteste’s Place,” p. 548). Dales, p. 34, argues that, given the present state of our knowledge, the most likely candidate for the object of Grosseteste’s denunciation is Alexander of Hales. Cf. Dales, p. 549–550, for the texts from Alexander, who claimed that Aristotle meant that the world existed for all of time, not that the world always existed. 61 De universo IIa-Iae, ch. 8, 690bH: “Creator, vel praecessit mundum, vel non praecessit. Si non praecessit, non fuit ergo creator, quin et mundus non esset mundus, igitur non incoepit esse, et hoc est, quod intendunt, vel creator non fuit ante incoeptionem mundi, et propter hoc tunc primum fuit, quando mundus incoepit esse. Incoepit igitur esse cum mundo.”

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with the other horn of the dilemma, namely, that the creator preceded the world. But if the creator preceded the world, yet did not precede it, as Avicenna says, in time, then he preceded it only as a cause precedes its effect.62

The upshot of the argument is that if the creator preceded the world only as a cause precedes its effect, then the world existed as long as its cause existed. At this point William reminds his reader that there is another kind of precedence, namely, as eternity precedes time, and that Avicenna had argued as if there were only two ways in which God could precede the world. Instead of being satisfied with having undermined Avicenna’s argument, William takes the unusual step of devoting a full column to showing how Avicenna’s position might be strengthened.63 Avicenna’s second argument is the one resting upon the testimony of “the true and pure intellect,” which we have seen from the De trinitate. Here too William first strengthens his opponent’s argument. And in order to help him, as I helped him earlier, I say that he could have said on the basis of the same error by which he said this, that this is universal in natural causes and in voluntary causes or activities, and I will give examples of both.64

William devotes better than a full column to examples of both natural causes and voluntary causes that are changed when they produce a new effect. Then William goes on to state Avicenna’s third argument. Before the world the creator either could create a body that would have a motion lasting until the creation of the world, or he could not. But it is silly, as he says, to say regarding the creator that he could not create such a body. ... On the assumption, then, that he created this body, nothing impossible will result. Let us grant then that he 62 Ibid., 691aA: “Si vero praecessit mundum creator, et non praecessit ipsum, ut ait Avicenna, tempore, non praecessit igitur ipsum, nisi quomodo causa praecedit effectum.” 63 Space prevents recounting how William bolsters Avicenna’s argument, but the fact that he does this indicates the seriousness with which he regards fairness in philosophical argumentation. 64 De universo IIa-Iae, ch. 8, 691bB:“Et ut adjuvem ipsum, sicut adjuvi prius, dico, quia dicere potuisset ex eodem errore, quo dixit hoc, quia hoc generale est in causis naturalibus, et in causis voluntariis, sive operationibus, et ponam exempla de ambabus.”


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created this body; its motion will last until the creation of the world. ... Therefore, the creation of the world was not in the beginning of time, since that time preceded it.65

Avicenna’s argument continues with the further supposition that the creator could create many bodies of unequal motion before the creation of the world. In these motions, one faster than the other, there is necessarily before and after and, hence, time. Thus it was possible for there to be time before the creation of the world. Therefore, it is not necessary that time began with the creation of the world, or that the world began in the beginning of time. The argument seems merely to establish that time could have existed before the world’s creation. It is not immediately clear why the argument presents a problem for William or where he responds to the argument. The argument is, however, taken from Avicenna where he is arguing against those who hold that the First ... did not precede creation only by absolute priority, but by the priority of time in which there is motion and body or bodies. And these are heretics who deprive God of his liberality.66

That is, Avicenna presupposes that, if God could have created something earlier, his liberality or goodness would have brought him to do so. And William does answer that objection, as we shall see. In Chapter 9 William answers Avicenna’s first two objections. First, he insists that the creator precedes the world by his eternity and that the “before” of eternity and the “before” of time are not univocal, but equivocal. Furthermore, as Aristotle said, only univocal things can be compared.67 Furthermore, he warns that expressions, such as “before the world,” are like those that talk about “outside the world” or “beyond 65 Ibid., 692aH: “Quoniam creator ante mundum aut potuit creare corpus aliquod, quod haberet motum durantem usque ad creationem mundi, vel non potuit. Frivolum autem est, ut dicit, apud creatorem dicere, creatorem non potuisse creare hujusmodi corpus. ... posito igitur ipsum hujusmodi corpus creasse, non accidet impossibile. Esto igitur quod creavit hujusmodi corpus, quoniam motus illius duraturus est usque ad creationem mundi . Mundi igitur creatio non fuit in initio temporis, cum eam praecesserit tempus illud.” 66 “Primus non praecessit creaturam, apud eos, prioritate absoluta tantum, sed prioritate temporis in quo est motus et corpus vel corpora. Et hi sunt haeretici qui abstulerunt Deo suam liberalitatem” (Metaphysics IX, 1, p. 445). 67 De universo IIa-Iae, ch. 9, 692bF. 68.

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the world.” As there is no place outside the world, so there is no time outside of time, which contains all times as its parts.68 William’s answer to the second argument of Avicenna involves the two responses that we have already seen in De trinitate. The one emphasizes that the power of the creator extends over the absolutely possible, while Avicenna’s principle would limit his power by what already exists. The second employs the dilemma that either everything is eternal or something comes to be anew, where one is forced to deny any novelty or to admit that a cause need not be changed when it produces an effect. William also shows how the examples he previously used of natural causes and human voluntary causes differ from the causality of the creator. Natural causes do not have power over their activity, nor liberty nor choice with respect to each of two [opposites], because of which Aristotle said that nature acts in the manner of a servant.69

Moreover, natural causes act without something new being added to them when they cause something.70 On the other hand, created voluntary causes are such that “when they do something new that they 68 Grosseteste likewise attributes the error of philosophers, including Aristotle, regarding the nature of eternity to a false imagining of time’s extension: “Necesse ergo fuit eis ut ante omne tempus ymaginarentur tempus aliud et sic ante omnem motum ymaginarentur motum alium, sicut homines extra celum ymaginantur spacium extra illud spacium aliud spacium et sic in infinitum. Et hec falsa ymaginacio infinitatis temporis ex parte ante inducit necessario falsam ymaginationem perpetuitatis motus et mundi et creature coequeve Deo” (De finitate motus et temporis, p. 256, cited from Dales, “Grosseteste’s Place,” p. 559). 69 “Et non est eis potestas super operari, neque libertas aut electio ad utrumlibet propter quod dixit Aristoteles, quia natura operatur per modum servientis” (De universo II-I, ch. 9, 694aF). Actually, it was Avicenna who said, “A natural [cause] does not act through choice, but in the manner of one who serves” (Metaphysics IX, 2, p. 448). 70 William had already in De trinitate distinguished between causes, such as fire that need not first be changed in order to burn something, and other causes, such as an ax or a mill that must first be moved before they produce their effect. He put God in the first class and created voluntary causes in the later group (De trinitate, ch. 32, pp. 181-182 [201]). He formulated the general principle that cauality is nothing in the cause, but rather refers it to something else (De trinitate, ch. 34, p. 187 [206]).


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previously did not do, it is necessary that something new come about in the agents themselves or in one of the dispositions or relations. ...”71 Like a natural cause, the creator is unchanged when he causes something, but like a voluntary cause he acts by choice. Indeed he “acts by a will that is most free, most dominant and immutable in every way, and for this reason his effects take place when he wills and do not take place when he wills.”72 After presenting the three arguments from Avicenna and his refutations of them, before turning to Aristotle’s arguments, William mentions that “some men have erred concerning the newness of the world because of the limitedness of their intellect and the difficulty of their imagination.”73 They could not imagine that all space either was within the world or beyond the world, since they were unable to explain what they meant by “within” and “beyond,” as well as by “before” and “after.” William mentions that “a certain philosopher among the Italians” was entangled in this error and difficulty and asked, “Why did they sleep so many centuries, or why did the creator sleep for so many centuries and, afterwards, as if awakened, create the world.”74 William says that this sort of person could not imagine “finite time containing all times, since he said that [God] slept for so many centuries as if innumerable

71 De universo IIa-Iae, ch. 9, 694aG: “Cum novum aliquid operantur, quod prius non operabantur, necesse est ut innovatio aliqua fiat in ipsis agentibus, vel in aliqua ex dispositionibus et comparationibus saepe dictis.” 72 Ibid., 694aH: “Creator autem operatur per liberrimam, ac dominantissimam, atque per omnia immutabilem voluntatem, et propter hoc conjunguntur ei causata, cum vult, et separantur ab eo, cum vult.” 73 Ibid., 694bE: “Homines erraverunt circa novitatem mundi propter brevitatem intellectus sui, et difficultatem imaginationis sui.” 74 Ibid., ch. 10, 694bF: “Quidam philosophus ex Italicis, inquiens, ut quid innumera saecula dormierunt, an dormierat creator per saecula innumera, et postmodum, quasi expergefactus, creavit mundum?” The plural “domierunt” perhaps reflects Cicero’s De natura deorum 1.9.21, where Velleius, the Epicurean, asks Antiochus, the representative of the Stoics and Peripatetics, “Ab utroque autem sciscitor cur mundi aedificatores repente exstiterunt, innumerabilia saecla dormierunt; non enim, si mundus nullus erat, saecla non erant ... sed fuit quaedam ab infinito tempore aeternitas. ...”

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times had preceded time.”75 William promises to deal with this error in the following chapter, when he will take on the error of Aristotle. Here he points out only the goodness of God led him to create the world and that he in no way derived anything from its creation, but remains unchanged. As to why God created the world when he did rather than in eternity, William points out that there was no impediment on the part of the creator to the world being created from eternity.76 Hence, he concludes, “It is clear that this impediment was from the side of the world, whose nature was not able to be created from eternity or capable of receiving eternity. ...”77 All the arguments that claim that God would have greater glory or praise or that the world would have been better if he had created the world from eternity can be met, William claims by conceding that God’s glory would have been greater—even infinitely greater!—if the world were created from eternity, but it does not follow that he ought, for this reason, to have created the world from eternity, because it is impossible, as I told you, that the world have been created from eternity. ...78

William turns to the argument of Aristotle from De caelo et mundo. William states the argument as follows: Nature has determined that some things always do not exist, such as impossibile things. ... [and] that some things exist at one time and do not exist at another time, as you see in animals and men and many other things. Hence, it is necessary that there be some other things that nature has determined always exist. Thus it is not the creator alone that always exists or is eternal, but many other things along with him. ...79 75 Ibid., 694bF: “Hujusmodi enim homo de his fuit, qui non potuerunt imaginari tempus finitum continens omnia tempora, cum dicat innumera saecula dormisse, ac si tempus innumera tempora praecessissent.” 76 Ibid., 694bG. 77 Ibid., 694bGH: “Quare manifestum est, quod a parte mundi fuit istud impedimentum, cujus natura non fuit ab aeterno creabilis, nec susceptibilis aeternitatis. ...” 78 Ibid, 695aA: “Sed non sequitur, quod propter hoc debuisset creasse mundum ab aeterno, quoniam impossibile est, ut dixi tibi, mundum creatum fuisse ab aeterno. ...” 79 Ibid., 695aBC: “Natura determinavit quibusdam semper non esse, ut impossibilibus. ... Quibusdam determinavit natura quandoque esse, et


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After adding further support to the argument, William turns to the attack, pointing out that being is not said of the creator and creatures univocally, but equivocally, for the creator is not said to be a being because he has being, but because he is being itself so that in him that which he is and that by which he is is understood to be the same in every respect.80

Of Aristotle’s claim that nature has determined that some things always exist, that others never exist and that still others sometimes exist and sometimes do not exist, William says that no nature has determined anything for the creator, although it is true that his most noble nature always exists and that he has absolutely no possibility of drawing near to non-being.81

Furthermore, William rejects Aristotle’s argument from contraries that the many corruptible beings entail many incorruptible beings.82 Finally, to the argument that the power of some things is such that they always are and the power of other things is such that they always are not, William says that Aristotle’s statement is not true. For always to be is singular and proper to the creator, and no created thing has the power to be always, even if it is true that some of them always are, for they do not have it by any power of their own that quandoque non esse, sicut vides in animalibus, et hominibus, et multis aliis; quare necesse est, et quaedam alia esse, quibus natura determinaverit semper esse, quare non solus creator semper est, vel aeternus, immo multa alia cum eo. ...” The argument is based on Aristotle’s De caelo I, 3, 270al2-22. Cf. St. Thomas’s version of the argument in S.T. I, qu. 46, a. 1, obj. 2. Cf. Herbert A. Davidson, Proofs for Eternity, Creation and the Existence of God in Medieval Islamic and Jewish Philosophy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), pp. 28-29. Davidson questions whether the argument is found in Avicenna and notes that the De caelo included in his Opera (Venice, 1508) is probably the work of Themistius. 80 De universo IIa-Iae, ch. 10, 695bB:“Sic creator non dicitur ens in habendo ipsum esse sed in essendo ipsum suum esse, ut per omnia idem intelligatur in eo quod est, et quo est.” For the influence of Boethius on William’s metaphysics, cf. my introduction to the translation of De trinitate, pp. 8–14. 81 Ibid., 695bC: “Nulla natura aliquid determinavit creatori, licet verum sit, quod natura sua nobilissima semper sit, et nulla sit ei penitus ad non esse appropinquandi possibilitas.” 82 Cf. ibid., 695bCD.

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Studies in the Philosophy of William of Auvergne they subsist. I have already explained to you elsewhere that being is accidental to each thing besides the creator, for whom alone it is essential.83

In Chapter 11, William proceeds to give many arguments to establish that the world was created in time. After giving eleven arguments that he describes as moral and metaphysical, William goes on to provide at least again as many metaphysical arguments concerning the position of Aristotle, all of which focus upon the impossibility of an infinite time.84 An examination of these arguments, however, will have to await another study. This paper has shown that William did share the concern of Robert Grosseteste concerning the Aristotelian claims that the world had no beginning. Like Robert, William insisted that Aristotle held that the world was eternal and was concerned that some of his contemporaries were trying to interpret Aristotle’s position in an orthodox fashion. William also, like Grosseteste, held that Aristotle failed to grasp the simplicity or indivisibility of eternity and that he, for this reason, identified eternity with an infinite temporal duration. Like Robert, William blamed this failure upon a false imagining of endless time. William’s position is not merely very similar to Grosseteste’s on these points; he seems to have been engaged in writing against the Aristotelian position on many of these points almost a decade before Robert. Hence, if Grosseteste’s position is crucial in the Christian West’s encounter with the newly discovered Aristotelianism, William’s position is surely no less so. And if Robert’s arguments are reflected in later Franciscans, William’s arguments are reflected there as well.85

83 De universo IIa-Iae, ch. 10, p. 696aE: “Illud enim videlicet semper esse, singulariter est proprium creatoris, et nulli ex rebus creatis inest virtus, ut semper sit, etiamsi verum esset, quod quaedam ex eis semper sint, nulla enim sua virtute eis est, ut subsistant. Jam enim declaratum est tibi alias, quia esse accidit unicuique, praeterquam soli creatori, cui soli essentiale est.” 84 Cf. De universo IIa-Iae, ch. 11, 696aH-700bE. 85. 85 Cf. Ephrem Longpré, “Guillaume d’Auvergne et l’école Franciscaine de Paris,” La France Franciscaine 5 (1922) 426–429, for William’s ties with the Franciscan school.

The Identity of the “Italici” in William of Auvergne’s discussion of the Eternity of the World

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n a recent article I examined William of Auvergne’s arguments for rejecting the doctrine of the eternity of the world. I argued in part against the claims of Richard C. Dales that RobertGrosseteste was the first to confront the Aristotelian doctrine of the eternity of the world, that Robert sounded the alarm against the view that Aristotle’s teaching was not contrary to the Christian faith and that his contemporaries did not share his extreme concern. The article contended that William, certainly a contemporary of Robert’s, shared Grosseteste’s serious concern over the attempt to interpret Aristotle in an orthodox sense and that he shared or, more likely, anticipated Grosseteste’s major argument that Aristotle had not grasped the simplicity of divine eternity and did not possess any other sense of eternity than that of a temporal duration without beginning or end. The article also suggested that the Franciscan position on the eternity of the world was indebted to William as much as it was to Robert.

I. The Position of the “Italici” In dealing with the question of the eternity of the world in his De universo, William mentions several times the position of “the Italians.” For example, he says, Certain ones have held that eternity in its essence is nothing other than time. As a result, they defined time as part of the complete eternity, and these persons were the Italians (italici). “William of Auvergne on the Eternity of the World,” The Modern Schoolman 67 (1990): 187–205. “Robert Grosseteste’s Place in Medieval Discussions of the Eternity of the World,” Speculum 61 (1986): 544–563. De universo IIa-Iae, c. 1, 682aAB: “Scito igitur quia opinati sunt quidam aeternitatem aliud non esse in essentia, quam tempus. Unde et diffinierunt tempus esse perfectae partem aeternitatis, et isti fuerunt Italici.” References

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William goes on to explain that for these italici “eternity differs from time only as the whole from a part, or as the larger time from the smaller.” For these thinkers eternity does not precede time; rather, as a part of eternity, time is naturally prior to eternity. As there is for them nothing before eternity, there is nothing before time. William himself accepts the common view that eternity has neither beginning nor end, but adds that “eternity is indivisible into before and after.” The question that I want to explore concerns the identity of these“italici.” William mentions them two more times in this context. In the first passage he says, “Some of the Italians, however, say that aevity (aevum) is at times understood as eternity and that time flows from aevity, that is, from eternity.” William later refers to “a certain philosopher among the Italians,” when he is speaking of those who were mistaken about the newness of the world due to the deficiency of their intellect and the difficulty of imagining it. He adds that they find it difficult to imagine that every place is either within the world or beyond the world and cannot explain the meaning of the expressions “outside” or “beyond,” or of “before” and “after.” William claims to have already freed his reader from this error and difficulty. He adds that “as a result of this error and this difficulty a certain Italian philosopher asked, ‘Why did they sleep for countless ages, or why did the creator sleep through countless ages and afterwards, as if he were awakened, create the world?’” William adds that he was one of those who could not imagine a finite time containing all time and that Wilto the De universo are to the second or third part of the first principal part or to the first, second or third part of the second principal part. They indicate chapter, page, column and section from the first volume of Guilelmi Alverni Episcopi Parisiensis Opera Omnia, 2 vols., ed. F. Hotot, with Supplementum, ed. Blaise Le Feron (Orléans-Paris, 1674; repr. Frankfurt am Main, 1963). De universo IIa-Iae, c. 1, 682aB: “Secundum eos igitur non differt aeternitas a tempore, nisi sicut totum a parte sua, et sicut majus tempus a minori.” De universo IIa-Iae, c. 1, 683aCD: “Dico insuper quod aeternitas impartibilis est secundum prius, et posterius .” De universo IIa-Iae, c. 7, 690aF: “Dicunt quidam Italicorum aevum interdum pro aeternitate accipi, et ab aevo, id est, ab aeternitate tempus fluere.” De universo IIa-Iae, c. 10, 694bF: “Et ex hoc errore et hac difficutate quaerit quidam philosophus ex Italicis, inquiens, ut quid innumera saecula dormierunt, an dormierat creator per saecula innumera, et postmodum, quasi expergefactus, creavit mundum?”

Identity of the “Italici” in William of Auvergne on the World’s Eternity

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liam will free his reader from this difficulty even more in the following chapter when he argues against the error of Aristotle.

II. Previous Attempts to Identify the “Italici” Previous attempts to identify the Italians to whom William refers have provided a widely diverse set of answers. In 1819 A. Jourdain said, Guillaume (D’Auvergne) parle en divers endroits de philosophes italiens dont il n’admet pas toujours les doctrines. Certes sous ce nom de philosophi italici il ne désignoit point les sectateurs de Pithagore, mais des hommes vivant de son temps: la philosophie florissoit donc en Italie.

Well over a century later A. Masnovo explicitly dealt with the identity of the “italici” in William’s text. With regard to the passage with which we began, Masnovo says, Questo concetto dell’eternità Guglielmo D’Auvergne l’attribuisce ad una categoria di filosofi che egli in questo stesso capitolo e anche in altro successivo, il settimo, denomina “italici.” Certo a cosi fatta denominazione non forni qui occasione l’italiano Boezio. Di lui è classica la definizione della eternità: “Interminabilis vitae tota simul et perfecta possessio.”

Masnovo states that William never identified these “italici” and postpones until his third volume an explicit treatment of the question. There Masnovo argues that William is referring to Platonizing members of the school of Chartres who, though they followed Boethius on other matters, departed from his view of eternity.10 Finally, E. A. Moody says that William “invariably refers to Boethius as ille philosophus Italicus,” though the text to which he refers the reader is the only such text in the De universo.11 William says of the philosopher to whom he refers, Recherches critiques sur l’âge et l’origine des traductions latines d’Aristote (Paris, 1819), p. 327, where Jourdain refers to pp. 802, 859, 865 et alibi of the ParisOrleans edition, Vol. I. Da Guglielmo D’Auvergne A San Tommaso D’Aquino. 3 vols. (Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 1946), here II, pp. 107–108. 10 Cf. Masnovo, III, pp. 206–212, esp. 210. 11 “William of Auvergne and his Treatise De Anima,” in Studies in Medieval Philosophy, Science. and Logic (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975), pp. 1–109, here p. 11, n. 39. Moody’s study of William was written in 1933.

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Studies in the Philosophy of William of Auvergne And that Italian philosopher, whom I have several times mentioned to you above, clearly says that contraries are more clear if they are placed next to each other.12

III. Other Mentions of the “Italici” Despite Moody’s claim that William invariably refers to Boethius as“ille philosophus Italicus,” in the De trinitate William refers to Boethius by name seven times and never refers to any Italian philosopher.13 I have found no place in the De universo where William refers to Boethius by name.14 Twice in the De universo William refers to Boethius as “a certain one among the Italian [or: Latin] philosophers” and cites the De trinitate of Boethius where he says that the variety of accidents produces numerical difference among individuals.15 William, however, also clearly numbers Cicero among the Italian philosophers. You should know that there was among the Italian philosophers a man whose eloquence the whole Latin world rightly admires even today. I esteem his wisdom among the Italians and think that he should be admired. He said that fate and eimarmene are the same 12 De universo IIa-IIae, c. 21, 865aB: “Et ille philosophus Italicus, de quo supra tibi feci pluries mentionem, manifeste dicit, quia contraria juxta se posita magis elucescunt.” I have not found this citation in Boethius. It is curious that in the preceding lines William attributes to Aristotle almost the same words: “Juxta quod dicit Aristoteles, quia contraria juxta se posita et magis, et majora videntur.” 13 B. Switalski, William of Auvergne: De Trinitate. An Edition of the Latin Text with an Introduction (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1976), pp. 7, 172–174, 178, 183 and 187. 14 My search covered the whole of the De universo’s 481 pages; I could, obviously, have missed a reference to Boethius by name or to the “Italici,” despite reasonable care. 15 De Universo IIIa-Iae, c. 29, 802aE: “Nec te conturbet sermo cujusdam ex Italicis philosophis, qui dixit, quia sola accidentium varietas facit differentiam numero ... ,” and De universo Ia-IIae, c. 11, 819aD: “Quidam quoque ex Latinis Philosophis dixit evidenter in libro suo, quod sola accidentium varietas facit differentiam numerorum inter individua.” Boethius’ words are: “Sed numero differentiam accidentium varietas facit.” Cf. De trinitate in Boethius:The Theological Tractates with an English Translation, ed. H. F. Stewart and E. K. Rand. The Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1946, p. 6, 11. 24–25. William seems to regard “Latini” and “Italici” as interchangeable.


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thing and distinguished them only by their names. He said that fate was causes bound together through which things connected to other things arise or come to be in a series. And in another passage he said that fate is everlasting truth flowing from all eternity.16

William again refers to Cicero as “a certain one from the Italian philosophers, when he makes the claim that those who speak of “God” and “gods” are using the term equivocally. He adds that they spoke in the same way as some who were not afraid to say that God is the world itself. A certain one from the Italian philosophers, while mocking them, said in his book on this topic, “What beauty can belong to this rotund god?”17

Cicero certainly pokes fun at Plato’s spherical god and asks, “What life is attributed to this rotund god?”18 Another allusion to Cicero as an Italian philosopher is found in William’s rejection of the fatalist dilemma which he presents as follows:

16 De universo III-I, c. 24, 791bA: “Sciendum autem est tibi, quia fuit ex Italicis philosophis, cujus eloquentiam usque hodie tota latinitas non immerito miratur, et inter Italicos sapientiam ejus reputo, et arbitror admirandam, qui dixit fatum, et imarmenem idem esse, nec distinxit inter eas nisi nominibus tantum, dicens fatum esse causas colligatas, per quas res rebus connexae serie oriuntur, vel fiunt. Et iterum alio sermone dixit, quia fatum est ex omni aeternitate fluens veritas sempiterna.” Cf. Cicero’s De divinatione 1.55:“Fatum autem id appello quod Graeci heimarmenen id est ordinem seriemque causarum, cum causae causa nexa rem ex se gignat. Ea est ex omni aeternitate fluens veritas sempiterna.” In the following paragraph he speaks of fate as “conligationem causarum omnium.” 17 De universo IIIa-Iae, c. 29, 801bA: “Aequivoce igitur, et Deus, et dii, de omni alio, et de omnibus aliis dicitur, et nullatenus ratione, vel intentione; sic igitur spiritum coeli Deum dixisse opinandus est Abusamar, sicut Jovem, aut Apollinem, et etiam eodem modo, quo quidam mundum ipsum Deum dicere non veriti sunt, quod quidam ex Philosophis Italicis irridens, dixit in suo libro de hoc, quae pulchritudo potest esse isti rutundo Deo?” 18 In De natura deorum 1.10, Cicero says, “Admirabor eorum tarditatem qui animantem inmortalem et eundem beatum rutundum esse velint, quod ea forma neget ullam esse pulchiorem Plato; at mihi vel cylindri vel quadrati vel coni vel pyramidis videtur esse formosior. Quae vero vita tribuitur isti rutundo deo?”

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Studies in the Philosophy of William of Auvergne You must beware that you are not deceived and err with the response that one of the Italian philosophers makes, when he says:“When there is question of whether a sick person will recover from the illness he is suffering or not, if one says that he will, he will be told that medicine is then superfluous, but if he says that he will not, he will be told that it is useless.” I answer that he did not argue well.19

Although it is not a quotation, William’s argument bears a close resemblance to the dilemma Cicero reports in De fato.20 Here the Italian philosopher is not Cicero, but the one whose dilemma Cicero reports and with whom he disagrees. It is, nonetheless, apparently Cicero who is William’s source of the argument. There is another possible reference to Cicero in a passage where William says, Know, however, that the Italian philosophers used the previously mentioned proofs to disclose the care and providence of the creator concerning the corporeal universe and concerning corporeal things which are generated and corrupted beneath the sphere of the moon. But they were not able by these paths to extend the care and governance of the creator to individuals of particular things.21

19 De universo IIIa-Iae, c. 20, 786aE: “Cavendum autem est tibi ne decipiaris, et erres responsione, quam facit quidam ex Philosophis Italicis, dicens: Cum quaeritur de aegro, an sit convaliturus de aegritudine, quam patitur, an non: si dixerit quis, quod sic, et ei objectum fuerit, ergo supervacua sunt ei medicamenta; si vero dixerit, quia non est convaliturus, et objectum fuerit ergo inutilia, respondeo, quia non bene arguit. 20 De fato 28-29: “Sic enim interrogant: ‘Si fatum tibi est ex hoc morbo convalescere, sive medicum adhibueris sive non adhibueris, convalesces; item, si fatum tibi est ex hoc morbo non convalescere, sive tu medicum adhibueris sive non adhibueris, non convalesces; et alterutrum fatum est; medicum ergo adhibere nihil attinet’.” 21 De universo IIIa-Iae, c. 2, 756aE: “Scito, autem, quia Italici Philosophi praedictis indiciis usi sunt ad declarandam curam, et providentiam creatoris circa universum corporeum, et circa corporalia, quae generantur, et corrumpuntur sub circulo lunae. Verum non potuerunt per has vias extendere curam, et gubernationem creatoris usque ad singula particularium.”


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In De natura deorum Cicero attributes such a doctrine to the Stoics against whom he is arguing.22 Once again the italici in question are not Cicero, but those to whom Cicero is opposed. William also says that “among Aristotle and his followers and also among many of the Italian philosophers” the question has been decided regarding whether the upper world is one animal or many and whether the heavens have souls and whether they are rational, though Jewish and Christian doctrine has been uninterested in the topic.23 We have already seen that Cicero has attributed this doctrine to the Platonists in De natura deorum.24 Once William mentions Cicero by name, “The noble philosopher of the Latins, Cicero, said in his book, On the Nature of the Gods and Divination, that the ether is full of the immortal gods.”25 William also seems to say of Cicero: That outstanding man among the Italian philosophers said in his book on the nature of the deity... in these words: “God seems to me to be nothing else than a certain city and fatherland of the blessed spirits and souls who happily dwell and live in him.”26 22 De natura deorum 3.86: “At enim minora di neglegunt, neque agellos singulorum nec viticulas persequuntur, nec si uredo aut grando cuipiam nocuit, id Iovi animadvertendum fuit; ne in regnis quidem reges omnia minima curant. ...” 23 De universo IIIa-Iae, c. 31, 805bC: “Utrum autem mundus ille superior animal unum sit, an plura, et utrum coeli ipsi animati sint,et an animae eorum rationales, apud Aristotelem, et sequaces ejus determinatum habetur, et etiam apud multos ex Italicis philosophis; doctrina vero Hebraeorum, et Christianorum hactenus talia non curavit.” 24 Cf. above, p. 6, n. 18. 25 De universo IIIa-IIae, c. 8, 1033bB: “Latinorum autem philosophus nobilis Cicero in libro suo de Natura Deorum, et Divinatione dixit, aethera plenum esse Diis immortalibus.” An electronic search of Cicero’s works failed to turn up these words, though the idea can be derived from several passages of De natura deorum, e.g., 1.39, where Cicero reports the view of Chrysippus. 26 De universo IIa-IIae, c. 86, 941aD: “Egregius ex philosophis Italicis dixit in suo libro de natura deitatis his verbis: Nihil, inquit, aliud mihi Deus esse videatur, quam urbs quaedam, et patria beatorum spirituum, et animarum in eo beate degentium, atque viventium.” In the following column William attributes this idea to “the aforementioned philosopher” while in De universo

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Finally, William seems to speak of Cicero when he says, A certain one among the philosophers of the Latins, in my judgment the most noble, said in his book, On the Nature of the Gods, that if one uses food and drink temperately and preserves himself unstained—I understand here from the pleasures of love—he will enjoy, while he lives here, the company and vision of the gods. ...27

An examination of the texts in which William speaks of the Italian philosophers or one of the the Italian philosophers has revealed that William has twice referred to Boethius as one of the Italian philosophers, but that he also used that phrase to refer to Cicero, while he used the plural to refer to those with whom Cicero agreed or disagreed. I have found no evidence that William is referring to some contemporaries, as Masnovo and Jourdain have claimed.28

IV. Further Clues to the Italians’ Identity Aside from the above references to Italian or Latin philosophers, there are further clues to the identity of the “italici” that can be drawn from what William says concerning their view of time. Soon after the first mention of the italici in the De universo, William examines the claim IIa-IIae, c. 82, 936bG, he had attributed it to “Latinorum philosophorum non ignobiliores.” I have not been able to locate the source of the citation, though it is not found in Cicero. 27 De universo IIIa-IIae, c. 8, 1033bB: “Quidam vero inter Philosophos Latinorum, judicio meo nobilissimus dixit in suo libro, quem scripsit de natura Deorum. Quia si quis temperate uteretur cibis, et potibus, et immaculatum se custodiret, subintelligo a venereis voluptatibus, vivens hic frueretur consortio, et visione Deorum. ...” This quotation too is not found in Cicero. 28 In one text William refers to “sophistae Italici, vel Latini” who have used the de re and de dicto distinction; there he probably is referring to thinkers of the immediate past. Cf. De universo IIIa-Iae, c.15, 778bE. Twice, in De universo Ia-IIae, c. 13, 82laC and in IIa-IIae, c. 91, 945aB, William uses a quotation: “vita sine socio vita leonis, ac lupi est.” He attributes it first to “quidam ex philosophis Latinorum” and later to “nobilis ille Latinorum Philosophus.” The text seems to be a variation of a fragment of Epicurus quoted by Seneca: “Nam sine amico visceratio leonis ac lupi vita est” (Epistula 19.10.5f ). Once William attributes to “quidam ex nobilioribus Philosophis Italicis” the claim “quia Deus intra se omnia continet, ac nutrit”—another reference I have not been able to identify.


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that perpetuity is half of eternity.29 Despite the fact that perpetuity is a duration with a beginning, but no end, William rejects the idea that it is half of eternity. He admits that whether time is infinite or will come to an end is a question debated by wise men. He is clear, however, that “Aristotle thought that it did not have a beginning and will not have an end.”30 As to whether perpetuity is half of eternity, William answers, If time were what Aristotle thought it to be, that is, without beginning and without end, perpetuity would truly be a half of time that is infinite in both directions. But this cannot be called eternity except equivocally.31

William immediately goes on to attribute to Aristotle the statement, “Time is a part of eternity.” He adds to this,“with the certain measurement of the year [or: mind] that measures and is long.”32 What is interesting for our question is that William implies that Aristotle gave the same definition of time as the italici did, namely, that time is part of eternity or that eternity differs from time as the whole from a part. The actual source of the citation, however, seems to have been Cicero rather than Aristotle. Cicero said, Time is—in the sense we are now employing, for it is difficult to define it in general—a part of eternity with the certain denotation of the space of a year, month, day or night.33

29 “Perpetuity” is, of course, an expression derived from Boethius; cf. De consolatione philosophiae 5.6.14; CC 94, 102. 30 De universo IIa-Iae, c. 1, 685bA: “Aristoteli namque visum fuit, nec habuisse initium, neque habiturum finem. ...” 31 De universo IIa-Iae, c. 1, 685bA: “Si tempus esset juxta opinionem Aristotelis, sine principio scilicet, et sine fine, revera perpetuitas esset dimidium temporis ex utraque parte infiniti: hoc autem dici non potest nisi equivoce, aeternitas.” 32 The text reads:“Ideo cum dixisset: Tempus est pars aeternitatis, adjunxit, cum anni [or: animi] mensurantis, duiturnique certa commensuratione.” 33 De inventione 1.26.39. A comparison of Cicero’s Latin with the corrupt version that William cites leaves, I suggest, no doubt as to the ultimate origin. Cicero’s text reads,“Tempus autem est—id quo nunc utimur, nam ipsum quidem generaliter definire difficile est—pars quaedam aeternitatis cum alicius annui, menstrui, diurni, nocturnive spatii certa significatione.”

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An even more interesting version of the text is found in William of Conches’s Glossae super Platonem on Timaeus 37D. William of Conches distinguished three definitions of time: the general, the total, and the partial. He says, The partial [definition] was given by Cicero as follows:“Time is a part of eternity, that is, of that great space [of the whole of time], with the certain denotation of some space of a day or night or month.”34

Here there is the explicit contrast of the whole of time with time as a part of that whole. Jeauneau cites in a note William of Conches’ second commentary on Priscian: Cicero puts the partial [definition] as follows:“time is part of eternity, that is, of that great space which is called eternity by the philosophers—for true eternity lacks every part—with the certain denotation of a certain space, but not the great space.”35

Hence, though the definition of time that William attributes to the “italici” and to Aristotle ultimately stems from Cicero, it was certainly available to William in the writings of his 12th century precedessors. Finally, if we return to William’s reference to the question of the Italian philosopher in De universo IIa-Iae, c. 10, 694bF:“Why did they sleep for countless ages, or why did the Creator sleep through countless ages. ..?” The plural verb, “dormierunt,” which has no subject and which William rephrases in the singular with the Creator as subject may well reflect Cicero’s words in De natura deorum, where Velleius asks, “But I ask ... why the builders of the world suddenly arose; they had slept countless ages. For if there was no world, there were still ages ... but there was an eternity from infinity . ....”36 If William’s text does reflect this passage, we 34 “Partialis vero talis est data a Tullio:‘Tempus est quedam pars eternitatis, id est illius magni spacii, cum certa significatione alicuius spacii diurni, nocturni mensurnive’” (Glossae super Platonem. Texte critique avec introduction, notes et tables. ed. Edouard Jeauneau [Paris: J. Vrin, 1965], here 32, p. 177. 35 “Partialem vero ponit Tullius talem: tempus est pars [est] eternitatis, id est illius magni spacii quod a philosophis eternitas vocatur—vera enim eternitas caret omni parte [parti, Cod.]. —cum certa [cetera, Cod.] significatione certi spacii, sed non magnum spacium” (Glossae super Priscianum [Instit. VIII, 38], Cod. Paris. B.N. Lat. 15.130, fol. 59 vb; cited from Jeauneau, p. 177). 36 De natura deorum 1.9.21: “Ab utroque autem sciscitor cur mundi aedificatores repente exstiterunt, innumerabilia saecla dormierunt; non enim si


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have another link with Cicero, who was both an Italian and a follower of the Peripatetics. In fact, only two pages later William presents his first argument that the world had a beginning in the sense that past time is not infinite. He argues from the fact that histories record the beginnings of cities, kingdoms and nations that the world itself had a beginning. For if cities, kingdoms and nations all had a beginning and the world did not, it would have existed for an infinite time with no purpose. “But of these beginnings there would be the same question which Aristotle and his followers asked concerning the beginning of the world.”37 The only question about the beginning of the world in William’s text that seems a possible referent for this question is that question of a certain philosopher from the Italians which we have just examined. Hence, it would seem that, when William spoke of the Italian or Latin philosophers in general, he was referring to men of antiquity, to Cicero, Boethius, and others.38 We have seen that William linked Cicero with Aristotle and his followers, and it seems that the “italici” who held that time was part of eternity were in fact Cicero and other followers of Aristotle from the ancient world, including quite probably Boethius. Even though it was Boethius who formulated the classical definition of eternity as timeless duration, there is no evidence that William knew this definition, or that it stemmed from Boethius.

mundus nullus erat, saecla non erant … sed fuit quaedam ab infinito tempore aeternitas. ...” 37 De universo IIa-Iae, c. 11, 696bE: “Sed de istis initiis esset eadem quaestio, quam et ipse Aristoteles et sequaces ejus de initio mundi referunt.” 38 According to Switalski (op. cit., p. 15, note) William uses “philosophi” to refer to Pagan and Moslem philosophers only, though he uses “philosophus” to refer to Boethius.

William of Auvergne on De re and De dicto Necessity

I

n his paper,“Modality De Dicto and De Re,” William Kneale examines the historical background of the distinction between de re and de dicto necessity. Though he traces the distinction to a number of passages in Aristotle, including his discussion of the fallacies of composition and division in De sophisticis elenchis 4, 166a23-31, he finds the distinction first explicitly formulated in the writings of Peter Abelard. As Keale points out, Abelard implies that the distinction was already in common use by his time. Kneale argues that the distinction is “badly drawn and misleading.” Writing in the 1230s, over a century later than Abelard, William of Auvergne also argued that the distinction between the de re and de dicto interpretations of a statement, such as: Whatever God has foreseen comes about necessarily, is badly drawn, claiming that it is vague and lacks a clear interpretation. William attributes the de re and de dicto distinction regarding such a statement to “Italian or Latin sophists,” the identity of whom remains unclear. W. Kneale, “Modality De Dicto and De Re,” in Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science: Proceedings of the 1960 International Congress, ed. E. Nagel, P. Suppes and A. Tarski (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1962), pp. 622–633, especially pp. 623–625. Kneale points to Twelfth Century Logic: Texts and Studies II Abaelardiana Inedita, ed. L. Minio Paluello (Rome: Edizioni di Storia et Letteratura, 1958), pp. 13ff., 29 and 33 and Abelard’s Dialectica, ed. L. M. De Rijk (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1956), pp. 195 and 206. Abaelardiana Inedita, p. 29: “Solet quaeri qualiter expositae de rebus ad expositas de sensu secundum inferentiam sese habeant.” Keale, p. 622. Cf. my “The Identity of the Italici in William of Auvergne’s Discussion of the Eternity of the World,” Proceedings of the Patristic, Medieval and Renaissance Conference 15 (1990), 191–203. Amato Masnovo devoted a chapter to the identity of the “Italici” in the second volume of his three volume work, Da Guglielmo d’Avergne a san Tommaso d’Aquino (Milano: Vita e Pensiero, 1946), pp. 206-212. He argues that William refers to some Platonizing members of the school of Chartres who held that“there are from eternity many truths which are not God”—the seventh proposition condemned by the University of Paris

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In this paper I shall examine William’s understanding of the distinction between a de re and de dicto interpretation of such modal statements, his reasons for rejecting that distinction, and his alterative interpretation of such modal statements. He discusses this distinction in the fifteenth chapter of the third part of the first principal part of De universo creaturarum. There William faces an old problem that, he tells us, still troubles many of his contemporaries, namely, that divine providence or foreknowledge imposes necessity on all events. He first of all states the arguments that have led many into error. The first of which runs as follows: Because, they say, it is impossible that God’s providence be deceived, it is necessary that whatever he has foreseen comes about. But whatever comes about necessarily is necessary. Therefore, whatever the creator has foreseen is necessary. But he has foreseen everything that will be or will come about. Therefore, everything that will be or come about is necessary. Everything, therefore, that will be is immutable and inevitable.

The second argument runs as follows: They say, either it is possible or it is not possible that some of those things which God has foreseen not come about. If it is possible, nothing impossible will follow if we grant it. Let it, then, be granted. Then it will be true that some of those things that God has foreseen will come about will not come about. Therefore, he was mistaken in his foresight, and it is true that his providence is deceived. But all hold it as certain that it is impossible that God be mistaken or that his providence be deceived about anything. That, then, from which this follows is impossible. It is, therefore, impossible that some of those at the time of William. Cf. S. Bonaventura, In secundum librum sententiarum, d. xxiii, a. 2, qu. 3, in Opera omnia II (Ad claras aquas, 1885), p. 546. De universo IIIae-Ia, ch. 15; I, 778aG-780aF. References to the De universo are to Guilelmi Alverni Episcopi Parisiensis Opera Omnia, 2 vols., ed. F. Hotot, with Supplementum, ed. Blaise Le Feron (Orléans-Paris, 1674; repr. Frankfurt am Main, 1963). Ibid., 778aG: “Quoniam, inquiunt, impossible est divinam providentiam falli, necesse est evenire quicquid providit. Quicquid autem necesse est evenire, necessarium est. Quicquid igitur providit creator, necessarium est. Providit autem omne, quod futurum est, seu eventurum. Omne igitur futurum, seu eventurum, necessarium est. Omne igitur futurum est immutabile, et inaversible.”

William of Auvergne on De re & De dicto Necessity

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things that God has foreseen will come about will not come about. But there is nothing that will be that he has not foreseen. Nothing, therefore, will be that does not come about necessarily. Because, then, God has foreseen that everything that will come about will come about, everything that will come about comes about necessarily. Hence, everything comes about of necessity.

I. A First Look at William’s Solution After labeling these arguments “sophistical snares” and “childish tricks that deserve to be laughed at,” William reminds his reader that propositions, such as (1) It is necessary that whatever will come about will come about, and (2) It is necessary that whatever God has foreseen will come about will come about, have two intentions or two interpretations. He says that the necessity can refer to single items or to the whole (vel ad singula, vel ad totum). He acknowledges that almost the same thing is said in other words: by way of composition or by way of division (composite vel divisim). William explains what he means by this distinction. In the first interpretation, that is, when the necessity refers to single events or when the statement is understood by way of division, he says that one is equivalently saying: (2a) This or that event that God has foreseen will come about will come about necessarily. Presumably he would hold that (1) could also be interpreted as referring to a single event Ibid., 778aG-H. “Inquiunt, aut possibile est non evenire aliquid eorum, quae providit Deus, aut non. Si est possibile, eo igitur posito non accidet impossibile. Ponatur igitur. Erit ergo verum, quod aliquid eorum, quae praevidit Deus eventura, non eveniet. Erravit igitur providendo, et verum est providentiam ejus falli. Hoc autem certum est omnibus esse impossibile, videlicet Deum errare, vel providentiam ejus falli in aliquo. Id igitur ex quo accidit est impossibile. Impossibile igitur est aliquid eorum, quae providit Deus eventura, non evenire. Nihil autem est futurum, quod non providerit. Nihil igitur est futurum quod non sit necesse evenire. Quia igitur omne, quod eventurum, providit Deus eventurum, omne quod est eventurum necesse est evenire. Quare omnia de necessitate eveniunt.” Ibid., 778bE:“Quoniam necessitas potest referri vel ad singula vel ad totum, et aliis verbis fere idem dicitur composite vel divisim.”

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(la) This event that will come about will come about necessarily. William holds that such interpretations are false, at least in many cases, since there are many single events that are contingent and whose not coming about is possible. Hence, it seems that he understands this first interpretation to mean that every single event comes about necessarily, that is, is not contingent, but a necessary event. The necessity in this case is attributed to the individual events or things. In the second interpretation, on the other hand, the necessity refers to the whole, that is, to that which is signified by this statement. Thus one is equivalently saying, it would seem, that (2b) It is necessary that whatever God has foreseen will come about. William claims that no one has any doubt that this statement is true and necessary, just as its contradictory is impossible, namely, that God has foreseen something that will not come about. The Latin of the two statements is itself ambiguous and would allow one to understand the necessity as attributed to the propositions or to the events that come about. That is, the two statements could be construed: (3a) “This or that event that God has foreseen will come about will come about” is necessary. (3b) “Whatever God has foreseen will come about will come about” is necessary. Or they could be construed as attributing a necessary coming about to single events or to all events. (4a) This or that event which God has foreseen will come about will come about necessarily, or (4b) Whatever God has foreseen will come about will come about necessarily. In (3a) and (3b) the necessity is equivalently conditional: If God has foreseen that something will come about, it will come about. In (4a) and (4b) the necessity refers to the event or events in themselves. Though William does later appeal to this distinction between necessity of the consequence and necessity of the consequent, it seems that he here interprets these statements as attributing the necessity of coming about either to individual events or to the whole collection of events. Thus the Ibid.: “Necessitas referatur ad totum, quod est hoc, quod hac locutione significatur.”


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interpretation by way of composition (composite) attributes the necessity to the whole collection of events that God has foreseen, while the interpretation by way of division (divisim) attributes the necessity to the individual events.

II. The Italian Sophists on de re and de dicto At this point William states that “the Italian or Latin sophists refer to this as ambiguous language (duplicitas locutionis), because it can be understood, as they say, de re or de dicto.”10 He explains that their intention is that the proposition (dictum) which is expressed by the statement ‘Whatever God has foreseen will come about’ is necessary, just as the statement is necessary, and its contradictory is clearly impossible. But they call the de re interpretation what I called the interpretation regarding single events. And they do this with a childish and vague intention.11

William claims that their explanation is lacking both in terminology (sermones) and in a clear and lucid interpretation (intellectus clarus, ac depuratus) and gives two reasons.12 The first reason argues that every statement says what it signifies. But what each statement signifies is its res, even if it is a word or some other sign whatsoever. It is called res in relation to a word or statement signifying it. What is said (dictum) by a statement is its res. Hence, an interpretation de dicto is an interpretation de re.13

10 Ibid. 11 Ibid., 778bF: “dictum, quod per illam locutionem dicitur, quidquid providit God eveniet, necesse est, sive necessarium, sicut ipsa locutio necessaria et ejus contradictoria manifeste impossibilis. Intellectum vero de re vocant id quod ego dixi de singulis et hoc puerili et vaga intentione.” 12 I follow Masnovo’s reading of “depuratus” instead of “deputatus”; cf. Masnovo, p. 189. 13 De universo IIIae-Ia, ch. 15; I, 778bF: “Omni locutione dicitur id quod ipsa significat. Id vero quod unaquaeque locutio significat res ejus est, etiamsi sermo sit vel signum aliud quodcunque res dicitur ad sermonem seu locutionem significantem illum. Dictum igitur per locutionem res est. Quare intellectus de dicto est intellectus de re.”

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Masnovo labels this first move as “un po’ sbarazzino.”14 Since every statement is a statement de re, as William sees it, the distinction of the Italian sophists is neither clear nor adequate. The basis of this line of argumentation goes back at least as far as Augustine’s De doctrina christiana I, ii, 2, where he maintains that “all teaching concerns either things or signs. ...”15 He calls things in the proper sense “those that are not used to signify something,” such as a piece of wood or a stone. But there are other things that are signs of things, such as the wood Moses put in the bitter waters or the stone upon which Jacob laid his head. Finally, “there are other signs whose whole use lies in signifying, such as words.”16 Augustine then states, “From this one understands what I call signs, namely, those things which are used to signify something. Hence, every sign is also a thing; for what is not a thing is utterly nothing. But not every thing is a sign.”17 William’s second argument against the distinction between the de re and the de dicto interpretation of these statements claims that the predicate, namely, the necessity of coming about, is not truly applied to a proposition, since “a proposition (dictum) neither has nor will come about. For it is not about future events, since from the beginning of the ages and even now it is true and necessary.”18 Such a predicate is attributed only to “things and natures,” and for this reason “that statement can only be understood of things (de rebus).”19 William seems to understand the advocates of the de re and de dicto distinction as applying the necessity of coming about to a proposition, though they surely construed the sentence so that “is necessary” is the 14 Masnovo, p. 189. 15 De doctrina christiana I, ii, 2: CCL XXXII, 7: “Omnis doctrina uel rerum est uel signorum. ...” 16 Ibid.: “Proprie autem nunc res appellaui, quae non ad significandum aliquid adhibentur, sicuti est lignum lapis pecus atque huiusmodi cetera. ... Sunt autem alia signa, quorum omnis usus in significando est, sicuti sunt uerba. 17 Ibid.: “Ex quo intellegitur, quid apellem signa, res eas uidelicet, quae ad significandum aliquid adhibentur. Quam ob rem omne signum etiam res aliqua est; quod enim nulla res est, omnino nihil est.” 18 De universo IIIae-Ia, ch. 15; I, 778bFG: “Dictum nec evenit nec eveniet. Non enim est de futuris, cum ab initio saeculorum et modo etiam verum sit et necessarium.” 19 Ibid., 778bG: “non potest intellige illa locutio nisi de rebus.”


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predicate of the proposition (dictum): “Whatever God has foreseen will come about.” Abelard had, after all, distinguished an expositio per compositionem and an expositio per divisionem, the former being de sensu, while the latter is de re, or de rebus.20 Thus a de dicto interpretation of a proposition ascribes a modal predicate of “id quod dicit ista propositio.”21 Similarly, St. Thomas says that the proposition: “Everything known by God is necessary,” can be understood de re or de dicto.“If it is understood de re, it is divided and false, and its sense is: ‘Everything that God knows is necessary.’ Or it can be understood de dicto, and thus it is composite and true, and its sense is: This proposition, ‘What is known by God is,’ is necessary.”22

III. A Further Look at William’s Position William’s own position is that this necessity can be predicated of things or attributed to things in the universal or universally, and this is in accord with the truth, when it is understood according to their [the Italian sophists’] de dicto interpretation. Or it can be understood in the singular or by way of division, and they call this interpretation de re. This is what produces the ambiguity in re, namely, universality and singularity.23 Hence, William maintains that it is in no sense true of individuals taken singly that whatever God has foreseen will come about will come about necessarily. Yet in the universal and by way of conjunction or composition it is true, even if each future event is contingent and it is 20 Kneale, p. 624, where he refers to Abelard’s Dialectica, ed. De Rijk, p. 195. 21 Cf. Kneale, p. 624. 22 Cf. S.T. I, qu. 14, a. 13 ad 3um.: “Unde et haec propositio, omne scitum a Deo necessarium est esse, consuevit distingui. Quia potest esse de re, vel de dicto. Si intelligatur de re, est divisa et falsa: et est sensu, omnis res quam Deus scit, est necessaria. Vel potest intelligi de dicto: et sic est composita et vera; et est sensus, hoc dictu, scitum a Deo esse, est necessarium.” 23 De universo IIIae-Ia, ch. 15; I, 778bG: “Ista necessitas potest de rebus praedicari vel rebus attribui in universali sive universaliter, et hoc sit secundum veritatem, quando intelligitur de dicto secundum eos, vel potest intelligi in singulari seu divisim, et hunc facit duplicitatem in re, videlicet universalitas et singularitas.”

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possible that it not come about. “The reason is that it is universality to which necessity belongs, but not to singularity. ...”24 Thus it might seem that William maintains that all events that God has foreseen come about necessarily, but that individual events that God has foreseen do not come about necessarily. But that would run counter to elementary logic. One way William might avoid such a blatant violation of logic involves taking the subject of the first statement as the whole collection of events taken together, while taking the subject of the second statement as the events taken singly. William offers several examples that indicate that he does do this. First, he appeals to a pair of contradictory statements, each of which is contingent, and says, if you say, one of these will always be true, the eternity of the truth is not attributed to them individually or singly, but in common or in the universal. In the same way understand in this case: “‘Whatever God has foreseen will come about will come about necessarily.”25

That is, William maintains that“comes about necessarily” is true of “what God has foreseen will come about” in the sense of the whole collection of those things which he has foreseen, but not true of the individual things he has foreseen. Thus, one who moves from the universal interpretation to the singular interpretation is committing, he would claim, the fallacy of division. He uses another example. “Every man is necessarily living” is true, even though of each man it is true singly and by way of division that he does not necessarily live and can die. Nor is the statement,“Every man is living,” always true of the same men or spoken of the same men. Thus the eternality of the truth lies in its totality and in the universality of men, which is not changed by a change of individuals, just as a species is not changed in the meaning of the species.26 24 Ibid., 778bH: “Et hoc est quoniam universalitas est cui competit necessitas, singularitati vero non. ...” 25 Ibid.: “Si dicas semper erit verum alterum, sempiternitas veritatis non divisim aut singulatim attribuitur alteri, sed in communi sive in universali. Eodem modo intelliget et ibi, quidquid providit Deus eventurum, evenire necesse est.” 26 Ibid., 778bH-779aA: “Omnem hominem vivere necesse est, cum de quocunque verum sit singulatim atque divisim, quod ipsum vivere est necesse,


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William further explains how he understands the statement: “Whatever God has foreseen will come about.” He says that it is one thing when it refers to individual events taken individually and another when it refers to the totality of events. For when the statement refers to single events singly and determinately, then it is as if single events were spoken of as single events. That is as if it were said: “It is necessary that this or that event which God has foreseen come about,” and so on for other single events. But when one remains with the universal, as I said, those single events are not spoken of singly and determinately. Thus the signification of the statement remains the same, whether or not the same events are foreseen or other events are foreseen.27

That is, the signification of “whatever God has foreseen” in the universal sense remains the same, regardless of which events are foreseen. Thus the statement “whatever God had foreseen comes about necessarily” is true independently of individual events that come about. In the same way the statement, “ Every man is living,” does not change what it signifies or says with the change of the individuals of the species, unless one intends to speak of single events taken singly in the way I mentioned. In that case it would be as if one spoke of single events singly. ...”28

William’ s interpretation of the statement in its universal sense has the characteristics of an a priori proposition. Its truth does not depend upon the existence or occurrence of individual things or events. Yet he does not see that the necessity involved is a logical necessity, since cum ipsum mori possibile sit, nec ista locutio, omnis homo vivit, semper vera est pro eisdem hominibus, nec pro eisdem etiam enunciatur. Ideo sempiternitas veritatis stat in universalitate ipsius et in universalitate hominum, quae non mutatur in mutatione individuorum, sicut neque species in ratione speciei.” 27 Ibid., 779aA: “Cum ad singula dictio refertur singulatim et determinate, perinde est ac si singula singularia dicerentur. Hoc autem est ac si diceretur hoc quod providit Deus necesse est evenire et id et illud, atque ita de singulis. Cum autem statur in universali, ut dixi, non dicuntur illa singula singulatim ac determinate, et ideo manet eadem significatio locutionis, sive eadem maneant provisa sive alia provideantur.” 28 Ibid., 780aF: “Quemadmodum et ista locutio, omnis homo vivit, non mutat significatum vel dictum mutatione individuorum speciei, nisi quis praedicto modo intendat de singulis singulatim. ...”

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he claims that the necessity of coming about (necessitas eveniendi) is attributed to the totality of those things that God has foreseen in the universal interpretation of the statement and to the individual events in the singular interpretation of the statement. Thus William points out that those who argue that divine providence imposes necessity on events make an illegitimate shift from the statement, “It is necessary that whatever God has foreseen will come about,” which William grants to be true universally and by way of composition, to its application to single events by way of division: “Whatever God has foreseen will come about is necessary.” In the latter sense he claims that it is not true. That is, they commit the fallacy of division.29 William warns that one would not solve the fallacious argument involved in this shift except ad hominem if he claims that in this argument there is a change in both subject and predicate. For William construes the statement “It is necessary that whatever God has foreseen will come about will come about,” as follows: “Whatever God has foreseen will come about, its coming about is necessary.” Thus the infinitive (evenire: its coming about) is the subject, while necessity is the predicate. In the conclusion,“Whatever God has foreseen will come about” is the subject, while “is necessary” is the predicate. That is, in the first statement the necessity is predicated of the coming about, and the res of the infinitive is each event’s coming about. But in the conclusion the necessity is predicated of the res of the circumlocution:“Whatever God has foreseen will come about.” The res of this circumlocution is the totality of those things which God has foreseen. That is, the res of both statements is the events God has foreseen. Hence, one who tries to escape this fallacy by claiming that the subject and predicate are changed cannot extricate himself from this difficulty when asked whether the necessity belongs to every res of the infinitive, that is, whether it belongs to every future event. Since, William argues, it obviously does not belong to every future event, the one trying to 29 I mean that they commit the fallacy of division in the modern sense. J. L. Mackie illustrates this sense of the fallacy with the proposition “All the citizens are able to resist the tyrant,” which is true of the whole body of the citizenry, but not true of all the citizens distributively. Quite different is Aristotle’s fallacy of division which Mackie states has to do with the way words are put together or divided, e.g.,“John is able-to-write while he is not writing” or “John is able to write-while-he-is-not-writing.” Cf. J. L. Mackie,“Fallacies,” in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Paul Edwards (New York: Macmillan, 1967), III, 172–173.


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escape the fallacy in this way will have to deny the truth of the first proposition: “It is necessary that whatever God has foreseen will come about will come about,” despite the change of subject and predicate. Yet William insists that the first proposition is in some sense true.30 Thus William holds that both propositions are about the same res: every future event. In both necessity is ascribed to every future event. In the first it is ascribed to the totality of future events by way of composition; in the second it is ascribed to single future events by way of division. William holds that the first proposition is true, while the second is false. Or, he holds that the statement understood in the universal sense is true, while it is false if understood in the singular sense. This solution, however, will not work. First of all, in terms of the theology of divine providence, God foresees not merely all events as a whole, but all individual events. Second, in terms of logic, the universal and singular interpretations of the proposition must be equally true and necessary: whatever God has foreseen will come about, though the necessity involved is conditional necessity, not the necessity of the consequent. Third, what William lacks is an account of universality in knowledge. As Marrone has shown, William’s explanation of universal knowledge “presents enormous problems.”31 Without universal ideas, the truth of all simple knowledge lies in the res to which language refers.32 As a result, the universal interpretation of “whatever God has foreseen” refers the totality of the things God has foreseen.

IV. William’s Second Solution Despite William’s rejection of the de re and the de dicto interpretations of “It is necessary that whatever God has foreseen will come,” and despite his claim that the statement is true when it refers to the whole or is understood by way of composition, though false when it refers to

30 De universo IIIae-Ia, c. 15; I, 779aCD. 31 Steven P. Marrone, William of Auvergne and Robert Grosseteste: New Ideas of Truth in the Early Thirteenth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), p. 72. 32 Marrone says that for William “concepts and words having to do with the essences and properties of worldly things referred directly to a particular object in the created world” (p. 73).

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individuals and is understood by way of division, he closes the chapter with another solution. With regard to the statements: “If God has foreseen this, it will come about necessarily, or it is necessary that it come about,” William reports that even children in his time understood their ambiguity, though now he finds many trapped by them. He distinguishes between necessity of the condition or of the consequence and necessity of the consequent. In the first case the necessary bears upon the conditional statement; in the second case the necessity bears upon the consequent itself. William points to several sources of the error that argues that God’s providence or foreknowledge imposes necessity on all future events. The first is that they have thought that, if God has foreseen something, he could not not have foreseen it.33 That is, they supposed that God’s knowledge of creatures could not have been other than it is. The second is their belief that providence cannot be deceived or be mistaken or fail to be true. Although this is true, it does not follow that what God knows is necessary.34 The third is their ignorance of the condition of certain true or false statements, whose nature is such that they are either true or false, but not necessarily true or false. William is referring to singular contingent propositions about the future; he gives as an example: “You will eat only once tomorrow,” or its opposite. William argues that it is either true or false that you will eat only once tomorrow, but in either case it is not necessarily true. If it is true, it is always true, and if false, always false. Hence, such a proposition cannot change from true to false or from false to true. For to change is to have one state after another or to have one state before another. But this is impossible in these cases, since, if one of them is true, it was never in the opposite state. And the same thing holds with falsity. For this reason it does not follow: This is true and can be false; therefore, it can change from true to false.35 33 De universo IIIae-Ia, c. 15; I, 779bB: “Et haec est etiam causa propter quam opinati sunt quia si aliquid providit vel scivit, non potest illud non providisse vel non scivisse vel non cognovisse.” 34 Ibid.: “Induxit etiam eos quaedam alia radix veritatis, quae est haec, videlicet, quia divinam providentiam falli vel errare vel non esse veram. ...” 35 Ibid., 779bC: “Mutari enim est post unam dispositionem habere aliam, aut ante unam dispositionem habuisse aliam. Hoc autem non est possibile in hujusmodi, quoniam si aliquid de his est verum, numquam fuit in dispositione


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William’s point is that God’s knowledge is of this sort: If he has foreseen something, he has foreseen it from eternity; if he knows something, he has known it from eternity. But even though he knows something from eternity, it is possible that he never knew it. That is, it does not follow from the fact that he knows something from eternity that he could not not know it. William explains this with the example of one’s eating only once tomorrow. If it is true that you will only eat once tomorrow, it is eternally true. But everything true is known by the creator, and known by him as long as it is true. Hence, it is known by him from eternity. But it is not the case that, if it is true, it is for that reason necessary. Hence, though it is true, it is still possible that it not be true, and if it were not true, it would not be known by the creator, nor would it ever have been known by him. For the truth of each of the two propositions and the knowledge of the creator go together. Thus, if it is true, it was known by the creator, and if it is not true, it was not known by him.36

William applies this to his example that one will eat only once tomorrow. Though it is true, it is possible that it not be true; even if it is always true, it is still possible that it was never true. William’s point is that it is not possible that knowledge or providence or foresight attain anything but what is true. From this you see the likeness which I explained. It is not the case that, if God has foreseen something and if it is possible that it not come about, it is, therefore, possible that he be deceived or be mistaken. The reason for this is the concomitance mentioned of God’s knowledge and the truth in what he cares for or foresees.37 contraria, et falsitate similiter se habet, et propter hoc non sequitur: hoc est verum, et potest esse falsum. Ergo potest mutari a veritate in falsitatem.” 36 Ibid., 780aE: “Non autem, si est verum, propter hoc est et necessarium. Quare licet sit verum, possibile tamen est ipsum non esse verum, et si non esset verum, nec modo sciretur a creatore, neque unquam scitum fuisset ab eo. Concomitantur enim se semper veritas in unoquoque dicibilium et scientia creatoris, ita ut si est verum, sit scitum a creatore, et si non est verum, non est scitum ab eodem.” 37 Ibid.,779bD–780aE: “Non est possibile cadere scientiam vel providentiam aut praevidentiam nisi super verum. Ex his igitur apparet tibi similitudo quam praedixi. Non enim si providit Deus aliquid et possible est non evenire illud.

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Here it seems there is a quite different solution to the question of whether or not divine providence or foreknowledge imposes necessity upon events. The concomitance of God’s knowledge and the truth about contingent events is such that, if it is true that you will eat only once tomorrow, God knows that you will eat only once tomorrow—and he knows it from eternity. But the relation between the condition and the conditioned, that is, between: “God knows that you will eat only once tomorrow” and “you will eat only once tomorrow” is one of conditional necessity or necessity of the consequence. But it is not true that the consequent is necessary in itself or that your eating tomorrow is a necessary event. The explanation of this is clear. For, if it is true that you will eat only once tomorrow, this was also true from eternity. Everything true, insofar as it is true and as long as it is true, is known and has been known by the creator. Hence, if this is true, God knew it from eternity. But it is not the case that, if it is true, it is for that reason also necessary.38

That is, William correctly refuses to infer from: “God has eternally known that you will eat only once tomorrow,” which is true if you will eat only once tomorrow, that your eating tomorrow is necessary or that God’s knowledge of this event could not have been otherwise. On the other hand, this solution to the objection that divine providence imposes necessity on all events is quite independent of William’s first solution which claimed that the necessity of coming about is correctly attributed to all events forseen by God taken universally and by way of composition, but not correctly attributed to events foreseen by God taken singly and by way of division. Why then does William reject the distinction between de re and de dicto interpretations of modal statements, such as: “Whatever God has foreseen will come about will come about necessarily”? Ultimately, he does this, I believe, because a de dicto interpretation implies an eternal Ergo, possibile est ipsum falli vel errare, et hoc est propter concomitantiam antedictam, scilicet scientiae divinae et veritatis in proviso vel praeviso.” 38 Ibid., 779bD–780aE: “Declaratio autem hujusmodi manifesta est, quia si verum est te cras comesturam esse semel tantum, etiam verum fuit hoc ab aeterno. Omne autem verum in quantum est verum et quamdiu verum est et scitur a creatore et scitum est. Quare si hoc verum est, scivit illud Deus ab aeterno, non autem, si est verum, propter hoc et necessarium.”


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res apart from God signified by the statement. That is, he believes that the de dicto interpretation involves a Platonic realism not of universal ideas, but of eternally true propositions apart from the mind of God. For “every statement says what it signifies, and what each statement signifies is its res.”39 Hence, though I have argued that Masnovo is incorrect in identifying the Italici to whom William refers as Platonizing members of the school of Chartres, he is, I believe, correct that the sophistae Italici, vel Latini are such Platonists and precisely the sort of people William meant to condemn for holding that “there are from eternity many truths which are not God.”40

39 De universo IIIae-Ia, c. 15; I, 778bF: “Omni locutione dicitur id quod ipsa significat. Id vero quod unaquaeque locutio significat res ejus est.” 40 Cf. note 4 above.

William of Auvergne and the Manichees

W

illiam of Auvergne became a master of theology in the University of Paris in 1223 and was appointed bishop of Paris by Gregory IX in 1228. He governed the church of Paris until his death in 1249, while continuing to write the works that constitute his immense Magisterium divinale et sapientiale. Despite the fact that he was one of the first of the thirteenth century theologians to appreciate the value of the Aristotelian philosophy that poured into the Latin West during the last half of the twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth century, his writings have not received the scholarly attention they deserve. Gilson has well sketched the impact of the influx of Greek and Arabian philosophical works into the Christian West. Up to the last years of the twelfth century, when the Christian world unexpectedly discovered the existence of non-Christian interpretations of the universe, Christian theology never had to concern itself with the fact that a non-Christian interpretation of the world as a whole, including man and his destiny, was still an open possibility.

It was only through the studies of J. Kramp early in this century that William’s writings were recognized to be parts of the one Magisterium divinale et sapientiale; see J. Kramp,“Des Wilhelm von Auvergne‘Magisterium Divinale,’” Gregorianum 1 (1920): 538–613; 2 (1921): 42–103 and 174–195, for this point and for the dating of the parts. Amato Masnovo’s three volumes, Da Guglielmo d’Auvergne a San Tommaso d’Aquino, 2nd ed. (Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 1946), represent the only attempt to study the whole of William’s philosophy. Steven Marrone’s William of Auvergne and Robert Grosseteste: New Ideas of Truth in the Early Thirteenth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983) is a welcome indication of new interest in William’s contribution to the beginnings of scholastic philosophy and theology. For a bibliography of studies on William, see William of Auvergne: The Immortality of the Soul, trans. with introduction and notes by R. J. Teske (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1991). E. Gilson, The Elements of Christian Philosophy (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1969), 11.

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Despite ecclesiastical warnings and prohibitions against the teaching of Aristotle, William obviously read the Aristotelians, and in his De trinitate, De universo, and De anima he employed the metaphysics and psychology of Avicenna, which he saw as a powerful instrument for understanding and articulating the Christian world view, though he also recognized many points on which a Christian could not go along with “Aristoteles et eius sequaces.” Scholars often stress the points on which William opposed various teachings he found in the philosophy of Aristotle and his followers. However, William also made his own many features of Avicenna’s philosophy, and that he did so can be readily seen from William’s metaphysical arguments against the Cathars or, as he called them, the Manichees. The Cathars or Albigensians, who flourished in southern France during the last half of the twelfth and first half of the thirteenth century, were indeed among the principal opponents targeted in the writings of William of Auvergne. B. Switalski goes so far as to say that chapters one to seven of William’s De trinitate are directed against the dualism of these Neo-Manichaeans. William does not, however, mention the

For William’s use of this phrase, see Roland de Vaux, Notes et textes sur l’Avicennisme latin aux confins des XIIe-XIIIe siècles (Paris: J. Vrin, 1934), 34, where de Vaux argues that “la philosophie arabe se résumait pour notre auteur en Avicenne. C’est donc Avicenne encore que nous allons retrouver derrière les sequaces Aristotelis.” De Vaux lists eleven metaphysical and pyschological errors that William found in Avicenna (ibid., 37). Besides de Vaux (see the previous note), see Kramp,“Magisterium divinale,” 578. Masnovo does not discuss William’s arguments against the Manichees. Some of the anti-Manichaean arguments are treated tangentially in E. Gilson’s “La notion d’existence chez Guillaume d’Auvergne,” Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen âge 15 (1946): 55–91. See Bruno Switalski, William of Auvergne. De Trinitate. An Edition of the Latin Text with an Introduction (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1976), 7. References to the De trinitate will be by chapter and page of this edition. For an English translation with the pagination of the Latin edition indicated, see William of Auvergne. The Trinity or First Principle, trans. R. Teske and F. Wade (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1987).

William of Auvergne & the Manichees

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Albigensians or Cathars in the De trinitate. Moreover, the first thirteen, highly metaphysical chapters of the De trinitate present a positive formulation of William’s metaphysics, principally under the influence of Boethius and Avicenna, rather than merely an apologetic defense of the Christian faith against any specific erroneous views. In his De universo, however, William explicitly refers to the Cathars as Manichees. In fact, at the very beginning of the first part of the first principal part of his De universo, he sets out to refute the error of the Manichees. He notes that the error originated in the territory of Persia (a regione Persidis) with Manes, whose followers were called Manichees (Manichaei) by the Christian people. He reports that the origin of the error almost coincided with the beginning of Christianity and that it still survives as a most dangerous and damaging error even to the present day.10 William summarizes Mani’s position: He held that there were two principles and that there were two Gods, and he called the one the God of light and the good God, but called the other the God of darkness and the evil God. In that way he held two universes and two kingdoms, and also two nations, and he named them according to the already mentioned names, the nation of light and the nation of darkness.11

Switalski indicates two allusions to the Neo-Manichaeans. The first reference, in De trinitate ch. 4 (p. 34), to “imperiti intellectu” seems too general. The second, in De trinitate ch. 44 (p. 230) is clear: “Qui autem duos Deos et duo principia posuerunt. ...” See Guilelmi Alverni Episcopi Parisiensis Opera Omnia, 2 vols., ed. F. Hotot, with Supplementum, ed. B. Le Feron (Orléans-Paris, 1674; repr. Frankfurt am Main, 1963), for William’s works other than De trinitate. Full references to the De universo, the second part of the Magisterium divinale et sapientiale, will be to the part, chapter, page, column and section of the first volume of this edition. I have simplified the punctuation of this edition in citing the Latin text. 10 See De universo Ia-Iae, ch. 2, 594aH-bE. 11 Ibid., 594bE: “posuit duo esse principia, duos esse Deos, et nominavit alterum Deum lucis et Deum benignum, alterum vero Deum tenebrarum et Deum malignum. Sic posuit duo universa duoque regna, duas etiam gentes et vocavit eas juxta praedictas nominationes gentem lucis et gentem tenebrarum, regnum lucis et regnum tenebrarum.”

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Between the two kingdoms with their good angels and bad demons there is not merely perpetual, but eternal warfare. That is, the war between the good and the bad kingdoms has always been and always will be.12 William’s refutation of the Manichaean error is interesting, because it is entirely philosophical in the sense that it does not rely upon Scripture or ecclesiastical teaching, but upon two sorts of arguments: the one sort which he calls “metaphysical” and the other which he calls “common and easy to understand.”13 Furthermore, the structure and content of the metaphysical arguments are clearly taken from Avicenna rather than from Augustine, to whose writings against the Manichees William does not even allude.14 This study will examine the metaphysical arguments that William explicitly formulated against the Manichees, as well as the 12 Ibid. See De universo IIa-Iae, ch. 2, 686aG-687aC, for William’s distinction between eternity, perpetuity, and time. 13 In the second chapter he sets out to show that the universe is one and has a single author. He promises to show this,“per vias probationum, non quemadmodum in primae philosophiae prima parte declaratur, sed probationibus facilibus, et pene vulgaribus ... ” (De universo Ia-Iae, ch. 2, 594aH). Later, at the beginning of chapter six, he adds, referring to the arguments in chapters three through five,“Quoniam autem rationes, quas usque huc tibi adduxi, metaphysicae sunt atque sapientiales: satisfaciam tibi consequenter de promisso, et adducam tibi rationes vulgares, et intellectu facillimas, per quas declarabitur tibi erroris istius non tam impossibilitas, quam etiam ridiculositas” (Ibid., ch. 6, 597bB). The phrase “in primae philosophiae prima parte,” according to Gilson refers to William’s De trinitate. See E. Gilson, “La notion d’existence,” 81. It would seem strange, however, for William to refer to his De trinitate as “the first part of first philosophy,” since that would imply that the whole Magisterium divinale et sapientiale was “first philosophy,” which it clearly is not, though the beginning chapters of the De trinitate could aptly be so described. I have elsewhere argued that William is referring to the first book of Avicenna’s De philosophia prima, which contains the discussion of necessary and possible being in chapters six and seven. See Avicenna Latinus: Liber de philosophia prima sive scientia divina I-IV, ed. S. Van Reit (Louvain: E. Peeters; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1977), 43–55. 14 William’s silence with regard to Augustine’s anti-Manichaean arguments is all the more striking in view of his obvious familiarity with the works of the Bishop of Hippo, as the De trinitate reveals. See the index of Switalski’s edition of the De trinitate, as well as the index of the English translation. R. Nelli’s contention that the originality of the Cathars of Languedoc in the years 1220 to 1230 lay in their use of Augustine to defend their dualism may offer an explanation of William’s almost total reliance upon Avicenna. See René


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two basic principles upon which, according to William, the Manichaean dualism rests. At the end, I will draw some conclusions about William’s arguments, their sources, and their significance. To begin with, one should note that what William knows about the Manichees is in part incorrect and also apparently incomplete. For example, William’s dating of the beginning of Manichaeism as coinciding with the beginning of Christianity is at least two centuries off.15 So too, his claim that the war between the kingdoms of light and of darkness is eternal reveals his ignorance of the Manichaean doctrine of the beginning times and end times when there was not and will not be a state of war between the two kingdoms.16 William’s account of Manichaeism is also incomplete insofar as he makes no mention of the many elements of the Manichaean myth, or of Manichaean ethics, Christology, or liturgy. The Manichaeism that William sets out to refute is essentially the doctrine that there are two first principles, the one good and the other evil.17

I. William’s Arguments against the Manichees William argues, first of all, against the error of the Manichees with what he calls metaphysical arguments. He begins, Since these misguided people assert two coeval and eternal principles, they must as a result maintain that each is being necessary through itself and, for this reason, simple in the ultimate degree of simplicity. For, if either one of them were in some way composite, it would of Nelli, La philosophie du catharisme. Le dualisme radical au XIIIe siècle (Paris: Payot, 1978), p. 66. 15 Mani was born in 216 and founded his own religion after receiving a revelation at the age of 24. Within fifty years of his death (276 or 270), Manichaeism had spread widely in the Roman empire. By 373 Augustine became a Hearer in the Manichaean sect. 16 This claim on William’s part probably indicates that the Manichaeism that he is confronting is simply different on this point from the Manichaeism that Augustine knew. The question of the connection between the earlier forms of Manichaeism that Augustine confronted and the Manichaeism of the thirteenth century is not clear. See B. Hamilton,“The Albigensian Crusade,” in Monastic Reform, Catharism and the Crusades, (900-1300) (London: Variorum Reprints, 1979), 4. 17 See Hamilton, “The Albigensian Cruscade,’ 5–10 for a succinct account of Cathar beliefs and practices.

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Studies in the Philosophy of William of Auvergne necessity be divisible into parts and, for this reason, would have parts in some sense. Hence, neither of them would be a principle without qualification, since each of them would have many elements prior to itself, namely, its parts or its components. For all parts and all components are prior to their whole which they compose.18

William’s first move, then, is to show that, in asserting two eternal principles, the Manichees assert two principles that must each be being necessary through itself and absolutely simple. Composition implies parts or components, which are prior to the whole they form. Hence, if either of the two first principles were not simple, but composed, it would be neither first, since its parts would be prior to it, nor being necessary through itself, since it would be caused. William adds a further argument to show that each of the two first principles must be simple. On the supposition that they are not simple, but composed, Neither of them will be being necessary through itself; in fact, each would be being possible through itself, since each of them would be caused by these parts composing its totality. After all, everything composite in any way is caused in some way by its parts of which its totality consists, and it is the work of the composer who unites or brings together its parts and makes them into its totality.19

18 De universo Ia-Iae, ch. 3, 594bG: “Cum erronei isti ponunt duo principia coaeva et aeterna, necesse habent consequenter ponere utrumque esse necesse esse per se, et propter hoc simplex in ultimatate simplicitatis. Si enim aliquo modorum alterutrum eorum esset compositum, esset ex necessitate partibile, et propter hoc haberet aliquo modo partes, quare neutrum eorum esset principium simpliciter, cum utrumque haberet multa priora se, videlicet partes suas, sive componentia sua. Omnes enim partes et omnia componentia sunt priora suo toto, quod componunt.” The English translation is taken with some modifications from my William of Auvergne: The Universe of Creatures. Selections translated from the Latin with an Introduction and Notes (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1998). 19 Ibid: “Neutrum eorum erit necesse esse per se secundum hoc; immo utrumque erit possibile esse per se, cum utrumque sit causatum ab ipsis partibus componentibus totalitatem ipsius; omne enim compositum quolibet modorum causatum est ex partibus, ex quibus consistit totalitas ipsius, et est compositoris adunantis, seu aggregantis, partes illius et adducentis in totalitatem ipsius.” I have conjectured “omne” instead of “omnino.”


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That is, if each of them is not simple, each will not be being necessary through itself, but being possible through itself and necessary, if it exists, through another, that is, caused by another. William then continues in language that indicates that he views the being (esse) of something that is caused as other than (aliud) the being (ens) which receives it and in which it is present as an accident (accidens) and as received by it upon its whole complete essence. It has already been explained in the first part of first philosophy that every effect of this sort is possible through itself and is receptive of being upon itself, which is other than itself and, for this reason, is in it potentially or by way of possibility, because it is an accident of it, that is, something that comes to it and is received by it upon its whole complete essence. For all being that is given to an effect by a cause is separable from it, at least by the intellect, and everything received [is separable] from its receiver, and in general since all being (esse) is other than its being (ente), it is separable from it in the way we said. But everything whose being is separable from it has it only by way of possibility or potentially, and thus it does not have it with that necessity by which something is said to be necessary through itself. It is clear, then, that neither of these two principles is being necessary through itself.20

That is, William shows that, if one supposes that either of the alleged two first principles is caused, it cannot be being necessary through itself, but must be possible being that has its being as an accident. The passage is obviously a crucial text for the question regarding whether and to what extent William held a real distinction between being and essence in creatures.21 20 Ibid., 594bGH: “Jam ante declaratum est in prima parte primae philosophiae, quia omne hujusmodi causatum est possibile esse per se, et recipiens esse supra se, quod est aliud ab ipso, et propter hoc est in eo potentialiter sive possibiliter, quoniam est ei accidens, hoc est, adveniens ei, et receptum ab ipso supra totam completam essentiam suam. Esse enim omne, quod datur a causa hujusmodi suo causato, separabile est ab illo saltem intellectu, et omne receptum a suo recipiente, et generaliter omne esse, cum fuerit aliud a suo ente, separabile est ab ipso modo, quo diximus. Omne autem a quo ejus esse separabile est, non habet illud, nisi possibiliter, sive potentialiter, et ita non habet illud ea necessitate, qua aliquid dicitur necessaro esse per se. Manifestum igitur est, quia neutrum duorum istorum principiorum est necesse esse per se.” 21 See Gilson, “La notion d’existence,” 81–84. Gilson says, “À première vue, on pourrait difficilement souhaiter une déclaration plus explicite en faveur de

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Thus far, William has shown that the two first principles that the Manichees assert must be eternal, uncomposed, and uncaused. He has not yet shown that such principles cannot exist. His argument that there cannot be two first principles, one good and the other evil, runs as follows: If each is being necessary through itself, each will be simple in the ultimate degree of simplicity. In neither, then, will there be something present essentially which is not the principle itself. Since, then, goodness and evil are present in them essentially, one of them will of necessity be its own evil. “Necessary [being] through itself,” then, will be said of both of them either univocally or equivocally. But if it is said of both univocally, whatever the one has by reason of the fact that it is being necessary through itself or through its essence, the other will have as well. Hence, if one has goodness by reason of the fact that it is being necessary through itself, the other will likewise have it. And with regard to evil it is necessarily the same way. Hence, either both of them will be essentially good, or both of them will be both good and evil at the same time.22 la distinction réelle d’essence et d’existence ...” (p. 81). Gilson concedes that William “ait enseigné une distinction réelle d’essence et d’existence” (p. 83), but does not find that “dans le possible réalisé par sa cause, l’esse et l’essentia restent distinct de manière à former un composé proprement dit ...” (pp. 83-84). In fact, he adds, “il suggère plutôt le contraire” (p. 84). The question as to the sense in which William held a real distinction between being and essence in creatures deserves further study; it is hard to see why Gilson denies a composition of essence and existence in the possible whose being is caused. After all, William is here speaking about something which is caused by its components, one of which is being (esse). For further study of the question, see Kevin Caster, The Real Distinction in Creatures between Being and Essence according to William of Auvergne, Marquette University dissertation, 1995. 22 De universo Ia-Iae, ch. 3, 594bH-595aA: “Si utrunque necesse est esse per se, utrumque erit simplex in ultimatate simplicitatis; in neutro igitur aliquid erit essentialiter, quod non sit ipsum. Cum igitur bonitas, et malitia sint in eis essentialiter, ex necessitate alterum erit sua ipsa malitia. Necesse ergo [esse] per se aut dicetur univoce de ambobus aut aequivoce. Quod si univoce, quidquid igitur erit alteri per hoc quod est necesse esse per se, sive per suam essentiam, erit et alteri; quare si alteri est bonitas per hoc, quod est necesse esse per se, erit similiter et alteri, et de malitia eodem modo se habere necesse est. Quare vel utrunque erit bonum essentialiter, vel utrunque malum, vel utrunque bonum et malum simul.”


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William argues that, since each of the two first principles must be absolutely simple being that is necessary through itself, there cannot be something essentially present in one that is not essentially present in the other. But the Manichees, of course, claim that goodness is present essentially in the good principle and that evil is present essentially in the evil principle. However, if being necessary through itself is said univocally, that is, in the same sense, of each of the principles, then each of them must have essentially what the other has essentially. Hence, either both are good, or both are evil, or both are both good and evil. William points out that it has already been shown that being necessary through itself is not something common, that is, something that can be shared by many, as a quality is common to many things that have it.23 It must, in fact, be “one in the ultimate degree of unity and in the ultimate degree of individuality, which can only be numerical oneness.”24 Hence, William concludes that “in no way, then, will those two contraries share in it,”25 that is, in being necessary through itself. Hence, it is impossible that each of the two contrary principles be being necessary through itself. William first gives an etymological argument that being necessary through itself is not said equivocally, that is, in completely different senses, of the two alleged first principles. After all, necessary being (necesse esse) is derived from non-ceasing (a non cessando), because it does not cease to be (non cessat esse). Hence, in a positive sense, necessary being means “continuity of being” (continuitas essendi).26 He also argues that being is not said of each of the two principles equivocally so that “in one intention being is nothing other than goodness, but in the other being is nothing other than evil itself.”27 William offers, as is his custom, a battery of arguments to show that being is not predicated of the two principles in a purely equivocal sense. First, as contraries, 23 See De trinitate ch. 4, ed. Switalski, 26-31. 24 De universo Ia-Iae, ch. 3, 595aA: “unum in fine unitatis, et in ultimitate individuitatis, quod non potest esse, nisi unum numero.” 25 Ibid.: “nullo modo igitur erunt duo illa contraria vel convenientia in illo.” 26 Ibid., 595aB. 27 Ibid., ch. 4; 595bA: “altera intentione ipsam entitatem nihil aliud esse, quam ipsam bonitatem, altera vero ipsam entitatem, nihil aliud esse, nisi ipsam malitiam.”

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they must share some common genus; at least, they must share being, which is the most common of all. Second, contraries come to be and exist in the same subject, as black and white on a surface or healthy and ill in the same person. Hence, goodness and evil must share a common subject. Third, the two principles must at least have in common that they are substances. Fourth, people who use the term“being” equivocally will use other terms equivocally so that all communication with them becomes impossible. Fifth, unless each principle is said to be one in the same sense, they cannot be said to be two. Sixth, they cannot be said to be two principles or two gods, unless “principle” and “god” are said of them univocally. Seventh, if “principle,” “king,” “kingdom,” “angels,” and so on are used univocally of good and evil, “being necessary through itself ” must also be used univocally.28 William offers several more elaborate arguments. For example, he sets up a trilemma, “Being through itself is either purely good or purely evil or neither so that it its entirely free from goodness and evil.”29 William excludes the possibility that being through itself is a mixture of goodness and evil, since it is absolutely indivisible, simple, and uncomposed. Hence, there remain only the three possibilities. But if it were purely good, neither of those two previously mentioned principles would, then, be purely evil or even essentially evil, since the being of each would be purely good. In the same way it is evident that, if it were purely evil, it is necessary that neither of those two previously mentioned principles is purely good. ...30

There remains, then, the third possibility. But William argues, But if being necessary through itself is in itself apart from goodness and evil, each of them will necessarily be by their whole being apart

28 Ibid., 595bA–596aE. 29 Ibid., 596aE: “Esse per se aut est pure bonum aut pure malum aut neutrum, ita ut omnino sit immune a bonitate et malitia.” 30 Ibid., 596aF: “Quod si fuerit pure bonum, neutrum igitur duorum principiorum dictorum erit pure malum, vel essentialiter etiam malum, cum utriusque esse sit pure bonum. Per eandem viam manifestum est, quia si fuerit pure malum, necesse est neutrum dictorum duorum principiorum esse pure bonum. ...”


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from good and evil, since being necessary through itself is the whole being of each of them.31

That is, if each of the two principles of the Manichees is being necessary through itself, then each of them must be either pure goodness or pure evil, or each of them must be completely free from goodness and evil. What is impossible is that one of them be essentially evil and the other is essentially good, and that, of course, is precisely the position the Manichees meant to maintain. William adds one final argument as a sort of coup de grâce. Being has as its contrary only non-being or something that leads to non-being. By something that leads to non-being, William means death, failure, or corruption—one of the paths to non-being or a means by which something comes to non-being. He notes that the term “contrary” is more properly used of two extremes than of an extreme and something between extremes. Hence, full and perfect being does not have a contrary except complete nonbeing, that is, that with which there is absolutely nothing of being. It follows, then, from this that, since the principle of the good is perfect being in the ultimate degree of perfection in itself and by itself, it does not have a contrary except non-being deprived of being in the ultimate degree of deprivation. I understand “deprived” as that which has absolutely nothing of being left.32

William then points out that, if this is what the Manichees mean, the prince of darkness turns out to be “truly and absolutely non-being, that is, having absolutely nothing of being.”33 Should a defender of the Manichaean position claim that the prince of darkness is not the extreme contrary of being, but something between being and non-being, then“he will be either failing or dying or undergoing corruption or something 31 Ibid.: “Si vero necesse esse per se est seorsum in seipso a bonitate et malitia, erit ex necessitate utrunque toto suo esse seorsum a bonitate et malitia, cum necesse esse per se sit totum esse utriusque ipsorum.” 32 Ibid., 596aH: “esse plenum atque perfectum non habet contrarium veri nominis ac rationis, nisi non esse completum, hoc est, cum quo nihil omnino est de ipso esse. Sequitur ergo ista, ut principium bonorum, cum sit ens perfectum in ultimitate perfectionis in se et secundum se, non habeat contrarium nisi non ens privatum in ultimitate privationis ab ipso esse. Intelligo autem sic privatum, cui omnino nihil relictum sit de ipso esse.” 33 Ibid., 596bE: “vere et omnino non ens, hoc est, nihil prorsus habens ipsius esse.”

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of the sort.”34 In that case, William points out that it does not deserve to be called God or a principle or a prince, since “his being is so feeble and weak that he hastens toward absolute non-being. ...”35 Hence, the Manichee is left either with an evil principle that is utterly non-being or with something that is tending toward non-being and does not deserve to be called a principle at all. In his fifth chapter William argues that the evil of the evil principle cannot be adventitious or accidental to it. If its evil is something that accrues to it, it will come either from the evil principle itself or from something else. On the first alternative, namely, that the evil comes to it from itself, the evil will come to be either by some natural corruption or change or by some action by which it acts upon itself. But if it naturally came to be in him, since in his being he is only good, and his entity is only goodness, there will necessarily be evil in him as a result of this good, and evil will be a result of goodness, and this will occur naturally and by itself, since evil does not come to him from some other source, that is, through something else.36

That is, if the evil of the evil principle is something that comes to it naturally from itself, then the principle is good until it has received the evil. Moreover, it brings about the evil in itself by itself, so that it, though good, produces by itself its own evil. Against this, William insists, “But it is evident that neither of the two contraries naturally and through itself proceeds from the other.”37 William adds a further series of arguments against the view that the evil of the evil principle is something accidental to it. He never specifically argues against the position that the evil is caused by something else. But it is obvious that, were that the case, the principle would no longer be the principle of the evil that it acquires, since it would acquire its 34 Ibid.: “erit vel deficiens, vel demoriens, vel corruptionem sustinens, vel aliquid hujusmodi.” 35 Ibid., 596bF: “ejus esse adeo debile et infirmum sit, ut ad omnino non esse festinet.” 36 Ibid., 596bG: “Quod si fuerit in eo nata naturaliter, cum in suo esse non sit ipsum nisi bonum, et ejus entitas non sit nisi bonitas, erit ex necessitate ex bono in eo malum, et ex bonitate malititia, et hoc naturaliter ac per se, cum non aliunde, videlicet per aliud, malitia ei advenerit.” 37 Ibid.: “Manifestum autem, quia ex neutro contrariorum naturaliter ac per se procedit reliquum.”


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evil from something else. Moreover, it would be caused and composite and, hence, not being necessary through itself. If, on the other hand, the principle causes the evil in itself, many problems arise for the Manichaean position, such as whether it causes the evil knowingly or unknowingly, willingly or against its will. But, in any case, if the principle were the cause of its evil, the evil would arise from what is good and would arise from it not merely accidentally, but of itself.38

II. Laying the Ax to the Root Principles of the Manichees William claimed that the Manichees defended their radical dualism with two basic principles: the first, that one contrary cannot arise from another, and the second, that there must be a first evil to avoid an infinite regress. He points out that he has already shown that there is no infinite series of causes in his treatise on the first principle.39 He recasts his arguments from the De trinitate, by which he had shown that there cannot be an infinite series of beings that have their being from another, to illustrate the Manichaean inference to a first evil. For instance, he formulates their argument as follows: Everything that is evil is either evil from itself or from another. But if nothing is an evil from itself, everything that is evil will be evil from another, and either from another that is evil or from another that is good. But it cannot be from another that is good, because of the first root which I set forth. Hence, each thing that is evil will be evil from another that is evil, and in that way the process will go on to the previously mentioned infinity, or there will be a circle or turning back of causes so that, for example, A becomes evil from B and B becomes evil from A.40 38 See below note 44 for the distinction between per se and per accidens causality. 39 See De universo Ia-Iae, ch. 8, 601bB: “Jam autem destructa est infinitas causarum, et declaratus est status earum tibi per me in tractatu de primo principio. ...” Here William clearly refers to his De trinitate, which has the subtitle, De primo principio; see De trinitate ch. 2; Switalski, 21-23. 40 De universo Ia-Iae, ch. 8, 601bC: “Omne quod est malum, aut est malum ex se aut ex alio: quod si nihil est malum ex se, erit igitur omne quod est malum malum ex alio, et ita vel ex alio, quod est malum, vel ex alio quod est bonum; non autem ex alio, quod est bonum, ex prima radice, quam primo posui;

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William here simply appeals to his refutation of such an infinite series or of a circular turning back of causes in De trinitate.41 He continues to argue that the evil that is essentially evil either has a principle from which it arises or it does not. If it has a principle, that principle will be just as evil as that of which it is the principle. Thus it will be something essentially evil and the principle of evil things. If it does not have a principle, the evil that is essentially evil is itself the principle of all evils.42 In chapter nine William attacks the first of these principles, maintaining that it is false: “I say, therefore, that this root is false unless they understand it in this sense, namely, that from one of two contraries the other cannot arise of itself.”43 William is using the distinction between one thing arising from another of itself (per se) and accidentally (per accidens).44 He offers several examples of an evil arising from a good to show that evil does come from good accidentally, as well as examples of a good arising from an evil to show that that good comes from evil accidentally. Thus, from wine, a good, the evil of drunkness arises at times, and from medicine, which is good, there sometimes arises illness. From the good of knowledge there at times arises the evil of pride. So too, light, though good, can cause the evil of blindness. On the other hand, from such evils as punishment and illness, good can at times

quare unumquodque quod est malum, erit malum ex alio, quod est malum, et ita redibit ad infinitatem praedictam vel fiet circulus aut reflexio causarum, videlicet, ut A sit malum ex B, et B sit malum ex A.” 41 See De trinitate ch. 2; Switalski, 21–23. 42 See De universo Ia-Iae, ch. 8, 601bD. 43 Ibid., ch. 9, 602aG: “Dico igitur hanc radicem esse falsam, nisi hoc modo eam intelligant, videlicet, quod ex altero contrariorum non potest esse per se alterum.” 44 The distinction between per se and per accidens causality is found in Aristotle; see Physics VIII, 4, 255b23-28. Avicenna employed the distinction in Metaphysics VI, 2; Van Reit, 301-302. St. Thomas puts the distinction as follows:“Per se quidem est causa alterius quod secundum virtutem suae naturae vel formae producit effectum; unde sequitur quod effectus sit per se intentus a causa. ... Per accidens autem aliquid est causa alterius, si sit causa removens prohibens ...” (Summa theologiae Ia-IIae, q. 85, a. 5.).


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come, for example, when children are made better by punishment or illness leds to moral reform.45 Finally, William turns to the Manichaean eternal war between the prince of light and the prince of darkness and poses a dilemma. Either the prince of light harms him in some respect, or he does not harm him. If he harms him, he causes him some evil, and that evil is obviously from the prince of light, since he causes it. Hence, not only does evil come from good, but even from the very best. But if he causes him no evil and for the same reason he cannot cause him any evil, he knows this, since you, as foolish as you are, know this. Therefore, he fights against him, though he knows that he cannot cause him any evil and, for this reason, cannot harm him.46

That is, either the Manichee must admit that the prince of light does harm to the prince of darkness so that evil comes from good, or the prince of light does battle with the prince of darkness to no purpose.47 In chapter ten William takes on the second root principle that there must be a first evil or an infinite regress in caused evils. William responds to this alleged principle by distinguishing various kinds of evil. First, there is evil in the sense of what is harmful (nocivum); second, there is evil in the sense of the harm itself (nocumentum); third, there is evil in the sense of vice and sin (vitium, vel peccatum). With regard to evil in the sense of harmful, William makes two points. The first is that, in this world, nothing is such without qualification, even if something is harmful or evil to you. In the same way, if something is healthy for someone, for

45 For these and other of William’s examples, see De universo Ia-Iae, ch. 9, 602aG–603aB. 46 Ibid., 603aB: “Aut nocet ei princeps lucis in aliquo, aut non nocet; si nocet, aliquid igitur mali ei facit, et illud malum est evidenter ex ipso principe lucis, cum illud faciat. Quare non solum ex bono malum, sed etiam ex optimo. Si vero nihil mali facit eadem ratione neque facere potest, et haec scit ipse, cum tu scis haec, stultissime; igitur pugnat contra ipsum, cum sciat se nihil ei posse facere mali, et propter hoc se non posse nocere eidem.” 47 Though the arguments differ considerably, William may have at this point had in mind the dilemma that Nebridius presented to Augustine in refutation of the Manichaean account of the battle between God and the nation of darkness; see Confessiones VII, ii, 3: CCL XXVII, 93-94.

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Studies in the Philosophy of William of Auvergne example, a cauterizing or an incision or an amputation of a member, it is not for that reason healthy without qualification.48

William’s second point with regard to evil in the sense of what is harmful is that it does not follow that, because something harms someone, it is harmful, “because denominations of this sort are made according to natural power and aptitude.”49 That is, for something to be harmful in the proper sense, it must have“the power or aptitude ordered to and intending this. ...”50 Of such a natural aptitude ordered to and intending harm, William says, “But there is nothing of this sort in the whole universe of things.”51 Thus, though there are animals that kill and devour their prey, William claims that this power does not intend the harm to others, but the good of the animal that has it. In any case, the Manichaean first evil is needed, according to them, precisely as the cause of things that are evil without qualification, i.e., harmful without qualification. After all, unless something is evil without qualification, it would not need a cause that is such. With regard to the second sort of evil, that is, the harm itself, William speaks of a natural first evil and a first evil at the level of grace. “The first evil is a privation or lack of the first natural good, that is, of being. But the first gratuitous evil, that is, one opposite to grace, is the lack of the first grace.”52 For William, in human beings the first good at the level of grace is faith, and in the angels it is their supernatural knowledge of God. Evil in this second sense of the harm itself is a pure privation, and it needs no cause, whether a good or bad cause, since the privation itself is not being. “For it is impossible that what does not exist at all

48 De universo Ia-Iae, ch. 10, 603aC: “nihil est tale simpliciter, etsi aliquid sit nocivum tibi vel malum, quemadmodum si aliquid est sanum aliqui, ut ustio, vel incisio, aut membri alicuius detruncatio, non ideo est sanum simpliciter.” 49 Ibid.: “quoniam denominationes hujusmodi secundum virtutem et aptitudinem naturalem dicuntur.” 50 Ibid., 603aD: “virtutem vel aptitudinem ordinatam ad hoc et intendentem. ...” Something evil in this sense would be a per se cause of evil. 51 Ibid.: “nihil autem est tale in tota universitate rerum.” 52 Ibid., 603bA: “Primum malum est privatio sive carentia primi boni naturalis, quod est esse. Primum vero malum gratuitum, id est, gratiae oppositum, primae gratiae carentia est.”


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come from something else. ...”53 That is, evil in the sense of a privation needs no cause and, hence, needs no first evil as its cause. With regard to the third sort of evil, namely, vice or sin, William notes that the occasion of a sin, such as pride or envy, is a good, either one’s own or another’s. In any case, the Manichees do not know what evil is, and they confuse the three meanings that William distinguishes. “But in none of these three intentions already mentioned is it possible that what they call evil should be called a god or prince or king.”54 William argues that the evil principle cannot be evil in the sense of harmful, because the evil principle is the source of much good to his subjects. Second, he cannot be evil in the sense of harm itself, since such evils are either pure privations or almost such. Thirdly, he cannot be evil in the third sense. After all, William asks, “For who would dare to think that something which is a vice or sin is a principle or prince or a god or a lord, especially of so great a kingdom as they say the kingdom of darkness is?”55

III. Sources and Conclusions The Manichaeans against whom William argued were the absolute dualists of Southern France known as Albigensians or Cathars. B. Hamilton says that the Cathars of Languedoc held that there were two co-eternal principles or gods and that the evil god created the material universe, while the good God created the new heaven and new earth mentioned in the Book of Revelation.56 The philosophical character of William’s response to the Cathars may be explained by the fact that Catharism of Languedoc itself took a more philosophical turn during the years 1220 to 1260, at least to some extent because it was forced to respond 53 Ibid., 603bC: “Quod enim omnino non est, impossibile est ab aliquo esse. ...” 54 Ibid., 603bD: “Sed nec etiam aliqua intentionum trium praedictarum potest esse principium, quod debeat dici vel Deus, vel princeps, vel rex, quod dicitur malum.” 55 Ibid., 604aE: “Quis enim audet hoc cogitare, quod vitium aut peccatum sit principium, aut princeps, aut Deus, aut dominus, maxime tanti regni, quantum ipsi dicunt esse regnum tenebrarum?” 56 See Hamilton, “The Albigensian Crusade,” 5. The Cathars, of course, rejected the Genesis account of creation, along with the rest of the Pentateuch.

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to philosophical attacks from Catholics.57 The fact that William focuses upon the doctrine of the two co-eternal principles, one essentially good and the other essentially evil, with their respective kindgoms, makes it tempting to look for the more specific sources of William’s knowledge of the Cathars in the milieu that produced the Liber de duobus principiis.58 However, aside from the general doctrine of two co-eternal principles and their respective kingdoms, there is little in William that allows one to venture further in pointing to his specific sources. Admittedly, there is in the Liber de duobus principiis something like the first root principle that William attributed to the Manichees, namely, that from one contrary the other cannot arise.59 On the other hand, any doctrine of two first principles, one good and the other evil, that rests upon an argument from the present condition of the world, will have to use, at least implicitly, two premises similar to those William states. What is distinctive about William’s exposition and refutation of Manichaean dualism is that he understands their concept of a first principle in Avicennian terms so that the presentation of their position, as well as his refutation of it, is couched in the Avicennian dialectic of possible and necessary being. In fact, William’s argument against the Manichees ultimately rests upon the Avicennian concept of being necessary through itself, which must be simple and numerically one. Hence, in the last chapter of his De trinitate, where William anticipates in a few paragraphs his lengthier refutation found in the De universo, he says, But those who held two gods or two principles feign this externally, for internally it is impossible. For if they understand “principle” through its absolute intention, they necessarily understand it to 57 Nelli, La philosophie du catharisme, 73-74. 58 See A. Dondaine, Le Liber de Duobus Principiis (Rome: Instituto Storico Dominicano, 1939; 2nd. ed. by C. Thouzellier (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1973. According to Thouzellier, the work was compiled between 1250 and 1276, but is indebted to previous sources from the 1230s. Kramp has given dates for the composition of the De universo as 1231–1236. Hence, one might take the Liber de duobus principiis as representative of the sort of Catharist thought that William was battling. 59 See, for example, Le Liber de duobus principiis, ed. Dondaine, 81. “Aut unum tantum est principium principale aut plura uno. Si autem unum fuerit et non plura, ut aiunt imperiti, tunc bonum erit necessario sive malum. Malum vero non, quia ab ipso iam procederent tantum mala et non bona. ...”


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be something pure, most stripped, and most simple, which can be divided in no way.60

It was through William’s writings that the metaphysics of Avicenna made its entrance to the Latin West on a large scale.61 In Avicenna’s first philosophy William found the source of a battery of powerful arguments against the Manichaean dualism of his day. Though William certainly argued against Avicenna and the Peripatetics on many points, his use of Avicennian metaphysics against the Cathars indicates that William was far from being merely a hostile critic of the Aristotelianism that was pouring into the Latin West. Indeed, he made his own some of the the main principles of Avicenna’s first philosophy and turned them to use in defense of the Christian faith.

60 De trinitate ch. 44; Switalski, 230: “Qui autem duos Deos aut duo principia posuerunt, exterius pluralitatem fingunt, interius enim impossibile est. Si enim intelligunt principium per intentionem eius absolutam, necessario intelligunt ipsum purum, spoliatissimum esse simplexque in ultimo esse, aut spolitatissimum, simplicissimum, quod dividi nullo modo potest.” 61 There may be traces of Avicennian influence earlier than William, but there is nothing earlier on the scale we find in William. Though Avicenna’s influence is clearly found in the De immortalitate animae once attributed to Gundissalinus and supposedly plagiarized by William, the weight of scholarly opinion now ascribes that work to William. See my introduction to William of Auvergne: The Immortality of the Soul.

William of Auvergne’s Use of Avicenna’s Principle: “Ex uno, secundum quod unum, non nisi unum”

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illiam of Auvergne, bishop of Paris, from 1228 until his death in 1249, was one of the first philosopher-theologians of the thirteenth century to encounter the Greek and Islamic philosophy that poured into the Latin West in translation during the latter part of the twelfth and the first part of the thirteenth centuries. Despite ecclesiastical warnings and prohibitions in 1210, 1215, and 1231 against the philosophical thought of Aristotle and his followers among the Arabs, William continued to use the newly discovered Aristotelian philosophy in developing his own philosophical and theological views in his Magisterium divinale et sapientiale, even after his ordination to the priesthood and consecration as bishop by Gregory IX on April 10, 1228. Despite the many points in metaphysics and pyschology on which William is clearly indebted to Avicenna, he found himself obliged, as a Christian bishop and theologian, to oppose him on others. In his De anima William stated his position regarding Aristotle, by whom, of course, he meant Avicenna, as follows: Although in many matters we have to contradict Aristotle, as is truly right and proper, and this holds for all the statements in which he contradicts the truth, still he should be accepted, that is, upheld, in

For William’s life and works, see the introduction to William of Auvergne: The Trinity or the First Principle, tr. by R. J. Teske and F. C. Wade (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1989). It was only in the present century that Josef Kramp showed that William’s many writings constituted one large work, the Magisterium divinale et sapientiale. See J. Kramp, “Des Wilhelm von Auvergne ‘Magisterium Divinale,’” Gregorianum 1 (1920), 538-613; 2 (1921), 42-103 and 174-195.

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Studies in the Philosophy of William of Auvergne all those statements in which he is found to have held the correct position.

Scholars have often noted William’s explicit opposition to teachings of Avicenna, but have not as often acknowledged the many points on which Avicenna’s thought profoundly influenced William’s metaphysics and psychology. This paper illustrates the complexity of William’s stance toward Avicenna by examining his use to the Avicennian principle that “from what is one, insofar as it is one, there can in no way arise anything but what is one.” William discusses the principle in at least four different contexts. First, in the De universo he explicitly mentions the principle as the basis of the argument of “Aristotle and his followers” that the first creature can only be a single intelligence. Secondly, he points to the principle as the basis for their view that, the tenth intelligence produces only a single human soul. Thirdly, he states that a generalized form of the priniciple was the basis for the Cathar dualism of good and evil. Fourthly, in De trinitate he uses the principle to show that there can be only one Word of God proceeding from the Father.

I. The Source of the Principle The precise source from which William derived this principle poses some problems, for William attributes the principle to“the philosophers, especially the Peripatetics, that is, the followers of Aristotle and those who among the Arabian people were more outstanding in the teachings of Aristotle.” It is generally agreed that, when William speaks De anima ch. 2, pt. 12; 82b: “Quamquam autem in multis contradicendum sit Aristoteli sicut revera dignum et justum est, et hoc in omnibus sermonibus quibus dicit contraria veritati, sic suscipiendus est id est sustinendus in eis omnibus in quibus recte sensisse invenitur.” R. de Vaux, for example, lists eleven errors that William found in Avicenna and rejected; see his Notes et textes sur l’Avicennisme latin (Paris: J. Vrin, 1934), p. 37. See too J. Kramp, “Des Wilhelm von Auvergne ‘Magisterium Divinale,’” Gregorianum 1 (1920), 578. De universo Ia-Iae, ch. 24; 618bH: “ex uno, secundum quod unum, non posse esse ullo modorum, nisi unum.” De universo Ia-Iae, ch. 24; 618bG: “philosophi maxime peripatetici, idest, sequaces Aristotelis, et qui famosiores fuerunt de gente Arabum in disciplinis Aristotelis. ...”

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of “Aristotle and his followers,” he is referring principally to the great Islamic philosopher, Avicenna (980-1037), to whom William refers by name approximately forty times in his published works. Once he lists those whom he considered to be the followers of Aristotle: “Alfarabi, Algazali, and Avicenna and many others who after him and perhaps on account of him departed from the truth on this point.” However, this passage is William’s sole mention of Algazali, and he mentions Alfarabi by name only one other time and in company with Avicenna. William also refers to a commentator on Aristotle once as Abubacer and another time as Abusamar whom de Vaux identifies as Alfarabi. But William’s knowledge of Alfarabi is slim comparison with that of Avicenna.10 On the other hand, Avicenna clearly held the principle, and he stated it in a crisp formula that closely resembles the principle as found in William in his Metaphysices Compendium, where he explains that bodies cannot be immediately created by the First. See R. de Vaux, Notes et textes, pp. 22 and 23. De Vaux mentions that Dominicus Gundissalinus used the phrase, “Aristotelis et sequaces ejus,” prior to William in his De immortalitate animae; see his Notes et; textes, p. 30, n. 1. However, the De immortalitate animae, though once attributed to Gundissalinus, is now seen as most probably the work of William. See my introduction to William of Auvergne: The Immortality of the Soul (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1991), pp. 1-4, for the evidence provided by A. Masnovo and B. Allard that there is a single work of which William is the author and that he did not plagiarize it from Gundissalinus, as once had been supposed. De anima ch. 5, pt. 2; 112b: “Aristoteles, et sequaces ejus, videlicet Alpharalius, Algaxel, et Avicenna, et plures alii qui post eum et per eum forsitan a via veritatis in parte ista deviaverunt.” Apart from the De trinitate, references to the works of William are to the following edition: Guilelmi Alverni Episcopi Parisiensis Opera Omnia. 2 vols., ed. F. Hotot, with Supplementum, ed. B. Le Feron (Orléans and Paris, 1674; repr. Frankfurt am Main, 1963). References to the De anima are to chapter, part, page and column of the Supplementum found in vol. 2; references to the De universo are to the part, chapter, page, column and section of vol. 1. De universo IIa-IIae, ch. 9; 852bH-853aA: “Et de prima quidem quaestionum praenominatarum audivisti sermonem Aristotelis, et sermones Alpharabii, et Avicennae, at aliorum, qui in parte ista Aristoteli consenserunt.” 10 See Notes et texts, pp. 20-21. The texts are found in De Universo Ia-IIae, ch. 18; 713bD and De universo Ia-IIIae, ch. 29, 80laC.

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Studies in the Philosophy of William of Auvergne You know, however, that among the beings which are derived from the First there are bodies, for you have learned that every body is something possible in itself and necessary through another. But you have also already learned that there is no way that these can come forth from the First immediately. Hence, they come forth from him through some means. But you have learned that this means cannot be merely and purely one. For you have learned that from what is one, insofar as it is one, there proceeds only what is one.11

However, this work was, it seems, translated into Latin for the first time only in 1926.12 Hence, it could not have been William’s source for the principle. The same doctrine, though less sharply phrased, is, nonetheless, found in Avicenna’s Liber de philosophia prima sive scientia divina, which was translated into Latin in the 12th century, probably by Dominicus Gundissalinus, and which was certainly known to William.13 Several passages from Book IX make the same point: 11 Avicennae Metaphysices Compendium, ed. Nematallah Carame (Rome: Pont. Institutum Orientalium Studiorum, 1926), pp. 192-193: “Scis autem inter entia quae sunt a Primo, dari corpora; scivisti enim omne corpus possibile in se et necessarium esse per aliud; at iam quoque scivisti nullam dari viam ad hoc ut haec proveniant a Primo absque ullo medio. Proveniunt ergo ab ipso per medium. Sed scivisti hoc medium esse non posse mere et pure unum. Scivisti enim quod ab uno, in quantum est unum, non prodit nisi unum.” 12 In the introduction to Avicenna Latinus: Liber de philosophia prima sive scientia divina I-IV (Louvain: E. Peeters; Leiden: E. J.Brill, 1977), pp. 136*137*, Simone van Reit says, “Avicenne lui même, on le sait, élabora un résumé de son encyclopedia ou Shifa; ce titre au moines de ce résumé, intitulé Najât ou ‘Livre du Salut’, fut connu en latin au XIIIe siècle, mais on ne sait s’il exista une traductione latine médiévale de ce résumé. La partie métaphysique de ce résumé est accessible aujourd’hui grâce à une traduction latine faite à Rome en 1926 par N. Carame, sous le titre de Metaphysces Compendium.” [Soon after this article was published, thanks to CETEDOC, I found in Avicenna’s Metaphysics 9, ch. 4, p. 481 the words that William quotes: “Nosti etiam quod ex uno secundum quod est unum non est nisi unum.” Had I found this text, the present section of the paper would have been greatly simplified.] 13 William explicitly mentions Avicenna’s Metaphysics or De philosophia prima in De legibus ch. 19; 54aH: “Avicenna tamen in philosophia sua prima. ...” In the De universo he several times refers to“primae philosophiae prima pars,” a phrase which Gilson took to refer to the beginning of William’s De trinitate, but which is, I believe, better taken to refer to Avicenna’s work. See my “Wil-


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Therefore, those things which first arose from him—and these were created—cannot be many, neither in number nor by division into matter and form, because that which follows from him comes from his essence, not from something else. ... It is clear, then, that the first of those things which come from the first cause is one in number, and its essence and its quiddity is a unity, not in matter.14

Accordingly, Avicenna argues that what first arises from the First cannot be material and must be an intelligence. It is clear, then, that it is not possible that the first effect be a material form. But it is even clearer that it is not matter. It is necessary, then, that the first effect be a form that is entirely non-material, namely, an intelligence.15

Masnovo has pointed out that both Averroes and Thomas Aquinas attributed the principle to Avicenna. Masnovo cites the former who argues that, though the principle holds true for a particular cause, it does not hold true for the universal cause.16 Though Averroes cites the liam of Auvergne and the Manichees,” Traditio 48 (1993), pp. 63–75, where I argue against Gilson’s position, which he stated in “La notion d’existence chez Guillaume d’Auvergne,” Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen âge 15 (1946), 81. 14 Metaphysics 9, ch. 4, p. 479, 11. 92-94 and 4-7; “igitur ea quae primo sunt ab eo—et haec sunt creata—non possunt esse multa nec numero nec divisione in materiam et formam, quoniam id quod sequitur ex eo, est ab eius essentia, non ab alio aliquo. ... Manifestum est igitur quod primum eorum quae sunt a causa prima unum numero est, et eius essentia et eius quidditas est unitas, non in materia.” Van Reit says, “Selon Avicenne, ce qui procède de Dieu en premier lieu ne peut être multiple: étant donne que l’Étre nécessaire est absolument simple, il ne peut produire qu’un seul être sans multiplicité” (Avicenna Latinus: Liner de philosophia prima sive scientia divina V-X, p. 62*). I have followed van Reit’s use of Metaphysics to refer to this work of Avicenna and give the pages and lines from van Reit’s edition. 15 Metaphysics 9, ch. 4, p. 481, 11. 39-42: “Palam igitur non posse esse ut primum causatum sit forma materialis, sed quod non sit materia manifestius est. Necessarium est igitur ut causatum primum sit forma non materialis omnino, scilicet intelligentia.” 16 De inconsultis philosophorum assertis, qu. 3: “Falso supposito ut vera hac hypothesi—inquit—quod nempe id quod dicitur de causa particulari, quatenus ab ea una non producitur nisi unus effectus, id de causa universali dici possit”; see A. Masnovo, Da Guglielmo d’Auvergne a S. Tommaso d’Aquino, 3 vols.,

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principle from Algazali’s Tahâfut el-falâcifa neither Algazali’s work nor Averroes’ refutation of it were available to William.17 In commenting on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, Thomas Aquinas showed that he was aware that Aristotle himself held that a multiplicity of immaterial substances followed immediately after the first principle, but that Avicenna believed that the first principle could cause only a single intelligence.18 Finally, in the Errores philosophorum attributed to Giles of Rome, the principle is listed as an error held by Averroes, Avicenna, and Algazali.19 Hence, it would seem that Avicenna must be William’s source for the principle.

II. The Creation of the First Intelligence In the beginning of his De universo, William first sets out to disprove a series of errors with regard to the universe of created things. He first uses the Avicennian metaphysics of possible and necessary being to argue against the Manichaean or Cathar doctrine that there were two

2nd ed. (Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 1946), III, p. 6. See also Averroes’ Destructio Destructionum Philosophiae Algazelis in the Latin Version of Calo Calonymous, ed. by B. H. Zedler (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1961): “O quam maxime est fallax ista propositio, quod unum non efficit nisi unum, cum intelligitur de ea id quod intellexit Avicenna, et Alfarabius, et Algazel in Fenestra luminarium, qui sustentatur secundum opinionem eorum de primo principio” (p. 215). See also pp. 211, 219, and 345. 17 For the citation from Algazali, see Averroes’ Destructio, p. 345: “Et non emanat ab eo nisi unum.” For the availability of these authors to William, see D. Salmon, “Algazel et les Latins,” Archive d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen âge 10 (1935-6), 101–127, esp. p. 105 and R. de Vaux, “La première entrée d’Averroes ches les Latins,” Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques 22 (1933), 229–243. 18 In duodecem libros Metaphysicorum expositio, XII, lec. 9: “Secundo [Aristoteles] ostendit post primum principium necesse est ponere plures substantias immateriales sempiternas. ... Sed Avicenna posuit quod primum mobile movetur immediate non a primo principio, sed ab alia intelligentia a primo principio causata. Cum enim primum principium sit unum simpliciter existimavit quod ab eo non potest causari nisi unum, quod est intelligentia prima. ... Sed hoc non habet necessitatem.” 19 See Giles of Rome: Errores Philosophorum, ed. J. Koch, tr. J. Reidl (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1944), pp. 24, 36, and 44.


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first principles, the one good and the other evil.20 Having established the unity of the first and the other principle, he then turns to proving the unity of the universe.21 In chapter 17, he tells us, Hereafter I will begin to explain to you how the universe went forth from the First and how even today there go forth from him those things which are created or generated or are produced by him in some other manner. ...22

After presenting a general account of how the first creatures, if they were many, or the first creature, it was one, proceeded from the creator, and after showing that they proceeded through the word of the creator, William turns to the claim of the Philosophers that the first creature was necessarily a single creature. He states “the philosophers, especially the Peripatetics” held that “the first thing created was necessarily one and said that it is the first most noble intelligence, and from it there comes, in the way I shall state, the first heaven and its motion.”23 William points out the source of this view: The root, then, of their opinion is this: They thought that from what is one, insofar as it is one, there can in no way arise anything but what is one. For a multitude in an effect, or in effects, would not have a cause, as they supposed, if the many were derived from what is one in the way in which it is one.24

The reasoning behind this root principle rests upon the general principle that one contrary cannot of itself cause the other. 20 See De universo Ia-Iae, chapters 2 through 10, as well as my “William of Auvergne and the Manichees,” Traditio 48 (1993), pp. 63–75. 21 See De universo Ia-Iae, chapters 11 through 16. 22 De universo Ia-Iae, ch. 16, 611bD: “consequenter incipiam declarare tibi, qualiter universum exivit a primo, et qualiter etiam exeant ab eodem quotidie, quae creantur, et generantur, aut per modum alium efficiuntur ab eodem. ...” 23 Ibid., ch. 24; 618bG: “posuerunt philosophi maxime peripatetici ... primum creatum ex necessitate fuisse unicum, et dixerunt illud esse intelligentiam primam nobilissimam, et ex ea esse per modum, quem dicam, primum coelum, et motum ejusdem. ...” 24 Ibid., 618bGH: “Radix igitur opinionis eorum haec fuit. Visum quippe est eis ex uno, secundum quod unum, non posse esse ullo modorum, nisi unum. Multitudo enim in causato, vel in causatis, ut ipsi aestimaverunt, non haberet causam, si ex uno per modum, quo est unum, essent multa. ...”

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Studies in the Philosophy of William of Auvergne Unity cannot be the cause of a multitude on account of the contrariety that exists between them. For from neither of two contraries can the other arise of itself. From where, then, will a multitude in the effect or effects come, since the cause is one and it causes in the way in which it is one? For it seemed to them that it could not in that way be the cause of something many or of many things or a multitude.25

For “Aristotle and his followers,” by whom William principally meant Avicenna, the creator is one and does not create the first creature through anything other than himself. Hence, the conclusion that the creator can create only a single creature, which the followers of Aristotle call the first intelligence, would seem to be inevitable. William states, Hence, since the creator is one and something one in every way, and since he did not cause his first effect except through himself, he did not cause it save through the way in which he is one. Hence, from that one there is only what is one, and from that single being there is only a single being.26

The Peripatetics proceeded to explain how the creator caused his first effect. First of all, they maintained that he did not cause it by some external means. After all, if he used some means external to himself, that means would itself have to be the first effect.27 Secondly, “they thought that there was no manner suited to this causation except the act of understanding.”28 Since there was no means or matter external to him, the creator caused his first effect by understanding himself, since he understood the effect only by understanding himself. 25 Ibid., 618bH: “unitas non potest esse causa multitudinis propter contrarietatem quae est inter ea. Ex neutro enim contrariorum per se potest esse reliquum. Unde igitur erit multitude in causato, vel causatis, cum causa sit unum, et causans per modum, quo est unum tantum?” 26 Ibid.: “Quare cum creator sit unus, et unum per omnem modum, et non causaverit primum causatum suum nisi per se, non causavit illud, nisi per modum, quo est unum. Quare ex eo uno non nisi unum, et ex eo unico, non nisi unicum.” 27 Ibid., 618bH-619aA: “creator creatum suum primum non causavit per medium forensecum ... alioquin enim non esset primum creatum, cum medium creationis illis necesse sit prius esse creatum.” 28 Ibid., 619aA: “Nullus autem modus videbatur eis conveniens causationi huic, nisi intelligendo <et volendo>.” I have followed Masnovo in regarding the last two words as an interpolation; see A. Masnovo, Da Guglielmo d’Auvergne, III, p.2, n. 1.


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Hence, the first intelligence proceeded from the creator through his intellect, that is, the intellect by which he understood himself, and since the creator could understand in himself only himself and could understand himself only as one, that is, without any manner of diversity, there proceeded from him in this way only the one first and most noble of all creatures. But this is, as they thought, the first intelligence.29

William explains how, according to the followers of Aristotle, a multiplicity emanates from the first intelligence. First of all, though the first intelligence is numerically one, there is, nonetheless, a multiplicity in it. As William points out, the first intelligence has a multiplicity and multiple diversity in itself, in its act of understanding, and in the objects it understands, and it could operate only spiritually and intelligibly, that is in the likeness of the creator and to the degree that it is possible for it to be like him.30

He explains that from the first intelligence there emanate four things: the second intelligence, the matter of the first heaven, the form of the first heaven, and the soul of the first heaven. For, understanding the first creator in his magnificence and glory, inasmuch as it is illumined and filled with such a great light, it emitted from out of itself the second intelligence like a certain brightness. But understanding its potentiality, it cast from itself like a shadow the matter of the first heaven. Understanding itself in its perfection, however, it emitted a second brightness, and there went forth from it, like a ray of lesser and second light, the form of the first heaven, and thus the first heaven was completed by its intellect and its act of understanding, and they wanted to understand this form of the heaven as the bodily form of it. Fourthly, understanding its own spiritual being by which it is an intelligence, this intelligence sent forth from out of itself a third ray, that is the soul of the first heaven, 29 De universo Ia-Iae, ch. 24; 619aB: “Exivit ergo prima intelligentia a creatore per intellectum ipsius, quo scilicet intellexit seipsum, et quoniam creator non potuit intelligere in se nisi se, et hoc unice, hoc est absque ullo modorum diversitatis, non exivit ab eo sic, nisi unum creatorum omnium primum, ac nobilissimum. Hoc autem est, ut ipsi aestimaverunt, intelligentia prima.” 30 Ibid., 619aC: “Quoniam autem intelligentia prima in seipsa, et in suo intelligere, et in suis intellectis habuit multitudinem, et diversitatem multiplicem, et operari non potuit, nisi spiritualiter, et intelligibiliter, hoc est ad similitudinem creatoris, et hoc quantum ei assimilari possibile fuit. ...”

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Studies in the Philosophy of William of Auvergne which is the power moving this heaven only in in terms of place, and they understood that this was properly the form and perfection of the heaven.31

In this way, William explains that the Peripatetics claimed the lower intelligences, the matters of the lower heavens, their bodily forms, and souls went forth from the higher intelligences, until they came to the tenth intelligence. They said that this was the intelligible sun of our souls, that the causation of things that were many and capable of multiplication came from it, and that our souls too are from it. They held that nothing more noble than our souls could come from them, as though the light were dimmed and the power weakened to that point through the distance from the first and universal source.32

Since William holds that the principle, “from what is one, insofar as it is one, there cannot, in any way arise anything but what is one,” is the source of the opinion of the philosophers that what is first created by the first principle must be a single creature, one might expect that he would deny that principle. However, William in fact admits the truth of the principle, but denies its applicability to the creator. Among the 31 Ibid., ch. 25; 619aCD: “Intelligens enim primum creatorem in magnificentia sua et gloria, velut tanto lumine irradiata atque repleta, emisit tanquam spendorem quendam de seipsa secundam intelligentiam. Intelligens autem potentialitatem suam ejecit tanquam umbram a se materiam primi coeli. Intelligens autem semetipsam in perfectione sua, emisit de se splendorem secundum, et exivit ab ea, tanquam radius minoris et secundi luminis, forma primi coeli: et sic completum est primum coelum per ejus intellectum, et per intelligere ipsius, et voluerunt quidem formam istam coeli intelligere formam corporalem ejusdem. Quarto vero intelligens haec intelligentia suum esse spirituale, quo est intelligentia, emicuit de se tertium radium, id est, anima primi coeli quae est virtus movens ipsum coelum localiter tantum, et hanc intellexerunt esse proprie formam, et perfectionem coeli.” Again, following Masnovo, I read “voluerunt” instead of “noluerunt” above. 32 Ibid., 619aD-bA: “per viam istam dixerunt intelligentias inferiores, materias coelorum inferiorum, et formas eorum corporales et animas, exivisse ab intelligentiis superioribus, donec ventum est ad decimam intelligentiam, quae posuerunt solem esse intelligibilem animarum nostrarum, et ab ea incipere causationem rerum multarum et multiplicabilium, et ex ea etiam esse animas nostras, et nihil nobilius posse esse ab eis quam sint animae humanae, tanquam eo usque attenuato lumine et debelitata virtute, per elongationem a primo, et universali fonte.”


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causes of the error of the philosophers, William lists their “ignorance of the freedom of the creator, by which he acts without the possibility of his being in any way prevented from doing what he wills or of being forced to do what he does not will.”33 Whereas, the philosophers have maintained that the creator “acts in the manner of nature and in accord with its order,” William insists that he “acts through choice and a perfectly free will.”34 Hence, William concludes that the principle “does not pertain to the creator in these acts of causation and creation. For the creator does not produce or cause these effects through what is one or insofar as he is one, but through his will and as he wills.”35 William appeals to the example of a potter. Just as the potter does not “form his pottery through his oneness, but through his will, and for this reason he makes them as he wills and of the sort he wills, so God also acts through his Word ... and command and will. ...”36 Furthemore, William insists that this Word is not merely the image or expression of the creator, but rather the expression of the creator’s will.37 Hence, William concedes the truth of Avicenna’s major premise, but denies his minor premise, namely, that God produces any creature insofar as he is one or through his unity.

33 Ibid., ch. 27; 623bD-624aE: “Secunda causa fuit ignorantia libertatis ipsius creatoris, qua operatur absque eo, quod prohiberi possit ullo modorum ab eo quod vult aut cogi ad id quod non vult.” 34 Ibid., 624aE: “ipsi autem opinari nixi sunt, sicut praedixi tibi, quod operaretur per modum naturae, et juxta ordinem ipsius, cum ipse operetur per electionem et voluntatem liberrimam.” 35 Ibid., 624aE: “Quod ergo dicunt, quia ex uno secundum quod est unum, et per id quod est unum omni modo, etc., non pertinet ad creatorem in causationibus et creationibus istis. Non enim operatur creator haec causata, vel causat per id quod unum, aut in quantum unum, sed per voluntatem suam, et prout vult.” 36 Ibid., 624aE: “sicut figulus non per unitatem suam format vasa fictilia, sed per voluntatem suam, et propter hoc facit ea prout vult, et qualia vult; sic et Deus per verbum suum quod non est verbum solummodo enuncians, sed imperans imperio fortissimo, et ejus imperium, et voluntas. ...” 37 Ibid., 624aF: “Verbum enim istud non est tantum imago, seu expressio creatoris, immo est etiam expressio voluntatis creatoris. ...”

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III. A Manichaean or Cathar Use of the Principle It is interesting to note that the principle that Avicenna used to argue that what God first created was a single intelligence is strikingly similar to one of the two basic principles upon which, according to William, the Manichees of his time, namely, the Cathars, rested their dualism of good and evil. Their first basic principle was that “from one contrary the other cannot arise,” from which they concluded that “something evil cannot arise from something good; hence, it will come from something evil.”38 Given their second principle that there cannot be an infinite series of causes, they concluded that there must be a first principle of evil.39 William concedes the truth of the second Cathar principle that there cannot be an infinite series of causes, but points out that their first principle is false, “unless they understand it in the sense that one contrary cannot of itself (per se) arise from the other.”40 William then offers examples of evils that arise coincidentally (per accidens) from things which are good, such as drunkenness from wine or pride from holiness.41 In any case, William clearly implies that it is true that one contrary cannot of itself arise from another and, therefore, that from what is one, insofar as it is one, there can only arise what is one. In a previous study on William and the Manichees, I noted that William used Avicennian metaphysical principles to argue against the Cathars, whom he called Manichees, and suggested that his use of Avicenna’s metaphysics could be partially accounted for by reason of the fact that the Catharism of Languedoc itself took a more philosophical turn during 38 Ibid., ch. 8; 60lbB: “ex altero contrariorum non potest esse alterum; malum igitur ex bono esse non potest; erit igitur ex malo.” 39 Ibid.: “res non currit in infinitum, videlicet, ut hoc malum sit de illo malo, et illud ex tertio, et ita in infinitum; erit igitur venire ad malum, quod non est ex alio, sed neque est ex bono. Quare malum illud ex nullo est, et ita erit principium in se, et etiam principium malorum, cum alia sint ex ipso.” 40 Ibid., ch. 9; 602aG: “Dico igitur hanc radicem esse falsam, nisi hoc modo eam intelligant, videlicet, quod ex altero contrariorum non potest esse per se alterum.” 41 See ibid., 602bF: “Nemo dubitat, quin ex vino fit ebrietas, et quanto melius, tanto major ex illo ebrietas, tantoque facilius; quare manifestum est quod ex bono malum, et econtrario ex malo bonum. ... Quis autem, qui mentem habeat dubitare potest, quin ex bono sanctitatis, aliarumque virtutum interdum superbia oriatur, et contemptus aliorum?”


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the years 1220 to 1260. William’s use of Avicenna’s metaphysics against these dualists becomes even more readily explicable, if the Cathars had themselves, as seems to be the case, taken their philosophical principles from Avicenna.42

IV. The Production of the Human Soul William reports that the philosophers erred with regard to the manner in which the tenth intelligence causes human souls. He first explains how, according to the Aristotelians, the tenth intelligence causes the matters and the forms of generable and corruptible things by understanding its own potentiality and actuality.43 But the tenth intelligence also causes human souls “by understanding itself in its spirituality by which it is such an intelligence.”44 William then points out that, because the intelligence is in its spirituality something one and causes as something one, it produces but a single soul. By understanding itself in this way, it is only one, and it does not act except insofar as it is one, hence there will arise from it in this way only what is one. All human souls, therefore, will be but one soul in terms of their essence and their truth.45

Thus, according to William, these philosophers concluded from the principle we have been examining that all human souls will be—presumably even while in their respective bodies—but one soul in their essence and truth. Moreover, he explicitly accuses them of holding that 42 See “William of Auvergne and the Manichees,” Traditio 48 (1993): 63–75. For the philosophical turn taken by the Cathars, see R. Nelli, La philosophie du catharisme: Le dualisme radical au XIIIe siecle (Paris: Payot, 1978), pp. 73–74. 43 De universo Ia-Iae, ch. 26; 619bB: “Decima illa intelligentia intelligendo se solummodo, videlicet, intelligendo potentialitatem suam, materias generabilium et corruptibilium causat, intelligendo actualitatem suam, hoc est perfectionem potentalitati suae contrariam, formas corporales eorum. ...” 44 Ibid.: “intelligendo vero se in spiritualitate sua qua est intelligentia talis, causat animas humanas. ...” 45 Ibid., 619bBC: “Intelligendo autem se sic, non est nisi unum, neque operatur, nisi inquantum unum, quare non erit ex ea, nisi unum per modum istum; omnes igitur animae humanae non erunt, nisi anima una secundum essentiam et veritatem.”

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human souls are individuated only by their bodies such that, after their separation from their bodies, they become a single human soul. You ought to know that they were brought even to this error that all human souls, once having been stripped of their bodies, do not differ in any way except by the differences of their own bodies, but are all one in truth and essence.46

Once again, the principle seems to lead directly to an error and to an error that William argues against most vigorously; yet he does not reject the truth of the principle but its applicability to the creation of the human soul. For William rejects the mediate creation of the soul by the tenth or agent intelligence and insists that God, who does create human souls, does not do so insofar as he is one or through his oneness, but through his will and freedom.

V. William’s Use of the Principle in De trinitate In De trinitate c. 14, William undertakes to show“that there are three that in some sense share the first essence, though they are one in every way and that they share it and share in it essentially, not by participation.”47 He argues that it is impossible that the first emanation from the first source be many or unlike the first source. His argument clearly relies upon Avicenna’s principle. Likewise, from the same thing, as the same, there does not proceed something diverse, or a diversity. Just as from something white as such, or from something black as such, so too from the one as such there arises neither many nor a multitude. From something of a certain kind as such, there come neither things of another kind nor a variety 46 Ibid., 619bC: “Tu autem debes scire, quia in hunc etiam errorem deducti sunt, ut omnes animas humanas exutas a corporibus non differre ullo modorum, nisi differentiis corporum suorum, veritate autem et essenitia unam esse omnes.” 47 De trinitate, ch. 14, p. 82: “Sequitur ergo ista, ut aggrediamur, si quomodo suadere poterimus, quod ipsam primam essentiam communicant tria quodammodo, licet unum sint ipsa per omnem modum, et quod ipsam communicant et in ea essentialiter, non participatione.” References to the De trinitate are to the chapter and page of William of Auvergne: De trinitate. An Edition of the Latin Text with an Introduction, ed. B. Switalski (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1976); see note 1 above for an English translation of this work. I have in some cases modified that translation for this paper.


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nor an unlikeness. In general, from one of a pair of opposites as such, it is impossible that the other arise. Therefore, it is impossible that from the first source in itself there proceed either something else or of another kind, because to the extent that it emanates according to itself, it is one and the same and of the same sort in every way. Therefore, the first emanation from the first source is neither something other than nor of a different sort from the first source.48

Later in the same chapter he makes the same point, again relying upon the principle that from the one, as such, there cannot come a multitude. Again, I say that the first emanation from the first source is one in every way and simple in the ultimate degree. For if it were many in itself so that the intellect should find in it composition, then from the one there would be a plurality through itself and from the same thing a diversity—something that only a dreaming intellect accepts.49

The first source from which the first emanation proceeds is not the divine essence, but rather the Father, and the first emanation is the Son. William is explicit that “the essence can emanate nothing at all out of itself. That which might emanate from it would necessarily be it and would not cease to be it. ...”50 If the divine essence were to produce an emanation out of itself, a contradiction would result, for it would then 48 Ibid., p. 83: “Item ab eodem, in quantum idem, non est diversum nec diversitas, sicut nec ab albo, in quantum album, nec a nigro, in quantum nigrum, similiter ab uno, in quantum unum, neque multa neque multitudo; et a tali, in quantum tale, nec alterius modi neque varietas et velut dissimilitudo; et generaliter ex altero oppositorum, in quantum tale, impossibile est esse alterum. Ex primo igitur fonte secundum se impossibile est aut aliud aut alterius modi esse, quoniam in quantum emanans secundum se est, unus et idem et eiusdem modi per omnem modum. Prima igitur emanatio a primo fonte nec alias nec alterius modi est a primo fonte.” 49 Ibid., p. 86: “Item dico, quod prima emanatio ex primo fonte est unum per omnem modum et simplex in ultimo, quia si fuerit in se multa, ut reperiat in ea intellectus ‘hoc et hoc’, tunc ex uno multitudo per se et ex eodem diversitas, quod nisi somnians intellectus non recipit.” William uses the Boethian phrase“hoc et hoc” to indicate composition as opposed to“hoc,” which indicates simplicity. Cf. Boethius, De trinitate 2, 1ines 32–42. 50 De trinitate, ch. 14, p. 88: “essentia de se nihil omnino emanare potest; quod enim de ipsa emanaret, necessario et esset ipsa et non cesset; quod enim de ipsa reciperet essentiam, utique non reciperet nisi ipsam, non enim in ea alia inveniretur.”

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be both giving birth to itself and born from itself.51 William explains that nothing at all can arise out of (de) [the essence] except being (esse). For neither the essence itself nor something else [can arise out of it], since neither is in it, either in act or in potency. For the essences of created things do not emerge out of (de) it; rather, the essences themselves receive being (esse) from it.52

Furthermore, William argues that the multiplicity of created things that do exist would be impossible, if it were the case that they proceeded out of (de) the divine essence.53 Hence, the essence does not generate anything out of itself, and the only operation that is at all appropriate to it is to create or to give being (esse) subsequent to it.54 Hence, in the De trinitate, William accepts and uses the principle which he found in Avicenna, though without acknowledging his debt to the philosopher, in order to show that within the Trinity the first emanation can be only one and that the divine essence cannot emanate anything from out of itself. He goes so far as to say that only an intellect that is asleep (somnians intellectus) can accept the contrary, namely, that “from what is one a multiplicity can arise of itself, and from what is the same a diversity (ex uno multitudo per se et ex eodem diversitas).”55 William distinguishes two sorts of causality: perfect, or internal, causality and imperfect, or external, causality. The generation of the Son from the Father exemplifies perfect causality. Creation or making, on the other hand, exemplifies external causality. Earlier in De trinitate, 51 Ibid.: “Quia igitur de ea nonnisi essentia, quia in ea nullomodo invenitur aliud, necessario esset ipsa essentia emanatio de se ipsa et ita esset ipsa gignens se ipam et genita a se ipsa.” 52 Ibid.: “Quare de ipsa nihil omnino esse potest nisi esse, quia nec ipsa nec aliud, cum in ea nec actu nec potestate sit, non enim de ea exeunt rerum creatarum essentiae, sed essentiae ipsae esse ab ea recipiunt.” 53 Ibid.: “Impossibile enim esset multa esse, quae sunt, si hoc esset, quod de ea exirent. Sed res apud se et in se multae sunt; apud ipsum vero, quantum ex prima essentia est, non habent diversitatem ullam.” 54 Ibid.: “Sed ipsa est ... praeter omnem modum generationis in se ipsa, cui nulla ex operationibus omnino congruit, nisi creare aut dare esse post ipsam.” 55 Ibid., p. 86: “ex uno multitudo per se et ex eodem diversitas, quod nisi somnians intellectus non recipit.”


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William promised to prove “that everything of which [‘It is’] is said essentially is not caused ... and that it is necessary that it be said nonessentially of everything created.” He adds parenthetically that “it is” is said essentially of nothing that is caused by external causation. For the philosophers have seen only this; they have not seen the internal effective causation, of which we will say something later. ...”56 Hence, William shows that “essential being is necessary, eternal and incorruptible, not caused; I mean, not caused by an external cause, external in the sense that it does not share an essence with it and, hence, does not cause out of itself and through itself alone—the sort of causation we call perfect.”57 A being necessary through its essence does not have being (esse) that it has acquired. The reason is that what is caused from the first cause, I mean, caused by perfect causation is necessarily pure act, unmixed with potentiality and imperfection, since it arises purely from pure act. It is impossible that something mixed arise from the pure one and arise purely from it.58

Thus William contrasts generation as being a more perfect form of causality with making or producing as less perfect. The latter does not make the effect completely like the cause. Likewise, what is generated is more perfectly caused by the generator than anything else is caused by its cause, and the assimilation and adequation of it to its cause shows this. For causing or making or producing does not make its effect like its cause in ultimate and complete assimilation, but generation necessarily does this. Hence, 56 Ibid., ch. 2, p. 23: “Et faciemus sciri, quod omne id, de quo dicitur secundum essentiam, est non causatum (causatione forenseca intellige, quam solum viderunt philosophi, non enim viderunt causationem effectivam intimam, de qua aliquid infra loqueremur; haec enim est, quam infra describimus), et quoniam de omni creato necesse est, ut dicatur non secundum essentiam.” 57 Ibid., ch. 3: p. 25: “Iam igitur incipit elucere ens essentiale esse necesse, aeternum et incorruptibile, non causatum; causatum autem intellige a forenseco causante, forenseco, id est, non communicante cum eo essentiam, et ideo non causante de se et per se solum, cuiusmodi causationem perfectam vocamus.” 58 Ibid., ch. 4, p. 31: “Et hoc est, quoniam causatum ex primo causante, causatum, inquam, causatione perfecta, necessario est purus actus, immixtus potentialitati et imperfectioni, cum sit pure ex puro actu; mixtum vero impossibile sic esse ex uno puro et ex illo pure.”

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Studies in the Philosophy of William of Auvergne generation is the first and most perfect of causations, and its cause is the first and most perfect of all.59

Hence, William not only never claims that the Avicennian principle is false, but even uses it in the heart of his Trinitarian theology to show that the Father can generate but a single Word and that his generation of the Son is the most perfect form of causality. In the two cases in which the principle led Avicenna into what William considered serious errors, namely, the creation of the first intelligence and the creation of the human soul, William makes explicit mention of “the philosophers.” Against the Cathars William simply corrects their deficient formulation of the principle with no mention of “Aristotle and his followers.” But in De trinitate, where William makes important use of the principle, he not merely does not mention the source of the principle, but claims—in what might seem to be an extraordinarily high degree of chutzpah—that the philosophers had no knowledge of the perfect causality which the principle illustrates. William is, of course, in one sense correct in stating that the philosophers did not know of this perfect causality, since, even though they spoke of the emanation of a single first intelligence from out of the First, each emanated intelligence, contained a multiplicity which distanced it from the First. Nonetheless, when arguing for the unicity of the Word, William did use the Avicennian principle, “Ex uno, secundum quod unum, non nisi unum.” On the other hand, he clearly maintained that the first emanation does not arise from the divine essence, but from the Father. For, if it did arise from the essence, the one essence would be both generating and generated. The divine essence, however, can confer being on other essences, but not from out of itself. We do not, however, deny that by it and from it the light of being is shed over the universe, but it is impossible that it be from out of it, for to say “from out of it” is more than to say “from it or by it.” After all, we understand the essence, insofar as it is essence, only as entirely

59 Ibid., ch. 14, p. 89: “Item generatum perfectius causatur a genitore, quam aliquid aliud causatum a causatore suo, quod ostendunt assimilatio et adaequatio ipsius ad causatorem suum. Causatio enim aut factio aut effectio non assimilat causatum suo causatori assimilatione ultima et completa; sed hoc facit necessario generatio. Quare generatio causationum omnium prima est atque perfectissima et causator eius primus omnium atque perfectissimus.”


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peaceful and quiet, whole in itself and with itself, having in itself, whether in actuality or in potency, only itself.60

Having borrowed the metaphysical underpinnings of his theology so extensively from Avicenna, William obviously found himself in serious difficulties when he came to Avicenna’s account of creation with its doctrine of the necessary emanation of the first intelligence and the mediate creation of all else.61 Yet, he never denies Avicenna’s principle that from what is one, insofar as it is one, there comes only what is one. In fact, he uses the principle in his Trinitarian theology in a way that Avicenna never imagined, namely, to prove that the Father could generate only a single Word. The fact that he mentions the Peripatetics only when the principle seems to lead to errors may well explain the fact that the extent of William’s intellectual debt to Avicenna has been insufficiently appreciated.

60 Ibid., p. 83: “Non autem negamus, quin ab ea et ex ea spargatur lumen essendi super universum, sed de ea impossibile est, plus enim est dicere de ea, quam ex ea vel ab ea. Nec enim intelligimus essentiam ex hoc, quod essentia est, nisi pacatissimam et quietissimam, omnino in se et apud se, non habentem in se actu vel potentate nisi se.” 61 See Leo Donald Davis, “Creation according to William of Auvergne,” in Studies in Mediaevalia and Americana: Essays in Honor of William Lyle Davis, ed. G. G. Steckler and L. D. Davis (Spokane: Gonzaga University Press, 1973), pp. 51-75, esp. p. 64.

William of Auvergne on the Individuation of Human Souls

W

illiam of Auvergne, bishop of Paris from 1228 to his death in 1249, was one of the first theologians of the thirteenth century to take into serious account the philosophical works that poured into the Latin West during the last half of the twelfth and the early decades of the thirteenth century. William showed a great deal of openness toward the works of those to whom he referred as “Aristotle and his followers,” and obviously drew upon them, even going so far as to adopt the Avicennian arguments for the existence of God as the being that is necessary through itself and to claim that the Avicennian expression,“necesse esse per se,” is the proper name of the first principle.

For William’s life and works, see William of Auvergne: The Trinity or the First Principle, trans. with introduction and notes by Roland J. Teske and Francis C. Wade (Milwaukee, 1989). For a more recent bibliography on William, see William of Auvergne: The Immortality of the Soul, trans. with introduction and notes by R. J. Teske (Milwaukee, 1991). De universo IIa-Ilse, ch. 10, 853aD–bA: “Sed et ipse Aristoteles, et omnes sequaces ejus. ... Ipsimet existimaverunt se declarasse sermonibus primum principium, quod rectissime nominaverunt necesse esse per se non habere comparem et coaequaevum aliud, et ejus esse incommunicabile omni modo, et ipsum necesse esse per se nullo modorum praedicabile esse de multitudine. Proprium nomen vero seu propria nominatio est, quam impossibile est naturaliter praedicari de multitudine, quare necesse esse per se est propria nominatio ipsius.” References to William’s De universo are to the first volume of Guilelmi Alverni Episcopi Parisiensis Opera Omnia, 2 vols., ed. Francois Hotot, with Supplementum, ed. Blaise Le Feron (Orléans-Paris, 1674; rpt. Frankfurt am Main. 1963); they indicate part, chapter, page, column and section. The De anima is found in the Supplementum; references to it indicate chapter, part, page, and column. See De trinitate ch. 2, 20–25, for William’s arguments for the existence of God; references to the De trinitate are to the chapter and page of William of Auvergne: De trinitate. An Edition of the Latin Text with an Introduction, ed. Bruno Switalski (Toronto, 1976).

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On the other hand, he also firmly rejected many Aristotelian doctrines when he found them to be in opposition to the faith. The present paper examines William’s rejection of one of those views which he attributed to Aristotle and his followers and which he found particularly opposed to all religion, namely, the view that human souls lose their individuality and become a single soul when they are separated from their bodies. William’s treatment of this issue casts light on the reception of Aristotelian thought in the Latin West as well as on the problem of the individuation of human souls, as William grasped the question.

I. The Accusation William Levels against the Aristotelians Several times in his De universo William accuses the philosophers of holding that human souls lose their individuality when separated from their bodies. Once he addresses his reader in clear imitation of Avicenna’s style,“You ought to know that they were brought even to this error, namely, that human souls, once stripped of their bodies, differ in no way except by the differences of their bodies, but are all one in their truth and essence.” The closest referent in William’s text identifying those who were led into this error is found two chapters earlier, where he speaks of those who held that the first creature produced by God is necessarily a single intelligence. He says that these are“the philosophers, This stance toward Aristotle accords with William’s explicit statement of policy in De anima, ch. 2, 12. 82b;“Quamquam autem in multis contradicendum sit Aristoteli sicut revera dignum et justum est, et hoc in omnibus sermonibus quibus dicit contraria veritati, sic suscipiendus est id est sustinendus in eis omnibus in quibus recte sensisse invenitur.” William’s De universo follows his De trinitate as the second part of his mammoth Magisterium divinale et sapientiale. It was only in this century that the scholarly world came to realize that William had conceived of many of his works as forming parts of this one large work. See Josef Kramp,“Des Wilhelm von Auvergne ‘Magisterium divinale,’” Gregorianum 1 (1920): 538–584, 2 (1921): 42–78 and 174–187. De universo Ia-Iae, ch. 26, 619bC: “Tu autem debes scire, quia in hunc errorem deducti sunt, ut omnes animas humanas exutas a corporibus non differre ullo modorum, nisi differentiis corporum suorum, veritate autem et essentia unam esse omnes.”


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especially the Peripatetics, that is, the followers of Aristotle and those among the Arab people who were more renowned in the doctrines of Aristotle.” Later William attributes the view that “human souls, once they have been stripped of their bodies, are not many and do not differ numerically or in any other way” to “Aristotle and his followers.” But William also explicitly attributes to Aristotle alone the view that all human souls are but one soul, after separation from their bodies. After developing an argument to show that the ten intelligences must belong to a single species, William comments, Aristotle, however, refused to grant this, namely, that it is possible that there are many abstract substances of the same species. For, though they are [now] obviously many and diverse, he refused to grant that our souls are many, after they have been separated from their bodies. In fact, he claimed that they are necessarily all a single soul.

Before turning to William’s refutation of this doctrine, that all human souls are one soul after they are separated from their bodies, it is necessary to try to become clearer about the identity of those philosophers in whom William found—or thought he found—this error. Ibid., ch. 24, 618bG: “Philosophi maxime peripatetici, idest, sequaces Aristotelis, et qui famosiores fuerunt de gente Arabum in disciplinis Aristotelis. ...” Ibid., ch. 9, 817bB: “Illud autem quod movit Aristotelem, et sequaces ejus ... propter quod et animas spoliatas posuerunt non esse plures, nec differre numero, vel alio modo. ...” Ibid., ch. 21, 827aA: “hoc autem concedere noluit Aristoteles videlicet possibile esse multas substantias abstractas ejusdem speciei esse. Quoniam nec ipsas animas nostras (quarum multitudo atque diversitas tam evidens est) concedere voluit multas esse, cum separatae fuerint a corporibus, immo posuit de necessitate eas omnes unicam esse animam.” The problem of William’s citations and attributions is notorious. Gabriel Jüssen points out that William’s mentioning of Aristotelian concepts does not correspond with their actual use. He adds, “Hinzukommt eine gewisse Schwierigkeit im Zusammenhang mit Wilhelms Zitierweise, die uns häufig statt exaker Zitate eine raffinierte Montage von Zitat and ausdeutender Interpretation prasentiert.” G. Jüssen, “Aristotles-Rezeption and Aristoteles-Kritik in Wilhelm von Auvergne’s Tractatus De anima,” in Knowledge and the Sciences in Medieval Philosophy: Proceedings of the Eighth Congress of Medieval Philosophy (Helsinki, 1990), 3: 88.

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II. A First Attempt to Identify “Aristotle and his Followers” The doctrine of the unicity of the human intellectual soul is, of course, usually associated with Averroes, who was known by the great scholastics of the thirteenth century simply as“the Commentator.” In discussing this doctrine that William attributes to the Peripatetics, Amato Masnovo makes the carefully qualified suggestion that William is faced with an incipient Averroism.10 In the nineteenth century, Ernst Renan had said of William’s De universo that “l’averroïsme y est refuté à chaque page.”11 Earlier in this century, however, Roland de Vaux showed that “il n’y a eu avant 1230 aucune influence d’Averroës sur la pensée chrétienne. Guillaume d’Auvergne et Philippe le Chancelier sont les premiers à lui faire de timides emprunts, et il faut attendre 1240 et Albert le Grand pour en trouver une utilization notable.”12 Dominique Salmon has, moreover, shown that “en 1256 on ne trouvait pas trace en terre latine des hérésies condamnées quatorze ans plus tard.”13 De Vaux points out that William mentions Averroes by name only two times in the works of his which we have in print and refers to him once as “a most renowned philosopher.”14 In neither passage does William indicate an 10 Amato Masnovo, Da Guglielmo D’Auvergne a S. Tommaso D’Aquino. 3 vols. (Milan, 1946), 3: 34: “Si allude qui certo ad un monopsychismo; forse anche ad un averroismo incipiente: di cui però non si afferra ancora la vera paternita, l’importanza e la figura caratteristica: sì da fare del nuovo indirizzo un singolare momento dedotta dalla posizione avicennistica.” 11 Ernst Renan, Averroès et l’Averroïsme (Paris, 1866), 225. 12 Roland de Vaux, “La premiere entrée d’Averroes chez les Latins,” Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques 22 (1933): 193–243 at 243. 13 Dominique Salmon, “Note sur la première influence d’Averroes,” Revue néoscolastique de philosophie 40 (1937): 203–212 at 204. 14 See his Notes et textes sur l’Avicennisme latin aux confins des Xlle–Xllle siècles (Paris, 1934), 21–22, where he points to two texts: De universo IIa-Iae, ch. 8, 851bC:“De rudimentis enim philosophiae est proculdubio ratio materiae et formae, et cum ipsa ratio materiae posita sit ab Averroe philosopho nobilissimo, expediret ut intentiones ejus et aliorum, qui tanquam duces philosophiae sequendi et imitandi sunt, hujusmodi homines, qui de rebus philosophicis tam inconsiderate loqui praesumunt, apprehendissent prius ad certum et liquidum.” Also see De anima ch. 3, 11, 101a: “Ipse etiam Averroes omne quod alii vocant compositum ex materia et forma, ipse vocat formam in materia.”


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awareness of any errors that Averroes held or of his position regarding the unicity of the human intellect; indeed, his use of the superlative in the De universo text is extraordinary praise on William’s part. In contrast with the two mentions of Averroes, William refers to Avicenna approximately forty times.15 Moreover, the passages in which William discusses the erroneous doctrine that, after death, all human souls were one soul, provide solid proof that he has Avicenna’s work in mind. For example, one reason which William gives to explain why the philosophers held that all human souls are one is that they held that human souls are caused by the tenth intelligence understanding itself in its spirituality. “But when it understands itself in this way, it is only one, nor does it operate except as one; hence, there will arise from it in this way only what is one. All human souls, then, will be but one soul in their essence and truth.”16 That is, these philosophers used the principle, “from what is one, insofar as it is one, there can arise only what is one,” to conclude that the one tenth intelligence, which causes human souls, can cause only one human soul which is the essence and truth of all human souls.”17 That principle, along with the context in which William is describing the descending procession of the intelligences from God down to the tenth intelligence, which is the creator of human souls and their intelligible sun, would seem clearly to indicate that William derived the basis for his accusation from Avicenna rather than from anyone else.18 15 See de Vaux, Notes et textes, 22. 16 De universo Ia-IIae, ch. 26, 619bBC: “Intelligendo autem se sic non est nisi unum, neque operatur nisi inquantum unum. Quare non erit ex ea nisi unum per modum istum. Omnes igitur animae humanae non erunt nisi anima una secundum essentiam et veritatem.” 17 Ibid., ch. 24, 618bH: “Visum quippe est eis ex uno, secundum quod unum, non posse esse ullo modorum, nisi unum.” 18 See my “William of Auvergne’s Use of Avicenna’s Principle: ‘Ex uno, secundum quod unum, non nisi unum,’” The Modern Schoolman 71 (1994): 1–15. The principle is clearly found in Avicennae Metaphysices Compendium, ed. Nematallah Carame (Rome, 1926), 192–193: “Scivisti enim quod ab uno, in quantum est unum, non prodit nisi unum.” It is not, however, clear how William became familiar with that principle. Though it is affirmed by Algazali and rejected by Averroes, it does not seem that William had access to their works. And among the works of Avicenna the Metaphysices Compendium, which contains the closest parallel, was, it seems, first translated into Latin

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Hence, despite William’s explicit attribution of the error to Aristotle himself as well as to Aristotle’s followers, especially to those philosophers more renowned among the Arabs, the real source of the doctrine would seem to be Avicenna, whom William takes as representing Aristotle’s mind on this matter. Yet, there are also problems with supposing that Avicenna is the source of this erroneous view, since Avicenna explicitly stated, as we shall see, that souls remained many after separation from their bodies.

III. Avicenna’s Account of the Individuation of Human Souls Avicenna held that human souls were individuated while in their bodies and that they remained individual after separation from their bodies. In contrast with the Greeks who believed that whatever begins to be must cease to be and, conversely, that what does not cease to be did not begin to be, Avicenna held that individual souls begin to exist, but do not cease to exist.19 Individual souls begin to exist, according to Avicenna, when corporeal matter suited to serve them begins to be, for the body is the soul’s “kingdom and instrument.”20 Avicenna held that there is “in the substance of the soul which begins to exist with some body ... a disposition consisting of a natural inclination to be concerned about it, to rule it, to provide for it in all respects, and to cling to it.”21 Through all these activities the soul becomes the in 1926. The idea is, however, found less explicitly in Avicenna’s Metaphysics IX, 4; see Avicenna Latinus: Liber de philosophia prima sive scientia divina, VX. ed. Simone Van Riet (Louvain, 1980) 481. [See note 12 of the previous article.] 19 See Simone van Riet,“L’immortalité de l’âme dans le‘De anima’ d’Avicenne. Une synthèse de l’Aristotélisme et du Néoplatonisme,” Pensamiento 25 (1969): 271-90. 20 De anima V, ch. 3, 107–8: “Ergo iam manifestum est animas incipere esse cum incipit materia corporalis apta ad serviendum eis, et corpus creatum est regnum eius et instrumentum.” These references to De anima are to part, chapter, and page of Avicenna Latinus: Liber de anima seu Sextus de Naturalibus IV-V, ed. S. van Riet (Louvain, 1968). 21 Ibid., 108: “Sed in substantia animae quae incipit esse cum aliquo corpore ... inest affectio inclinations naturalis ad occupandum se circa illud et ad regendum illud et providendum ei in omnibus et adhaerendum ei. ...”


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soul that belongs to its own body and is dissociated from all other bodies.22 Hence, Avicenna holds that it is the soul’s natural inclination to be concerned about and to rule, to provide for, and to cling to the body that makes the soul the soul of this body rather than of any other body.23 Perhaps indicating an awareness that his position is somewhat problematic, Avicenna addresses an objection to himself concerning his own position regarding the condition of souls once separated from their bodies: For it is necessary either that they do not exist—a view which you do not hold—or that they become one—another view which you deny—or that they remain many. But you hold that they have already been separated from their matters; how then will they be many?24

Avicenna answers with regard to the continued existence of souls after they have been separated from their bodies that “each had previously possessed in itself being and essence, on account of the diversity of matters which they had, the diversity of the time of their creation, and the diversity of their dispositions regarding the diverse bodies they had.”25 22 Ibid.: “et per haec omnia fit eius propria et alienatur ab aliis omnibus corporibus circa illud tantum.” 23 Van Riet comments, “L’âme est individualisée grâce à sa union avec le corps: elle porte en elle une inclination naturelle à s’occuper de tel corps determiné et à se desinteresser des autres. ... Quant au corps, il est individualisé par ses caractères propres. Ce qui constitue évidemment une difficulté, c’est que l’âme, qui est une substance, a besoin du corps pour être individualisée,” Liber de anima, ed, van Riet, 32*, n. 108. 24 De anima V, ch. 3, 109: “Potest autem aliquis dicere quod: haec oppositio remanet post discessum animarum a corporibus; necesse est enim ut aut esse desinant (hoc autem non tenetis), aut ut fiant una (sed hoc est etiam quod negastis), aut remaneant multiplicatae, vos autem tenetis eas iam esse separatis a materiis; ergo quomodo erunt multiplicatae?” 25 Ibid., 109–110: “Dicemus ergo quod postea animae sine dubio sunt separatae a corporibus; prius autem unaquaeque habuerat esse et essentiam per se, propter diversitatem materiarum quae habebant et propter diversitatem temporis suae creationis et propter diversitatem affectionum suarum quae habebant secundum diversa corpora sua quae habebunt.” In a note on “Dicemus ... per se,” Van Reit offers a translation of the Arabic for this text: “nous disons donc, quant à (amma) (ce qu’il en est) après la séparation des âmes d’avec les corps, voici (fa): les âmes existaient déja antérieurement, chacune, comme une essence subsistant isolement.”

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Avicenna argues that the soul is not one in all bodies, since, if it were, it would be either wise in all or foolish in all and one soul would not be unaware of what is going on in another.26 Hence, after separation from their bodies, human souls are, for Avicenna, not a single soul; they are numerically many, but specifically one.27 Avicenna maintains that there is something that individuates a soul, but what it is that does this is not so clear. It is not the impression of the soul on matter, for we have disproved that; it is certainly some disposition, some virtue, and some spiritual accident or a combination of these, on account of which the soul becomes individual, though we do not know what it is. But after it becomes individual in itself, it is impossible that it be a numerically different soul and that they be one essence. ...28

Avicenna also points to the soul’s acquired intellectual knowledge, its awareness of itself as individual, its moral dispositions, and other properties, as individuating the soul, whether we are aware of them or not.29 26 Ibid., 110: “Si enim esset una in omnibus illis et esset multae propter relationem, tunc aut esset sapiens in omnibus illis, aut insipiens in omnibus illis, et non lateret unum quicquid esset in anima alterius.” 27 Ibid., 111: “Ergo anima non est una, sed est multae numero, et eius species una est, et est creata sicut postea declarabimus.” 28 Ibid., 111: “Sed sine dubio aliquid est propter quod singularis effecta est; illud autem non est impressio animae in materia (iam enim destruximus hoc); immo illud est aliqua de affectionibus et aliqua de virtutibus et aliquid ex accidentibus spiritualibus, aut compositum ex illis, propter quod singularis fit anima, quamvis illud nescimus. Postquam autem singularis fit per se, impossibile est ut sit anima alia numero et ut sint una essentia. ...” 29 Ibid., 111–113: “Sed demonstrabimus quod anima, cum creatur cum creatione alicuius complexionis, possibile est ut creetur post illam aliqua affectio in actionibus rationabilibus et in passionibus rationabilibus propter collectionem quarum differat ab actione quae est ei similis in alia; et ut affectio acquisita quae vocatur intellectus in effectu sit in una talis definitionis ut per eam differat ab alia anima; et quia accidit ei percipere essentiam suam singularem, quod habet ex eo quod percipit aliquam affectionem quae est eius propria et non alterius; possibile est etiam contingere in ea ex virtutibus corporalibus affectionem propriam quae pendeat ex affectionibus moralibus, aut sint ipsae eadem, aut ut sint ibi etiam aliae proprietates nobis occultae quae consequuntur animas cum creantur et postquam creantur, qualia sequuntur singularia specierum corporalium, quibus differunt; et ut animae sint ita, sed


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Thus, according to Avicenna, the soul is a spiritual substance that begins to exist when the matter is suitably prepared to receive it, and a soul is individualized by its relation to its body, which is an individual body. Having been individualized by its various relations to the body, it remains individual, even when separated from the body. Thus, the human soul is, for Avicenna, a spiritual substance that is individuated by its relation to the body, which is something extrinsic to it and in a sense accidental to it. As we shall see, this is precisely the position with which William finds fault and which he claims leads to the view that human souls, once separated from the body, are all one soul.

IV. The Causes of the Error of the Aristotelians In the first part of the first principal part of the De universo, William mentions that he has not undertaken the destruction of this error at this point in the work, but that he will utterly destroy it in his treatise on spiritual substances that are stripped of matter.30 William’s treatise on spiritual substances is the second of the two principal parts of the De universo, and this second part itself has three parts. In the first he discusses the intelligences whose existence “Aristotle and his followers” maintained; in the second he treats of those substances which the Greeks called ‘good daimons’ and the Christians call ‘good angels’; and in the third he deals with the substances the Greeks called ‘evil daimons’ and the Christians call ‘bad angels’ or ‘evil spirits.’31 differunt suis proprietatibus propter quas corpora creata fuerunt aut non, sive sciamus illas dispositiones sive non, aut aliquas illarum.” 30 De universo Ia-Iae, ch. 26, 619bC: “Quem errorem hic destruendum non suscepi, destruetur autem irrefragibiliter tibi in tractatu de substantiis spoliatis spiritualibus.” 31 See De universo Ia-IIae, ch. 1, 807bAB: “Scito igitur in primis, quod universum spirituale, cujus hunc tractatum incipio, in tres partes dividitur secundum opinionem antiquorum. Quarum prima ac nobilissima est intelligentiae spoliatae et abstractissimae a materia et appediciis ejus, secundum quod posuit Aristotelis, et sequaces ipsius ... secunda pars est substantiae, quas graeci calodaemones vocant, nos vero juxta legem et doctrinam Christianorum angelos bonos, et angelos sanctos dicimus; tertia vero pars est substantiae, quas ipsi graeci cacodaemones appellant, nos autem angelos malos, et malignos spiritus usualiter, atque vulgariter diabolos nominamus.”

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In his treatise on spiritual substances, William promises to provide a full refutation of the position of the Aristotelians that all human souls are, after death, one soul. He does state in De universo Ia-Iae, however, three causes that led the Aristotelians into this error, when he discusses the Aristotelian account of the procession of creatures from the creator and especially their misuse of the principle that “from something one, insofar as it is one, there can arise only one thing.”32 The first cause of their error, according to William, is their failure to understand the word of the creator and the power of that word, for it is not merely a word that makes a statement, but a word of supreme command.33 Though the Aristotelians saw that the creator produced the things he wanted through the utterance of his intellect, they failed to see that he commanded or ordered that those things come to be. That is, though they saw, according to William, that God created by his word, they did not see that he commanded by his word that creatures come to be. “By our words we do not merely make affirmative and negative statements, but also command whatever we will to come to be. In the same way, by his one Word the creator not merely stated that everything comes to be that he wills to come to be, but also commanded and ordered everything to come to be.”34 Since for William, command (imperium) is the principal act of the will, whether human or divine, the first cause of the error of the Aristotelians is closely tied to the second.35 32 See n. 17 above. 33 De universo Ia-Iae, ch. 27, 623bC: “Harum prima fuit ignorantia eorum, qua non intellexerunt verbum creatoris, neque virtutem ipsius verbi. Est enim non solum enunciativum, ut ita loquamur, sed etiam imperativum imperiositate forti in ultimitate fortitudinis proper quod ejus imperio obediunt non solum ea quae sunt, sed etiam ea, quae non sunt, et non solum in faciendo, et non faciendo, quae mandaverit, aut prohibuerit, sed etiam in essendo, et non essendo, in fiendo, et non fiendo; propter quod quidam ex prophetis Hebraeorum dicit. Qui vocat ea, quae non sunt, tanquam ea, quae sunt” (italics added for the citation from Rom. 4:17). 34 Ibid., 623bD: “Attende etiam, quia nos ipsi non solum verbis nostris annunciamus affirmantes et negantes, sed etiam imperamus quicquid fieri volumus; sic et creator illo unico verbo suo, non solum dixit omnia fieri, quae fieri voluit, sed etiam fieri mandaverit, sive praecipit. ...” 35 See my “William of Auvergne on the Freedom of the Will,” in Moral and Political Philosophies in the Middle Ages: Proceedings of The Ninth International Congress of Medieval Philosophy (New York: Legas, 1996), II, 932–938.


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The second cause of the error of the Aristotelians was their failure to grasp the freedom of the creator by which he acts without the possibility of being held back in any way from what he wills or of being forced to what he does not will. They strove to maintain the opinion, as I have already told you, that he acted in the manner of nature and in accord with its order, though he acts through choice and a will that is completely free.36

Hence, William claims that the Peripatetic “statement that from something one insofar as it is one and through that which is one in every way, and so on, does not hold for the creator in his causing and his creating.”37 After all, the creator, William explains, does not cause his effects through that which is one, or insofar as he is something one, but through his will and as he wills.38 He uses the example of a potter who does not shape clay vessels through his oneness, but through his will, and hence makes them in the way he wills and such as he wills. So too, the creator makes his creatures through his word, and his word is not merely the necessary expression of the creator, but the expression of the creator’s free will. “This word is not merely the image or expression of the creator; rather, it is the pellucid and clear expression of the will of the creator, for those who are permitted to hear and see him.”39 Hence,

William held that the free imperium of the human is the image of divine omnipotence. 36 De universo Ia-Iae, ch. 27, 623bD–624aE: “Secunda causa fuit ignorantia libertatis ipsius creatoris, qua operatur absque eo, quod prohiberi possit ullo modorum ab eo quod vult, aut cogi ad id quod non vult; ipsi autem opinari nixi sunt sicut praedixi tibi, quod operaretur per modum naturae, et juxta ordinem ipsius, cum ipse operetur per electionem, et voluntatem liberrimam.” 37 Ibid., 624aE: “Quod ergo dicunt, quia ex uno secundum quod est unum, et per id, quod est unum omni modo, etc. non pertinet ad creatorem in causationibus, et creationibus istis.” 38 Ibid., 624aE: “Non enim operatur creator haec causata, vel causat per id, quod unum, aut inquantum unum, sed per voluntatem suam, et prout vult.” 39 Ibid., 624aF: “Verbum enim istud non est tantum imago, seu expressio creatoris, immo est etiam expressio voluntatis creatoris lucidissima, ac perspicua, quibus datum est ipsum audire, et intueri.”

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what the creator creates by his word is the result of his freedom, not the result of a necessary emanation.40 The third cause of the Aristotelians’s error was that they supposed that the creator could be more or less remote from various creatures and that he does not, for this reason, act through himself or does so to a lesser degree.”41 On this account they went so far as to maintain that it was the tenth intelligence and not God who made everything in the sublunar world including human souls.42 The Aristotelians have failed to grasp that that the power of the creator reaches from the highest point in the universe to the bottom and from the first creature to the last, containing, embracing, retaining all things, as he wills and when he wills, so that they do not fall back into non-being, from which they were drawn by him and through him.43

As the creator is beneath all things as their foundation and support, so he is above all things as their king and emperor and as the source from which all good things are poured out upon them. He is, moreover, within

40 On the other hand, William uses the Avicennian principle, without acknowledging its source, in his De trinitate to explain why the Father speaks but a single Word. Cf. De trinitate ch. 14 (Switalski, 83, as in n. 2 above): “Item ab eodem, in quantum idem, non est diversum nec diversitas, ... similiter ab uno, in quantum unum, neque multa neque multitudo. ...” 41 De universo Ia-Iae, ch. 27, 624aF: “Tertia causa fuit opinio eorum erronea, qua putaverunt elongationem posse esse aliquid apud creatorem, et aestimaverunt creatorem longe esse a quibusdam, et prope quibusdam, et propter hoc ipsum non operari per se, aut minus operari.” 42 See, for example, De universo Ia-Iae, ch. 25, 619aD: “et per viam istam dixerunt intelligentias inferiores ... exivisse ab intelligentiis superioribus, donec ventum est ad decimam intelligentiam, quam posuerunt solem esse intelligibilem animarum nostrarum, et ab ea incipere causationem rerum multarum, et multiplicabilium et ex ea etiam esse animas nostras. ...” 43 Ibid., ch. 27, 624aF: “Non intellexerunt igitur supereminentiam creatoris et amplitudinem ac fortitudinem virtutis ejus, qui attingit a summo universi usque deorsum, et a primo creatorum usque ad novissimum, omnia continens, tenens, et retinens, prout vult, et quamdiu vult, alioquin reciderent in non esse, unde educta sunt ab ipso, et per ipsum.”


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all things, nourishing, generating, governing, and ruling them, so that he “does all things in all things,” as St. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 12:6.44

V. William’s Arguments against the Error of the Aristotelians Although William promised to refute the error of the Aristotelians in his treatise on spiritual substances, as he himself tells us early in De Universo Ia-IIae, William has, in fact, already presented a refutation of their claim that the unity of the creator precludes a multiplicity of intelligences.45 That is, he has shown that the freedom with which the creator acts makes inapplicable to him the Avicennian principle that from what is one, insofar as it is one, there can come only what is one. In his treatise on spiritual substances, however, William points to another source of Aristotle’s error concerning human souls—a grievous error rightly opposed by every religion:“He denied that substances abstracted from matter and stripped of the conditions of matter are many, if they are of the same rank, equal in every respect and alike in every way. ...”46 He points out that it was on the basis of this principle that the Aristotelians claimed that “human souls stripped [of their bodies] cannot be many or differ numerically or in any other way.”47 As William sees it, 44 Ibid., 624aFG: “Est igitur infra omnia et sub omnibus ut fundamentum et fulcimentum sustinens ea et supportans, et est supra omnia non solum ut rex et imperator omnium dominantissimus, immo et ut fons influentissimus, a quo incessanter descendunt rivi, seu fluenta bonitatum ipsius super creaturas ejusdem, hoc est super omnia saecula et saeculorum singula et intra omnia et in omnibus, omnia nutriens, propagans, moderans, et regens, et propter hoc operatur omnia in omnibus, juxta quod exponam” (italics added for the citation from 1 Cor. 12:6). 45 Ibid., Ia-IIae, ch. 9, 8I7bB: “De eo vero quod visum fuit Aristoteli et sequacibus ejus, quia multitudinem hujusmodi prohibuit unitas creatoris, respondi tibi in praecedentibus in prima parte tractatus hujus de universo.” 46 Ibid., 817bBC: “Illud autem quod movit Aristotelem, et sequaces ejus, videlicet quod non posuit plures esse substantias abstractas a materia, et appendicibus materiae spoliatas, ejusdem ordinis, et aequales per omnia, atque similes omni modo ... est error pessimus, et cui omnis lex non immerito contradicit. ...” 47 Ibid.: “propter quod et animas spoliatas posuerunt non esse plures, nec differre numero, vel alio modo. ...”

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the Aristotelian position amounts to the claim that “all souls are one, after they have been separated from their bodies and that they differ and are many, only while they are in their bodies.”48 Since, according to William, human souls are immaterial substances that are, at least after death, stripped from matter and its conditions, an account of the individuation of human souls will have to be much the same as that of the separated intelligences, at least after the souls are separated from their bodies. Hence, it is relevant to the present question to examine what he holds with regard to a plurality of such intelligences. In the beginning of the first part of the second principal part of De universo, William discusses the intelligences whose existence was asserted by “Aristotle, who on this point was followed by many of the Greek philosophers and all the Arabs whose treatises have reached us.”49 He points out that the reason for Aristotle’s asserting nine intelligences were the nine movements of the moveable heavens.50 The Aristotelians claimed that there proceeds from the creator “a single intellective power and that it is the cause of the second, and the second the cause of the third, and so on, until there is the complete number, which they say is ten and no more.”51 William asks why the creator would create only that single first intelligence, “for it was neither impossible nor difficult for him to create many.”52 The grounds for there being only one first intelligence, William argues, would have to lie either in the creator or in the first intelligence. From the side of the creator, William points out that 48 Ibid.: “hoc est dicere, omnes animas unam esse, postquam a corporibus separatae fuerunt, et solummodo dum sunt in corporibus, eas differre, et esse plures.” 49 Ibid., ch. 2, 808aE: “Ut autem certior, ac lucidior, tibi sit sermo meus de intelligentiis, quas posuit Aristoteles, quem in hoc secuti sunt multi ex graecis phiosophis, et arabes omnes, quorum tractatus pervenerunt ad nos. ...” 50 Ibid., ch. 3, 808bH: “Causae vero, quae induxerunt Aristotelem ad ponendum novem intelligentias, fuerunt motus novem coelorum mobilium.” 51 Ibid., ch. 9, 816bH: “Et quoniam unicam ponunt potentiam intellectivam, et illam esse causam secundae, et secundam tertiae, et ita deinceps, donec compleatur numerus, qui denarius est secundum eos, et non major. ...” 52 Ibid., 817aB: “nec enim impossibile, nec difficile fuit ei creare multas. ...”


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his goodness was just as capable of causing the beatitude of many as of a single one. His visible beauty, after all, is not diminished or lessened as a result of a multitude who contemplate it. Neither is his brightness, as is clearly evident in the case of the sun. Stinginess or greed are far removed from the creator. That many [first intelligences] have not been created was due not to the diminishment or smallness of the creator’s power, nor to a lack of riches, nor to his stinginess or greed. ...53

Hence, any grounds for there being only one first intelligence must be found on the side of the first intelligence. But from the side of the intelligence, a multiplicity of first intelligences could, according to William, be excluded on only two grounds, namely, that such a multiplicity is contradictory or that it is superfluous.54 With regard to the first of these grounds, William develops two arguments: the first, to show that it is not impossible that a plurality of first intelligences exist at the same time; the second, to show that there is no natural impossibility that prevents a multiplicity of such intelligences.55 The first argument claims that many first intelligences would be very much alike in all their essential and natural characteristics and, hence, most harmonious and loving toward one another, insofar as they are good and just. Hence, there would be no opposition or contrariety that would prevent their existing at the same time.56 53 Ibid., 817aBC: “bonitas etiam ipsius aeque sufficiebat beatificare multas, ut unam solam. Pulchritudo enim visibilis ex multitudine intuentium non minuitur, nec angustiatur; similiter nec luminositas, sicut apparet evidenter in sole. Invidia autem et avaritia sunt in ultimitate elongationis a creatore. Quod igitur non sunt multae creatae, non fuit ex diminutione, seu parvitate virtutis creatoris, nec ex defectu divitiarum, nec ex invidia, vel avaritia ipsius. ...” 54 Ibid., 817aD–bA: “necesse est igitur a parte intelligentiae prohibitam esse multitudinem intelligentiarum primarum; impossibile est autem prohibitionem istam esse, nisi uno modorum, quos dicam. Quorum unus est contrarietas, aut repugnantia. ... Alius modus est superfluitas.” 55 Earlier in arguing for the unicity of the universe, William had claimed that it is impossible that there be two worlds or universes at the same time; see De universo Ia-Iae, ch. 13, 607aC-bA. 56 De universo Ia-IIae, ch. 9, 8187aD: “Intelligentiae enim primae, si multae essent, simillimae essent in omnibus essentialibus ac naturalibus suis, deinde concordantissimae et amantissimae inter se, utpote bonae et justae. Non esset igitur inter eas repugnantia vel contrarietas, quae prohiberet eas simul esse.”

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In the second argument, William asks his reader to imagine many intelligences like the first. For you will find that they are alike in the power or potentiality for being, but that by the choice or decision of the creator the one which they claim is the first has been educed from the potency to the actuality of existing, though it was not naturally, in terms of what it has, closer to or more prepared for the actuality of existing than one of the others.57

That this intelligence was not in itself closer to or more prepared for the act of existing can be seen from imagining that it does not exist. “In that case, it will be in every respect just like the others which you will imagine. Hence, the choice of the creator fell upon this one alone, according to this view, to draw it alone from the potentiality of existing to actuality.”58 Hence, William concludes that the one intelligence that they say is the first creature is not such that by its nature it is the only one that can exist.59 There is, then, nothing on the side of the intelligences that makes it impossible for a plurality of such intelligences to exist. Secondly, William argues that a multiplicity of first intelligences would not be superfluous, even if there were a million of them. This is obvious from their operations, namely, to understand, think, or know, to love, to will, and to rejoice. Something is pointless or superfluous which benefits no one, but these activities benefit their agents, since they produce joy in the intelligences to which they belong.

57 Ibid., 817aB-bA: “Nulla insuper intelligentia est naturali impossibilitate ab esse prohibita in semetipsa aut per semetipsam; fiet hoc autem manifestum tibi si imaginatus fueris multas intelligentias similes illi primae. Invenies enim eas simillimas esse in potestate essendi sive potentialitate; electione autem et beneplacito creatoris illam, quam ipsi ponunt primam eductam esse de potentia essendi in actum, cum non esset naturaliter, quantum in ea erat, propinquior vel etiam paratior actui essendi quam aliqua aliarum.” 58 Ibid., 817bA: “Et hoc videbis evidenter si imaginatus fueris eas non esse. Tunc enim ex modis suis omnibus erit, sicut aliae, quas imaginaberis. Cecidit ergo electio creatoris secundum opinionem istam super hanc solam, ut educeret eam solam de potestate essendi in actum.” 59 Ibid.: “Manifestum igitur est tibi quoniam ipsa non est nata esse sola nec naturaliter prohibita esse cum aliis aut prohibens naturaliter esse alias.”


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In themselves they glorify the creator by so much the more, and they make him to be glorified and praised by those who know them.60

Hence, there are no reasons from the side of the intelligences that would make a multiplicity of first intelligences impossible or superfluous. In De universo Ia–IIae, ch. 10, William presents a series of arguments against the position he attributed to Aristotle and his followers: that after death all human souls are one soul. William states: The explanation of this error and its clearest destruction is the following: it is, after all, self-evident that accidents which a thing acquires do not make it another thing. The same is true of those things that are external and do not belong to the substance or to the necessity or to the definition of the being.61

Since, according to William, bodies do not belong to the substance or to the substances of their souls, it is obvious that they do not make them numerically distinct.62 So too, William points out that accidents, such as virtues and vices, knowledge and its lack, the emotions, and so on, do not make the souls in which they are found numerically distinct.63 William argues that, if such accidents did make souls to be numerically distinct, a soul which is now happy could not become sad, nor could a soul which is sad become happy. Rather, the acquired joy or the sadness would make the soul another soul, according to this error, namely, that accidents and things that come to something from the outside make

60 Ibid., 617bAB: “Et hoc apparet ex operationibus earum, quae sunt intelligere, sive cogitare, sive scire, amare, velle, gaudere. Supervacuum enim est, sive superfluum, quod non prodest; hujusmodi autem operationes prosunt operatoribus, quarum sunt, et creatorem tanto amplius glorificant in semetipsis et a cognoscentibus ipsas glorificari et laudari faciunt.” 61 Ibid, ch. 10, 817bCD: “Declaratio autem hujus erroris et destructio manifestissima est haec: manifestum enim per se est ea quae accidunt non facere aliud; similiter et ea quae a foris sunt, nec sunt de substantia, nec de necessitate, aut ratione ipsius esse.” 62 Ibid., 817bD: “Quia igitur corpora nec sunt de substantia, vel substantiis animarum suarum, manifestum est, quod non faciunt eas aliud et aliud.” 63 Ibid.: “Similiter accidentia, hoc est virtutes et vitia, scientiae et ignorantiae et passiones, quae sunt gaudium, tristitia, timor, et audacia, et caetera hujusmodi, non faciunt animas, in quibus sunt, aliud et aliud.”

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those things to which they come to be something else.64 Thus, William insists that if accidents and extrinsic things were what caused souls to be many, there would be no alteration or change in souls. And if there were no alterations or changes in souls, then if two souls are numerically distinct when they are in their separate bodies, as the philosophers grant, they will also be numerically distinct apart from their bodies.65 William offers a battery of arguments to show that substances cannot be made many by accidents or anything external to them and that they cannot lose their manyness by losing any accidents or relation to other external things. He specifically argues against the view that human souls are all one in essence. He takes as his principle: “Just as things which differ substantially or essentially cannot become the same thing or the same things by acquiring accidents or by qualitative likeness, so those which are one essentially cannot become diverse by any accidental unlikeness or difference.”66 Applying the principle to human souls, William points out that, if they are now one in essence, “they will not be made diverse by any difference or diversity of bodies, just as a human being and an ass cannot by any accidental likeness become one being.”67 Hence, William confronts the Aristotelians with a dilemma: either they must admit that “all human souls are now one, while they are in bodies,” or they must admit that “they will not be one, when they 64 Ibid.: “Secundum hoc enim anima, quae nunc gaudet, non posset tristari, aut econverso, cum non possit esse aliud et aliud; gaudium autem et tristitia facerent eam aliud et aliud secundum errorem istum, videlicet si accidentia, et a foris advenientia haec possent facere, scilicet aliud et aliud, id cui advenirent.” 65 Ibid., 817bD: “Et propter hoc alteratio vel mutatio nihil esset apud animas; si igitur vere sunt anima Socratis et anima Platonis aliud et aliud, dum sunt in corporibus, erunt vere aliud et aliud ex necessitate, cum erunt extra illa.” 66 Ibid., 817bD-818aE: “Sicut ea, quae differunt substantialiter vel essentialiter, non adventu accidentium, nulla similitudine qualitatum, possunt idem fieri vel eadem; sic ea, quae sunt unum essentialiter, nulla dissimilitudine vel differentia accidentium possunt fieri diversa. ...” 67 Ibid., 618aE: “si igitur sunt unum essentialiter animae omnes humanae, nulla differentia vel diversitate corporum aut accidentium efficientur diversa, quemadmodum homo et asinus nulla similitudine accidentium possunt fieri unum. ...”


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have been separated from their bodies.”68 That is, the Avicennian position which tries to have it both ways is untenable: either all souls are now one, or they are now many and will continue to be many. After having provided a good dozen arguments against this error, William says that “he does not want to burden [his reader] with more long proofs, since this error is so obvious that any rational person, given a little education, is able to demolish it for himself.”69 He nonetheless goes on to offer further arguments. First of all, in a theological argument, he emphasizes that the error detracts from the glory of God, depriving him of thousands of souls who would praise him in the next life, for it makes the claim “that the totality of them will be one single soul and one thing in essence and truth.”70 The root of the error lies, William claims, in the fact that because Aristotle does not find accidental differences in certain things, he asserts an essential identity in them. For, he sees in all the individuals of many species a complete likeness in accidents, for example, in flies of the same species and age. And because he sees that they differ only by place, he thinks that, when that difference has been removed, they are one thing and one fly.71

The application to human souls, then, is obvious. “Thus, when the differences that the souls had as a result of their bodies have been re-

68 Ibid.: “aut igitur modo sunt unum omnes animae humanae, dum sunt in corporibus, aut non erunt unum, cum fuerint a corporibus separatae.” 69 Ibid., ch. 11, 819aB: “Et quoniam error iste adeo manifestus est, ut quivis rationalis (licet paucae exercitationis) sufficiat sibi ad destructionem ipsius, onerari te nolo majori prolixitate probationum.” 70 Ibid., 819aBC: “Verum scire debes, quoniam intolerabiliter detrahit gloriae et magnificentiae creatoris, quia aufert ei tot millia animarum in altera vita ... ponens universitatem earum unam solam animam esse futuram, et unum solum essentia et veritate.” 71 Ibid., 819aC: “Nec miseranda est etiam imbecillitas vel erroneitas hominis hujusmodi, qui pro eo, quod non apprehendit differentias accidentales in rebus aliquibus ponit identitatem essentialem in eis cum videat in omnibus individuis multarum specierum similitudinem omnimodam in accidentibus, quemadmodum in muscis ejusdem speciei et ejusdem aetatis, quarum innumerabilis est multitudo; et quia non videt eas differre nisi loco, putat eas sublata illa differentia esse unum et unam muscam.”

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moved—they were, after all, only accidental—he thinks that all souls are one and only one thing.”72 William then adds an interesting remark: And what Aristotle says is this: there cannot be many separated substances of the same rank, but because of the differences which they have in rank and dignity, the ten intelligences were rendered many. For, if they were of the same rank and dignity, there would be no difference between them and, hence, no plurality of them.73

Here William seems to indicate that Aristotle—or rather Avicenna— spoke about the individuation of intelligences, but William himself made the application to human souls, because, as William sees it, souls are themselves separated substances, at least after death.

VI. Another Look at the Identity of the Aristotelians William makes another revealing remark in reminding us that “a certain Latin philosopher” maintained the position that “only the variety of accidents produces numerical difference between individuals.”74 The Latin philosopher is, of course, Bocthius.75 But William is apparently not concerned about Boethius, whose statement he interprets in a quite different sense, but with some contemporaries who are using Boethius’s words to defend the position of the Aristotelians. Thus he

72 Ibid., 819aD: “Sic sublatis differentiis, quae a parte corporum erant in animabus (quae non sunt nisi accidentales) putat omnes animas unam et unum solum.” 73 Ibid.: “Et hoc est, quod dicit Aristoteles, quod non possunt esse plures substantiae separatae ejusdem ordinis, et nobilitatis; decem autem intelligentiae propter differentias, quas habent in ordine, et nobilitate, factae sum plures, quia si essent ejusdem ordinis, et nobilitatis, nulla essent inter eas differentia, et propter hoc nulla earum pluralitas.” 74 Ibid.: “Quidem quoque ex Latinis philosophis dixit evidenter in libro suo, quod sola accidentium varietas facit differentiam numerorum inter individua.” 75 In his De trinitate Boethius says, “Sed numero differentiam accidentium varietas facit.” Cf. Boethius: The Theological Treatises with an English Translation, ed. H. F. Stewart and E. K. Rand (Cambridge, Mass., 1946) 6, lines 24-25.


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mentions, “And by that statement some have tried to defend this error for themselves.”76 The identity of the “aliqui” is intriguing. They would seem to be either William’s contemporaries or persons from the recent past, for they are obviously Christians who knew both Boethius and Avicenna.77 De Vaux finds William’s discussion of the individuation of the human soul “l’attestation la plus nette de l’existence d’un avicennisme latin.”78 But there is another bit of evidence for the identity of these persons that should not be overlooked. In discussing Plato’s doctrine of a world-soul, William says, You should, however, know that they were blinded and deficient in their understanding to the point that they believed that a numerically single soul of the world animated whatever is ensouled in the world and the soul of Socrates is not something other than the soul of Plato, but is another soul, and this stems from the difference between the action of ensouling and what is ensouled. As a result, they had to admit that Socrates is not something other than Plato in essence and in truth, but is other as a result of the previously mentioned differences.79 76 De universo Ia-IIae, ch. 11, 819aD: “Et hoc sermone conati sunt aliqui confirmare sibi errorem istum.” For his explanation of what Boethius understands by his statement, William refers to what he had earlier said in De universo IIIa-Iae, ch. 29, 802aE: “Nec te conturbet sermo cujusdam ex Italicis philosophis qui dixit, quia sola accidentium varietas facit differentiam numero, quoniam intentio ejus non fuit in hoc nisi vel excludere differentiam specificam vel alias substantiales differentias, vel retulit intellectum sermonis sui ad nos, intelligens differentiam ipsam distinctionem nostram; fuit igitur intentio ejus in hoc sermone, quod sola accidentium varietas, id est, non species, aut differentia substantialis, aut aliquid communium omnium essentialium facit differentiam numero, hoc est diversificat ipsa individua vel facit distinctionem numeralem nobis individuorum; non enim specie distinguimus individua, sed magis unimus similitudine essentiali omnimoda, quae est eis in specie.” 77 A marginal notation at this point in the Opera omnia says, “Intellige Albertum Magnum.” However, as de Vaux has observed,“C’est dix années trop tôt” (Notes et textes (n. 13 above), 42, n. I, as in n. 13 above). 78 De Vaux, Notes and textes, 41. 79 De universo IIIa-Iae, ch. 29, 801bCD: “Debes autem scire, quia eousque excaecati sunt, et eousque intellectu deficientes, ut crederent unam animam mundi numero, quidquid in mundo est animarum, animare, nec aliud esse secundum essentiam et veritatem animam Socratis, quam animam Platonis,

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William then goes on to show, by the sort of argument with which we are now familiar, that accidental differences do not constitute a numerical distinction, though he admits that in the present life it is the varieties of sensible accidents that allow us to count and distinguish a plurality of things.80 The point relevant to our topic, however, is that William here associates the erroneous view that he elsewhere attributes to Aristotle and his followers—especially Avicenna—with Plato and certain Platonists who seem to hold the same position. Hence, it seems quite possible that the contemporaries of William who held the view he attributes to the Aristotelians may have been Christian Platonists, perhaps members of the school of Chartres.81 In conclusion, then, the error which William combats regarding the unicity of the human soul after separation from the body seems to have been the result of an inference that applies what Avicenna said about the individuation of separate intelligences to the individuation of human souls. Avicenna himself clearly maintained that human souls remain many after separation from their bodies, but from his stated principles regarding the individuation of the intelligences and human souls, others concluded that all human souls became one soul after death. William of Auvergne, who is in many other respects deeply indebted to Avicenna, provided a strong refutation on both philosophical and theological grounds of the position that he attributed to Aristotle and his followers. sed aliam animam, et hoc ex alietate animationis et animati. Ex quo necesse habent recipere non aliud esse Socratem, quam Platonem secundum essentiam et secundum veritatem, sed alium ex praedictis alietatibus.” 80 See ibid., 802aG: “In statu vero hujusmodi tam tenebrosae miseriae non illuminatur ad ea numeranda et distinguenda, nisi per ipsas accidentium varietates, accidentium dico sensibilium. ...” 81 William’s concern with such Platonists has not gone unnoticed. Masnovo has argued that the philosophers whom William labels “Italici” and who held the eternity of the world were Platonizing members of the school of Chartes. See his Da Guglielmo D’Auvergne a S. Tommaso D’Aquino 2: 206–212 (as in n. 9 above). In my“The Identity of the‘Italici’ in William of Auvergne’s Discussion of the Eternity of the World,” Proceedings of the PMR Conference 15 (1990): 191–203, I pointed out the resemblance between William’s definition of time and William of Conches’s citation of Cicero’s definition. Moreover, within a few chapters William goes on to reject the view of William of Conches and of Thierry of Chartres that likens the Holy Spirit to the soul of the world. See de Vaux, Notes a textes, 24–25, n. 4.


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But there is also evidence that this error which William attributes to the Aristotelians was defended by some Christians thinkers of William’s own time who appealed to both Avicenna and Boethius, and whom William links with the Platonist doctrine of a world-soul. William’s response to their position indicates his clear insight into the danger of their teaching and reveals his ability to muster strong philosophical and theological arguments against what he saw as a clear and present danger.82 On the other hand, though William argues strongly for the fact that souls remain many after they are separated from their bodies, he offers no metaphysical explanation that accounts for the individuation of human souls or of separate intelligences and, in fact, seems not to have seen the problem.

82 Alas, William was not satisfied with such arguments. He mentions that “hic autem est error, quem igne et gladio lex omnis persequitur. Contra hunc igitur errorem animae humanae non solum rationibus et probationibus, armari debent omnia genera hominum, sed ferro et omni genere tormenti ad exterminandum ipsum, cum error ille, et vitam alteram et gloriam, propter quam creatae sunt, auferat eisdem” (De universo Ia-IIae, ch. 10, 819aA).

William of Auvergne’s Arguments for the Newness of the World

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illiam of Auvergne, philosopher-theologian and bishop of Paris, was one of the first thinkers in the Latin West to be seriously concerned with the Aristotelian doctrine of the eternity of the world. Despite considerable recent scholarly interest in the question of the eternity of the world in the thirteenth century, only slight attention has been paid to William’s arguments for the “newness of the world: novitas mundi.” For example, Amato Masnovo’s three-volume study of William’s philosophy emphasizes William’s refutation of Avicenna’s arguments for the eternity of the world, but discusses only the few arguments which William used in the De trinitate for the newness of the world. Following Masnovo, Luca Bianchi notes that William called attention to the dangers of the philosophical doctrines of an eternal and necessary world and that he William was a canon of Notre Dame and master of theology in Paris by 1225. He was ordained as bishop of Paris by Gregory IX in 1228 and died in 1249. For more on William’s life and works, see William of Auvergne: The Trinity, or The First Principle, trans. by R. J. Teske and F. C. Wade (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1989), pp. 1–5. Besides the studies mentioned in the following notes, see Stephen Baldner, “St. Bonaventure on the Beginning of the Temporal World,” The New Scholasticism 63 (1989), 206–228 and Rega Wood, “Richard Rufus of Cornwall on Creation: The Reception of Aristotelian Physics in the West,” Medieval Philosophy and Theology 2 (1992), 1–30. The expression, “the newness of the world: novitas mundi,” though it surely strikes modern ears as odd, has the advantage of succinctly expressing an important concept, namely, that the world has existed for only a finite stretch of time. Although William himself thought that the world’s being created entailed its newness, he was well aware that others held that God eternally created the world. Amato Masnovo, Da Guglielmo D’Auvergne A S. Tommaso D’Aquino. 3 vols; 2nd ed. (Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 1946). In chapters seven and eight of volume two, Masnovo discusses William’s arguments against Avicenna on the eternity of the world.

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refuted Avicenna’s argument for the eternity of the world. Later in his book he acknowledges that, “in the De trinitate, and especially in the De universo, William of Auvergne raised against the doctrine of the eternity of the world subtle theoretical variations based on the twofold claim that there are no infinite numbers and that the infinite—according to the philosopher—is simpliciter intransibile. Bianchi offers no further development of William’s arguments and credits Bonaventure with the definitive recovery of the concept of the infinite as a decisive tool in the controversy over the duration the world. Similarly, in his excellent book of the eternity of world in the Middle Ages, Richard C. Dales notes that “William of Auvergne shared Grosseteste’s view that Aristotle had taught the eternity of the world, although whether he derived it from him is not clear. In any case he did not place so much importance on it as the bishop of Lincoln. In a previous study of the eternity of the world in William, I examined the arguments by which William countered the arguments of Aristotle and Avicenna that the world must always have existed. But I did nothing more than note the existence of William’s arguments, both in his De trinitate and in his De universo, by which he tried to prove that the world is “new.” It does not, of course, follow from the inconclusiveness of the arguments for the eternity of the world that the past duration of the world is finite, since it is possible to hold, as both Maimonides and Aquinas did, that argu Luca Bianchi, L’errore di Aristotele. La polemica contro l’eternità del mondo nel XIII secolo (Firenze: La Nuova Italia Editrice, 1984), pp. 94–95. “Fin dal primo contatto col pensiero greco-arabo, agli inizi del XIII secolo, la pericolosita del binomio ‘necessitarismo-eternalismo’ era stata avvertita con estrema chiarezza da Guglielmo d’Auvergne, che aveva confrontarsi fino in fundo con quelle analisi filosofiche della realtà di Dio attraverso le quali si attaccava l’idea di una libera creazione temporale del mondo” (p. 94). Bianchi, L’errore di Aristotele, p. 143; see Aristotle, Metaphysics XI, 10 (1066a35). Bianchi, L’errore di Aristotele, p. 144. R. C. Dales, Medieval Discussions of the Eternity of the World (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1990), p. 74. As Dales notes, Grosseteste probably completed his Hexaemeron in 1235 in Oxford, while William finished his De universo in Paris no later than 1236. Hence, the virtual simultaneity of the two works makes it all but impossible to determine an influence of one upon the other. “William of Auvergne on the Eternity of the World,” The Modern Schoolman LXVII (1990), 187–205.


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ments for the eternity of the world and arguments for the finiteness of past time are both inconclusive. The present paper deals with William’s arguments in the De universo for the “newness of the world.” Though William does present a few arguments for the newness of the world in De trinitate, they are few in number and not nearly as well developed and powerful as the mass of arguments that William produces in De universo.10 There are, in fact, two clusters of arguments in the De universo: first, there are eleven arguments that William refers to as “moral and metaphysical,”11 and then there is another series of arguments which he calls strictly metaphysical and which are centered upon the impossibility of an infinite past time. What I intend to do in this paper is to examine the second group of arguments that William presents in the De universo. These arguments bear a striking resemblance to the three sorts of arguments that John Philoponus developed in the sixth century and which have been preserved in Simplicius’s Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics. H. A. Davidson has studied how Philoponus’s arguments have been used by Medieval Islamic and Jewish thinkers as sources of their arguments for the finiteness of past time and, hence, the creation of the world.12 I shall first examine William’s arguments in relation to those of Philoponus; though the evidence that William knew Philoponus’s arguments through

10 For the arguments in the De trinitate, see William of Auvergne: De Trinitate. An Edition of the Latin Text with an Introduction. Ed. Bruno Switalski (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1976), ch. 10, especially, pp. 68–69. 11 De universo IIa-Iae, ch. 11; I, 697bA: “Et quoniam rationes, quae hucusque positae sunt, partim ethicae sunt, sive morales, ut illae, videlicet, quae sunt a testimoniis, partim vero naturales et metaphysicae; prosequar rationes metaphysicas circa hanc opinionem Aristotelis. ...” The full references to William’s De universo will be to the part, chapter, volume, page, column, and section of Guilelmi Alverni Episcopi Paresiensis Opera Omnia, 2 vols., ed F. Hotot, with Supplementum, ed. B. Le Feron (Orléans–Paris, 1674; repr. Frankfurt am Main, 1963). 12 Herbert A. Davidson,“John Philoponus as a Source of Medieval Islamic and Jewish Proofs of Creation,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 89.2 (1969), 357–391.

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some Islamic or Jewish source is, I believe, strong, it does not seem possible to identify his source or sources with any more precision.13

I. Philoponus’s Arguments for the Finiteness of Past Time The first argument of Philoponus aims to show that there cannot be an infinite series of events in the sublunar world. Davidson sums up the argument as follows:“the present moment could never have been reached if it were preceded by infinite time.”14 His summation rests upon the following argument from Simplicius: “If for the generation of a given thing there must first exist an infinite number of things that are generated from one another, then the given thing cannot be generated.”15 The second argument of Philoponus basically claims that nothing can be added to what is infinite. Simplicius puts it as follows: “If motions yet to be generated, when added to those now generated, increase their number and if, further, it is impossible to increase the infinite, then motions that have already come into existence cannot be infinite.”16 Philoponus’s third argument “maintains that one infinite cannot be a multiple of another.”17 Or, put another way, it “contends that since the planets move at different speeds, eternity would involve the absurdity of one infinite’s being a multiple of another.”18 Simplicius reports the argument as follows: 13 Dales notes that the similarity between Bonaventure’s arguments and those of Philoponus has been pointed out, e.g., by Richard Sorabji in Time, Creation and the Continuum: Theories in Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1983), p. 202. On the other hand, he also points out that Philoponus was not translated into Latin, but admits that “Bonaventure may have read an account of Philoponus’s arguments in some Arabic or Jewish work” (Dales, Medieval Discussions, p. 91, n. 13). 14 Davidson, “John Philoponus,” p. 376. 15 Simplicius’s commentary on the Physics, p. 1178; cited from Davidson, “John Philoponus,” p. 366. 16 Simplicius’s commentary on the Physics, p. 1179; cited from Davidson, “John Philoponus,” p. 367. 17 Ibid., p. 368. 18 Ibid., p. 377.


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If ... the movement of the heavens has no beginning, the sphere of the planet Saturn necessarily has performed infinite revolutions, the sphere of the planet Jupiter almost three times as many, the revolutions of the sun will be thirty times those of Saturn, the revolutions of the moon will be 360 times as many, and the revolutions of the fixed sphere will be more than 10,000 times as many. Considering that the infinite cannot be traversed even once, is it not beyond all absurdity to suppose the infinite multiplied by 10,000, nay multiplied infinitely? It necessarily follows that the circular motion of the heavens had a beginning ... at the moment when the heavens themselves had a beginning of their existence.19

Davidson notes that Philoponus’s third argument was frequently conflated with his second, since its claim that one infinite cannot be a multiple of another is merely a variation on the claim that one infinite cannot be larger than another.20

II. William’s Arguments for the “Newness of the World” William has examples of each of the three arguments found in Philoponus, though he has also developed variations on each of them.21 He offers several versions of the first sort of argument which maintains that the present—or any specific—time could never have been reached, if an infinite amount of time had to pass first. William first argues that, if one holds that past time is infinite, it follows “that one hour of the whole of past time did not flow by before 19 Simplicius’s commentary on the Physics I, p. 1179; cited from Davidson, “John Philoponus,” p. 368. 20 Davidson, “John Philoponus,” p. 377. 21 In her article, “Richard Rufus of Cornwall on Creation,” p. 10–12, Rega Wood says that Philoponus’s argument for the finiteness of past time appeared for the first time in the Latin West around 1223 in William’s De trinitate. She points out that Richard Rufus, who wrote shortly after William, referred to Philoponus as “Ioannes Grammaticus” and was familiar with his argument for the finiteness of past time. Though she admits that “most medievalists agree ... that Philoponus had no direct influence on Latin scholasticism,” she rightly points out that “the similarities between Philoponus’s views and some important developments in scholastic natural philosophy continue to raise questions” (p. 11, n. 29).

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a day or month or year and even before a million years.22 The proof is developed in a dilemma: “If [Aristotle] says that an hour passed before a million years passed, either time to infinity came before that hour or did not come before that hour.”23 On the first alternative, the million years were part of that infinite time; hence, in the whole of [that infinite time] they came before the hour we mentioned.”24 Then, it follows that the designated hour “did not pass before a million years, and not merely before a million years, but infinite millions, since infinite time contains infinite millions.”25 The second horn of the dilemma itself is a dilemma. “If infinite time did not precede that hour, either a finite time or no time preceded it.”26 But then either the beginning of that finite time was the beginning of the whole of time, or the beginning of that hour was itself the beginning of time. In either case, time had a beginning.27 William’s conclusion is that, given Aristotle’s position, “an hour from the whole of time did not pass before a million years and that it is not possible to show that infinite millions of years did not come before it.”28 William does not spell out the conclusion of the argument, but it would seem to be that, if infinite 22 De universo IIa-Iae, ch. 11; I, 697b8: “et dicam in primis, quoniam accidit Aristoteli, non prius fluxisse horam de toto tempore praeterito quam diem, vel mensem, vel annum, nec etiam antequam mille millia annorum. ...” 23 Ibid.: “hujusmodi autem probatio est, quia si dixerit aliquam horam fluxisse, antequam mille millia annorum fluxissent, aut illam horam praecessit tempus in infinitum, aut non praecessit.” 24 Ibid.: “Si praecessit eam tempus in infinitum, certum est, quia mille millia annorum pars fuerunt temporis infiniti illius; quare in toto illo suo praecesserunt horam praedictam.” 25 Ibid.: “Non igitur hora illa prius fluxit quam mille millia annorum, nec solum mille millia annorum praecesserunt horam illam, sed infinita millia, cum tempus infinitum ex necessitate contineat infinita millia.” 26 Ibid., 697bC: “Quod si illam horam non praecessit tempus infinitum, aut praecessit tempus finitum, aut nihil temporis.” 27 Ibid.: “Si tempus finitum, initium igitur illius fuit initium temporis totius, quare tempus habuit initium. Si autem nihil temporis praecessit horam illam, manifestum est, quia initium illius horae fuit initium totius temporis.” 28 Ibid.: “Quare manifestum est quia secundum opinionem Aristotelis non fluxit hora de toto tempore, antequam mille millia annorum, et quia non est designare, quod non praecesserunt infinita millia annorum.”


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time had to pass before any particular hour, day, month, or year could pass, none of these particular times could pass, as they obviously do pass. William’s second argument also reflects the first argument of Philoponus; it appeals to Aristotle’s claim that the infinite cannot be traversed, especially by a finite motion. Then William again sets up a dilemma: the whole time that has already passed is either infinite, as [Aristotle] held, or finite. But if it is finite, it has for that reason, a beginning. Hence, motion also [has a beginning], and this is against him. But if it is infinite, how has the whole, then, already passed by? Its flow, after all, does not have an infinite speed, nor does it have a greater speed than the motion of the heavens.29

In order to illustrate his point, William asks his reader to imagine an infinite amount of water with a finite flow, e.g., through a finite pipe or finite channel and at a finite speed. Obviously, the whole of the water will never drain off.30 Once again the point is that the present time could not have been reached if infinite time had first to flow by. William’s third argument is directed against the infinity of future time and need not concern us in this paper. His fourth argument is based on Philoponus’s third argument that one infinity cannot be a multiple of another, e.g., three or thirty times as long. William again proceeds by way of a dilemma:“In the whole of past time the heaven completed a finite or infinite number of revolutions.”31 If the former, it necessarily did so in a finite time. “The whole of time, then, which has passed up to the present moment will be finite.”32 If 29 Ibid.: “Amplius. Cum infinitum, ut ipsemet dicit alibi, intransibile est, et maxime motu finito, tempus autem totum, quod praeteriit, aut infinitum est, ut ipse dicit, aut finitum. Quod si finitum, habet igitur initium. Quapropter et motus, et hoc est ei contrarium. Si autem infinitum, qualiter ergo totum jam transiit? Fluxus enim ipsius non est infinitae velocitatis, nec majoris est velocitatis quam motus coelestis.” 30 Ibid., 697bD: “Ponam autem ad hoc exemplum de aqua, et dicam, quia si imaginatus fueris aquam infinitam, et ponas fluxum ejus finitum, hoc est, ut per fistulam finitam, vel canalem finitum, et finita velocitate effluat, non erit unquam possibile ipsam totam effluxisse.” 31 Ibid., 697bD-698aE: “In toto praeterito tempore coelum complevit revolutiones finitas, aut infinitas.” 32 Ibid., 698aE: “Si finitas, necesse est quod in tempore finito, quoniam in tot partibus temporis aequalibus, quot ipsae fuerunt, cum paris velocitatis sint

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the latter, i.e., “the heaven completed an infinite number of revolutions in the whole of past time,” William resorts to the imagination: “I will imagine—for this imagining is possible for the intellect—that [the heaven] was moved at half its speed in the whole past time.”33 Then the two motions—the one half the speed of the other—will be proportionate to the two times, the one half the length of the other. Hence, at the slower speed the heaven completed only half of the revolutions it has already completed. The revolutions, then, which the heaven completed in the whole past time, have a half, and for the same reason a quarter and an eighth, and so on to infinity. But it is obvious that the infinite does not have a half.34

Again William does not spell out the application of the argument to time, though, since the number of revolutions is proportionate to the time, if there can be a half of the number of revolutions, there can be a half of the time—and it is, of course, absurd to have a half of infinite time. William’s fifth argument involves imagining just the opposite, namely, that the motion of the heaven was twice as fast in the whole of past time, which leads to the absurd conclusion that there would have been twice the infinite number of revolutions.35 His sixth argument continues the same imaginative procedure and once again appeals to the impossibil-

omnes revolutiones coeli. Erit igitur totum tempus, quod praeteriit usque in praesens nunc finitum.” 33 Ibid.: “Si vero dixerit, quia infinitas revolutiones complevit coelum toto tempore praeterito, imaginabor, quia ista imaginatio possibilis est intellectui, quod duplo minori velocitate motum fuerit toto tempore praeterito.” 34 Ibid.: “Quia igitur quae est proportio motus ad motum, eadem est pertransiti ad pertransitum in eodem tempore, vel aequali, ex necessitate necesse ut eodem tempore, non nisi medietatem revolutionum jam completarum compleverit. Revolutiones igitur quas complevit toto tempore praeterito coelum, habent medietatem, et per eandem habent quartum et octavam, et ita in infinitum. Manifestum autem est, quia infinitum medietatem non habet.” 35 Ibid., 698aEF: “Cum imaginatur econverso, videlicet quad duplo velocior fuerit motus totius coeli in toto tempore, quod praeteriit, ergo per eandem rationem duplo plures erunt revolutiones completae in eodem tempore. Non autem erat completurum coelum plures revolutiones eis, quae praecesserint, et eis, quae futurae sunt, simul acceptis, tot autem complevisset duplo majori velocitate revolutum, quare finivisset motum suum.”


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ity of an infinite number having a half or a double.36 William’s seventh argument most closely reflects Philoponus’s third argument. William begins by noting that the heaven of the sun or the sun itself completes one of its revolutions in a year. He proceeds to imagine a year of the sun’s revolution having three hundred and sixty equal days so that each day corresponds to one degree of the sun’s circle. Then the proportion of the motion of the heaven [in a year] to the motion of the sun [in a day] will be the proportion of three hundred and sixty to one. Hence, there will be the same proportion of the revolutions of the heaven to the revolutions of the sun. The revolutions, then, of the sun and the years of its revolutions will stand to the revolution of the heaven and the years of its revolutions in a proportion of one to three hundred and sixty.37

William warns his reader not to be disturbed about his speaking of years in both cases and notes that it is the same as if he spoke of days, He further points out that the revolutions of Saturn stand to the revolutions of the sun in a proportion of one to thirty and to the revolutions of Jupiter which stand to those of the sun in a proportion of one to twelve. So too, one can, he adds, consider the revolutions of Mars, Venus, Mercury, and the moon; in each case their revolutions stand in a certain proportion to the revolution of the heaven.38 36 Ibid., 698aF: “Non est dubium quin duplo plures revolutiones complevisset duplicata velocitate motus, et in eodem tempore; quare numerus revolutionum jam completarum habet duplum, et est mediatas alicujus numeri. Non est igitur infinitus hujusmodi numerus, cum et medietatem habeat, ut dictum est, et etiam duplum.” 37 Ibid., 698aFG: “Erit igitur per ea quae audisti, proportio motus ipsius coeli ad motum solis, proportio quae est trecentorum 60 ad unum. Quare et revolutionum coeli ad revolutiones solis erit eadem proportio. Erunt igitur revolutiones solis, et anni revolutionum ejus, ad revolutionem coeli, et annos revolutionum ejusdem in proportione unius ad trecentos 60.” 38 See ibid., 698aGH: “Nec te conturbet quod dixi annos et annos quia idem est, ac si dicerem, quantum ad coelum, dies. Eodem modo est considerare de revolutionibus Saturni, quae sunt ad revolutiones solis in proportione unius ad triginta. Similiter et de revolutionibus Jovis, quoniam similiter sunt secundum eundem modum ad revolutiones solis in proportione unius ad duodecim, et per eandem viam considera de revolutionibus Martis, Veneris, Mercurii, et Lunae. Invenies enim proportiones eorum a revolutione coeli certissimas, et hoc est,

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Studies in the Philosophy of William of Auvergne You will, therefore, find that the revolutions of each of the planets according to astronomical computation will be a certain part, that is, having a certain proportion to all the revolutions of the heaven taken together which have been completed in the whole of time that is terminated at the present moment. But it is impossible for something to be infinite whose parts are found to have a certain comparison and proportion to it, etc.39

The argument contains many of the features found in Simplicius’s statement of it: the mention of Saturn, Jupiter, the sun and the moon, the movement of the heavens, the proportion of the sun’s revolutions to Saturn’s as thirty to one, and the number 360.40 Though William’s astronomical data at times seems jumbled, he does have the essential points of the argument, namely, the different speeds at which the planets move and the premise that one infinite cannot be a multiple of another.41 The point of William’s argument is also the same as that of Philoponus, namely, that, if past time is infinite, the number of the past revolutions of any planet are infinite and the number of the past revolutions of other planets are multiples or fractions of that infinite number. At this point in his argument, in order to bolster his conclusion about the finiteness of past time, William turns to a long argument to prove that there cannot be an infinite continuum. He undertakes to show this first with regard to a line and then makes the application to a surface quoniam proportiones extremorum aggregantur ex proportionibus ipsorum ad media, et mediorum ad invicem.” 39 Ibid., 698aH: “Invenies igitur, quia revolutiones uniuscujusque planetarum secundum computationem astronomicam erit pars certissima, hoc est certissimae proportionis ad universas coeli revolutiones simul acceptas, quae completae sunt toto tempore, quod terminatur in praesens nunc. Impossible autem est infinitum esse, cujus partes certae comparationis, et proportionis ad ipsum inveniuntur, etc.” 40 In Philoponus the revolutions of the moon were 360 times as many as the revolutions of the fixed sphere, which revolves once every twenty-four hours. Though Saàdia changed the number to 365 (the days in the year), William retains the number 360, but “imagines” a year of the sun’s revolution in which each day corresponds to one degree of the 360. See Davidson, “John Philoponus,” p. 368. 41 See Davidson, “John Philoponus,” p. 368, who makes this point about Saàdia.


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and to a body.42 At the end of these arguments, William says that he has explained to his reader that lines, surfaces, and bodies cannot be infinite in even one dimension—not to mention two or more dimensions. “But because the continuities of these sorts of measures and of time are similar, it is necessary that the situation be the same with time.”43 William appeals to Aristotle’s De auditu for this parallelism between spatial continua and time,44 and he uses here a technique that Davidson refers to as the method of “application,” that is, of the application of a temporal magnitude to a spatial magnitude, the ultimate source of which is Avicenna.45 The technique, however, is simply an extension of Philoponus’s second argument, as Davidson notes. William offers several more arguments. The first appeals to the possibility that time flows either faster or slower than it actually does. William asks that we suppose that time flows faster so that it passes one hour faster. “I say, then, that the whole of time will flow by one hour earlier than it otherwise would have flowed by.”46 The result is that, when the whole of time has flowed by, it will leave at the end the space of one hour. William argues that it would be “just as if something is thought to move faster than it moved before so that it passes through a cubit more of space than it would otherwise pass through.”47 William amends his 42 De universo IIa-Iae, ch. 11; I, 698aH-bE: “Ut autem manifestiora, et certiora sint haec, declarabo, quia non potest esse continuum aliquod infinitum. Et primum declarabo hoc in linea, et faciam sciri, quia non potest aliqua linea infinita ex altera parte tantum” and 699aD: “Jam igitur declaratum est tibi per hoc, quia non est possibile lineam aliquam infinitam esse ex altera parte tantum, et per eandem viam facile est tibi ostendere et de superficie et de corpore.” 43 Ibid., 699bD: “Quia vero similes sunt continuitates mensurarum hujusmodi et temporis, necesse est et in tempore similiter se habere. ...” 44 Ibid., 697bD-698aE: “et hoc jam declaravit Aristoteles in libro suo de auditu.” The reference is to Aristotle’s De caelo, perhaps to I, 5 (272a8ff.), where Aristotle draws a parallel between time and a line. 45 Davidson, “John Philoponus,” pp. 379-380. 46 De universo IIa-Iae, ch. 11; I, 700aE: “Intelligibile est, tempus velocius posse fluere aliquantulum quam fluat, vel transeat; similiter et tardius. Esto igitur, quod fluat, vel transeat velocius, ita ut fluxus ejus sit velocior quantitate unius horae. Dico, igitur, quia totum tempus effluet una hora prius, quam alias esset effluxurum. ...” 47 Ibid., 700aEF: “quare a parte finis reliquit post se unius horae spatium, quemadmodum si aliquid intelligatur moveri velocius, quam moveretur ante,

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previous statement that there would be one hour left after the whole of time had passed: “Hence, by the addition of this speed there is subtracted from time one hour at the end; hence, time will necessarily come to an end at the point which would be the beginning of this hour.”48 William explains that the reason for this is that what moves into the past is taken from the future; he offers an example of water flowing off more rapidly if the speed of its flow is increased by a thousand gallons.49 William’s conclusion is that one hour will be subtracted from the whole of time and from its end, not from its beginnings, so that it is finite in that direction.50 Once again the point of William’s conclusion is not immediately clear; however, he had previously argued that “it is not possible that a line be infinite in but one direction” and that the same point could be made regarding a surface and a body.51 Furthermore, because of the similarity between such continua and time, if a line cannot be infinite in only one direction, he could have intended to show by the method of application that time cannot be infinite in only one direction either. Then, since William has just shown that time is finite in one direction, it cannot be infinite in the other. William, however, does not draw that conclusion; instead, he says that “Aristotle will not escape the fact that, if it is intelligible that the course of time be increased to twice its speed or that it be lessened to ita ut transeat majus spatium per cubitum quam alias transiret, sicut occupat ante se unum cubitum supra id, quod alias occuparet, ita post se reliquit plus unum cubitum supra id, quod alias reliquissset.” 48 Ibid., 700aF: “Quare et tempori detrahitur per istam adjectionem velocitatis a parte finis una hora, quare finietur ex necessitate in puncto, quod esset initium horae illius, si hora illa futura esset.” 49 Ibid., 700aFG: “Causa autem in hoc esset, quoniam quod occupat praeteritio, sive antecessio, hoc amittit futuritio. Exemplum autem hujusmodi est in aqua, quae tota effluerit, si intelligatur fluxus ejus augeri quantumcunque, videlicet in tantum, quantum est fluxus mille modiorum, ex necessitate accelerabitur ejus effluxio tanto tempore, quantum requirit fluxus mille modiorum.” 50 Ibid., 700aG: “Quare detrahetur toti tempori in tanto [or: toto] et non detrahetur ei a parte principii, detrahetur igitur a parte finis, et ita finietur ex parte illa.” 51 Ibid., 699aD: “Jam declaratum est tibi per hoc quia non est possible lineam aliquam infinitam esse ex altera parte tantum, et per eandem viam facile est tibi ostendere et de superficie et de corpore.”


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half, [the course of time] has a half and has a double.52 This, of course, is simply another version of Philoponus’s third argument. At this point, William throws in another paradox that results from the infinity of time. He says that Aristotle “will not escape this impossibility, namely, that every now in infinite time is the midpoint in the whole of time from each end, since it does not have more time before it than after it, and vice versa.”53 Finally, in drawing this long chapter to a close, William adds one final proof, beginning once again with a dilemma.“Either the blessed Creator could postpone the creation of the world for one hour or he could not.”54 But no necessity could force God to create the world at the earlier time, and God certainly could do something that is possible in itself. Since the world in itself has possible being, its being could be postponed for an infinite amount of time. Hence, William concludes that it was possible for its creation to be postponed for one hour.55 But, William argues that from the assertion of something possible, nothing impossible results. “Let it be stated, then, that the creation of the world was postponed for one hour. I say, therefore, that at the end of that hour the world was created; hence, the time from its creation up to now is finite, since it is bounded on each end.”56 William then appeals to Aristotle, “But you have already learned elsewhere that, if there remains something finite 52 Ibid., 700aG: “Et non effugit Aristoteles quin si intelligibile est, ut augeatur in duplum velocitatis cursus temporis, aut si minuatur in duplum, quin habeat medietatem, et quin habeat duplum.” 53 Ibid.: “Similiter non effugit illud impossibile, videlicet quod omne nunc in tempore infinito, ex utraque parte sit medium in toto tempore illo, cum non habeat plus de tempore ante se, quam post se, vel e converso.” 54 Ibid.: “Addam, et istam ultimam manifestationem ad hoc et dicam, quia creator benedictus aut potuit differre creationem mundi per horam, aut non potuit.” 55 Ibid., 700aGH: “Si non potuit, cujus modi illum arctabat necessitas ad creandum? Praeterea hoc reputant ipsi inconveniens, videlicet, quod Deus non potuerit aliquid, quod in se est possible; nulli enim dubium est, quin mundus in se ipso sit possibilis esse. Quare quantum in ipso est retardibile est ejus esse in infinitum. Nulla autem necessitas arctabat creatorem ad accelerandum eousque creationem ipsius; quare possibile fuit differri saltem per horam creationem ejus.” 56 Ibid., 700aH: “Posito autem possibili, non accidit impossibile. Ponatur igitur istud, quod per horam dilata sit creatio mundi. Dico ergo, quia in fine

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after something finite has been removed, the whole will be finite.”57 Since a finite amount of the whole of time from the creation of the world to the present moment remains, after the merely finite hour of delay has been removed, it follows that “together with the part that was removed, [the whole of time] will necessarily be finite. Hence, it is not possible that it be infinite, since it is not possible that, with only that hour removed, there remain an infinite amount of it.58 The argument is really a variation on Philoponus’s second argument that rested upon the claim that the infinite cannot be added to, working instead on the premise that the infinite cannot have anything subtracted from it. William’s argument rests upon the imagined one hour during which God delayed the creation of the world. It is interesting to see that Bonaventure rejected an analogous argument that claimed that God could have created the world earlier than he did, because it presupposed a time before the world was created. William’s argument has the same sort of flaw to which Bonaventure objected.59

III. Summary and Conclusion William’s arguments for the “newness of the world” have been neglected in the scholarly literature on the question. The present paper tries to remedy that neglect, through an examination of the second set of arguments from the De universo which William called “metaphysical.” I have horae illius creatus fuit mundus, quare tempus a creatione ejus usque nunc finitum est, cum sit ex utraque parte terminatum.” 57 Aristotle, De caelo I, 5 (272a8): “Again, if from a finite time a finite time be subtracted, what remains must be finite and have a beginning.” De universo IIa-Iae, ch. 11; I, 700aH: “Jam autem didicisti alibi, quia si finitum remanet detracto finito, prius erat finitum, et si finitum additur finito, totum erit finitum.” 58 De Universo IIa-Iae, ch. 11; I, 700aH-bE: “Quia igitur finitum remanet de tempore toto, quod est a creatione mundi usque nunc, solo finito detracto, scilicet hora dilationis praedictae, ergo cum illo detracto erit ex necessitate finitum; quare non est possible, ut sit infinitum, cum non sit possibile, ut detracta illa hora solummodo, de eo remaneat infinitum.” 59 One might try to rework the argument to say that the past time of the world could have been one hour less than it was. But while that move avoids imagining a time before the existence of the world, it seems to beg the question about the finiteness of past time.


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shown that this set of William’s arguments follows the framework of the three arguments which were developed by John Philoponus in the sixth century and handed down by the Islamic and Jewish philosophers of the Middle Ages. William’s use of many of the details from the third argument of Philoponus would seem to prove beyond any doubt that William had access to Philoponus’s argument through some Islamic or Jewish source, even if that source cannot be specified. The paper has also shown, I believe, that William’s treatment of the question of the eternity of the world is quite extensive and that one could very well claim that William anticipated Bonaventure in the recovery of the concept of the infinite as a decisive instrument in the controversy concerning the duration of the world.60 It is curious that William does not have the argument found in Al Ghazali and Maimonides that an infinite past time would entail an actual infinity of immortal souls.61 William does use the method of application which Davidson claims is ultimately dependent upon Avicenna.62 It is clear that William did read Avicenna, though Avicenna was not his source for Philoponus’s arguments, since he did not have them. Davidson notes that apart from Al Ghazali’s Tahafut, the other Islamic and Jewish works in which Philoponus’s arguments are found blur the boundary between the second and third arguments.63 Wood says that Richard Rufus almost certainly knew William, and while she admits it is uncertain whether Richard had indirect access to Philoponus’s version of the argument, she suggests the works of Al Ghazali as the most likely point of contact.64 Hence, though it seems impossible at present to come to anything more certain regarding William’s contact with Philoponus through some Islamic or Jewish source, it is clear that William could certainly have been the source for later Latin writers. 60 See Bianchi, L’errore de Aristotele, p. 144, who makes this claim for the great Franciscan. Certainly, Bonaventure’s use of these arguments in his Commentary on the Sentences (In II Sent. d. 1, p. 1, a. 1, q. 2) was to have the more lasting impact on the history of philosophy, but it is surely likely that he read them in William. 61 See Davidson, “John Philoponus,” p. 378, n. 159, where he refers to Al Ghazali’s Tahafut I, #22 and Maimonides, Guide I, 74 (7). 62 See Davidson, “John Philoponus,” p. 380. 63 See Davidson, “John Philoponus,” p. 377. 64 See Wood, “Richard Rufus of Cornwall on Creation,” p. 13, n. 39.

William of Auvergne’s rejection of the Platonic archetypal World

I

n his well known article, “Pourquoi saint Thomas a critiqué saint Augustin,” Étienne Gilson remarked concerning William of Auvergne, Le premier point à noter, lorsqu’on veut comprendre Guillaume d’Auvergne, spécialement dans cette partie de son oeuvre, c’est qu’Aristote se confond souvent pour lui avec Avicenne et que, partant de cette présupposition, les efforts infructueux auxquels il se livre pour s’expliquer qu’un adversaire de Platon, comme le fut Aristote, ait pu enseigner une doctrine aussi nettement platonicienne que celle d’Avicenne, le conduisent aux pires difficultés.

In this passage Gilson was speaking of William’s De universo creaturarum and of problems in his theory of knowledge, but William assumed that Avicenna was an authentic representative of Aristotle’s views on many other points that the real Aristotle certainly never held. This paper looks at another case in the De universo where William took views of Avicenna to be those of the historical Aristotle and, as a result, concluded that Aristotle was contradicting himself. In his treatise on the separate substances, which is first part of the second principal part of the De universo, William argues against the Étienne Gilson,“Pourquoi saint Thomas a critiqué saint Augustin,” Archive d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen âge 1 (1926-7): 6–127, at 66; hereafter cited as “Pourquoi.” William’s De universo is the second part of his Magisterium sapientale et doctrinale; it is divided into two principal parts, the first on the material universe, the second on the spiritual universe. Each principal part is divided into three parts. It was only in this century that Josef Kramp showed that seven of William’s works constituted this single huge opus; see his “Des Wilhelm von Auvergne ‘Magisterium Divinale,’” Gregorianum 1 (1920): 538–613; 2 (1921): 42–103 and 174–195. Though in terms of the systematic ordering of the works in William’s Magisterium the De universo comes second, it was written late in his career, circa 1236. For further details on the systematic order and chronology of the parts of the Magisterium, see Gugliemo Corti,“Le sette parti del Magisterium Divinale ac Sapientiale de Gugliemo di Auvergne,” in Studi

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emanation of the ten separate intelligences from “the First,” as William likes to refer to the creator in conscious imitation of Avicenna. In dealing with the tenth and last of the intelligences, which the philosophers “call the agent intelligence and sun of our souls and the intelligible light of this earthly world, that is, of our dwelling place,” William presents Aristotle’s argument for such an agent intelligence and then refutes it. In the course of his refutation of the doctrine of an agent intelligence, William claims that Aristotle’s position on the agent intelligence collapses into Plato’s view of the archetypal world, and yet William knows that Aristotle had thought he had escaped the archetypal world of Plato by means of the doctrine of the agent intelligence. That is, the doctrine of the agent intelligence in Aristotle was supposed to have eliminated any need for the Platonic world of ideas or forms. Hence, in this part of the De universo William argues against Aristotle’s doctrine of an agent intelligence on the grounds that it implies the existence of the archetypal world of Plato. William himself clearly rejects the Platonic world of ideas or forms, and yet he also holds an archetypal world in some sense, since in both his De trinitate and his De universo he identifies the wisdom of God with the intelligible world or the archetypal world. In a previous paper I examined William’s rejection of the doctrine of an agent intelligence or intellect. I showed that William saw no need for either an agent intellect or an agent intelligence in order to account e Ricerche di Scienze Religiose in onore dei Santi Apostoli Pietro et Paulo nel xix cenenario del loro martirio (Rome, 1968), 289–307. De universo Ia-IIae, ch. 13; I, 821aC: “quam vocant intelligentiam agentem et solem animarum nostrarum et lucem intelligibilem hujus mundi terreni, hoc est, hujus habitationis nostrae.” References to the De universo give the part, chapter, volume, page, column, and section of Guilelmi Alverni Episcopi Parisiensis Opera Omnia, 2 vols., ed. F. Hotot, with Supplementum, ed. B. Le Feron (Orléans-Paris, 1674; repr. Frankfurt am Main, 1963). Ibid., ch. 16; I, 823aB: “recidit igitur Aristoteles in sententiam Platonis quam se per hujusmodi positionem putaverat effugisse.” “William of Auvergne’s Rejection of the Agent Intellect,” in Greek and Medieval Studies in Honor of Leo Sweeney, S.J., edited by William J. Carroll and John J. Furlong (New York, 1994), 211–235. William distinguished between the agent intelligence which was, according to Avicenna, a separated substance and an agent intellect which was, according to others who go unnamed, something within each human being.

William of Auvergne’s Rejection of the Platonic Archetypal World

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for human knowledge, and I argued that, as a result, he could not have done what Gilson thought that he had done, namely, have had God play the role of the agent intelligence. Gilson thought that William solved the problem of human knowledge by having God himself serve as the source of light, the role that Avicenna had reserved to the agent intelligence. In the present paper I want to examine four questions: One, why did William claim that Aristotle’s position on the agent intelligence collapsed into Plato’s doctrine of the archetypal world? Two, what did William take to be Plato’s reasons for holding an archetypal world? Three, why and to what extent did William reject that Platonic archetypal world? And four, in what sense did he, nonetheless, maintain an archetypal world?

I. The Claim that Aristotle’s View Reverts to Plato’s It is, first of all, necessary to emphasize that, when William speaks of Aristotle or of Aristotle and his followers, he is generally speaking of Avicenna and other Islamic philosophers rather than of the Stagirite himself. The doctrine of the agent intelligence, which is the tenth and last of the intelligences emanating from the First and is “the intelligible sun of our souls and light of our intellect,” is clearly drawn from Avicenna and not from Aristotle who did not have any such cascade of intelligences spilling forth from the creator. Even when William speaks Gilson said, “Guillaume d’Auvergne ne se passe d’intellect agent que parce que Dieu sera là pour conférer à notre intellect les premiers intelligibles par mode d’illumination” (“Pourquoi,” 62). “Tout se passe donc comme si Guillaume d’Auvergne ne voyait d’autre solution possible au problème de la connaissance que de faire jouer Dieu luimême dans sa doctrine le rôle illuminateur qu’Avicenna reservait à l’intellect agent” (“Pourquoi,” 71-72). See my article,“William of Auvergne’s Use of Avicenna’s Principle:‘Ex Uno, Secundum Quod Unum, Non Nisi Unum,’” The Modern Schoolman 71 (1993): 1–15, at 2–3, for a discussion of those whom William means when he speaks of “Aristotles et ejus sequaces.” See De universo Ia-IIae, chs. 13 and 14; I, 821aCD: “Incipiam igitur ab intelligentia agente, quam ipsi ordinaverunt ultimam, hoc est, infimam nobilitate

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of “Aristotle himself,” he is at least often referring to Avicenna and not to the historical Aristotle. For instance, in describing the functioning of our intellective power according to Aristotle, William attributes to the Stagirite a highly Platonic and Avicennian view of human knowing. He says, “From the writings of Aristotle, however, it is clearly evident that Aristotle himself thought that our intellective power was able to be illumined both from below, that is, from the side of sensible things through a process of stripping away or laying bare, and from above, that is, by the agent intelligence.”10 As William understands Aristotle, the function of the agent intelligence is to make the intelligible forms to be reflected in act in the human intellect. Aristotle held that these forms are in our intellect in potency and that the agent intelligence draws them from potency to act, “just as the sun draws potentially visible colors, that is, colors which are in potency in colored bodies, into act by its irradiation, that is, its outpouring of light.”11 Ironically, William notes, Aristotle posited the agent intelligence to avoid the Platonic forms or world of species, which William also refers to as the archetypal world, the world of principal forms, and the intelligible world or world of intelligibles.12 In his argument that Aristotle’s doctrine of the agent intelligence reverts to Plato’s doctrine of the archetypal world, William points out that, in et dignitate. ... Dixit igitur Aristoteles de ea (quemadmodum praedixi) quod ipsa est velut sol intelligibilis animarum nostrarum et lux intellectus nostri. ...” 10 Ibid., ch. 16; I, 822bF: “Ex sermonibus autem Aristotelis evidenter apparet ipsum Aristotelem sensisse virtutem nostram intellectivam et ab inferiori, hoc est a parte sensibilium per spoliationem vel denudationem quam exposui, et a parte superiori, hoc est ab intelligentia agente esse illuminabilem.” 11 Ibid., ch. 14; I, 821aD-bA: “ipsa est velut sol intelligibilis animarum nostrarum et lux intellectus nostri, faciens relucere in effectu formas intelligibiles in eodem, quas Aristotles posuit potentia esse apud ipsum [for ipsam], eamque educere eas de potentia in actum. Quemadmodum sol visibiles colores potentia, hoc est, qui potentia sunt in corporibus coloratis, educit in actum sua irradiatione, hoc est suae lucis superfusione.” 12 Ibid., I, 821bA: “Causa autem quae coegit ipsum hanc intelligentiam ponere fuit positio Platonis de formis, sive de mundo specierum, qui et mundus archetypus et mundus principalium formarum et mundus specierum et mundus intelligibilis sive intelligibilium dicitur.”


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accord with Aristotle’s position, what our intellective power receives from the agent intelligence can be only an intelligible form.“That which the agent intelligence imprints upon our intellective power is nothing but an intelligible form and likeness of what is understood, that is, of the thing that is understood.”13 William formulates his argument that Aristotle’s position collapses into that of Plato as follows: (1)“every likeness comes from its truth and every copy from its exemplar,” and (2) “the intelligible forms which are received by our intellect or our intellective power are likenesses.” It follows that (3) “they are, therefore, derived from the truth, compared to which they are likenesses.”14 Hence, the truth of the intelligible forms in our intellect will be found in the agent intelligence. For, if one should try to argue that the agent intelligence has only a likeness of the truth, one is forced to posit something else that contains the truth of that likeness, at least if it is true that every likeness comes from its truth.15 And so, to avoid an infinite regress, the truth of the intelligible forms in our intellect will, according to Aristotle, be found in the agent intelligence. “But if the truth itself is in the agent intelligence, then the true mode [of being] of species and of true forms will be in it, and there will not be a likeness of the truth in it, but the truth itself, and it will be this way with other forms.”16 If, however, the true mode of being of species and forms is to be found in 13 Ibid., ch. 16; I, 823aA: “Id ergo, quod imprimit intelligentia agens virtuti nostrae intellectivae non est nisi forma intelligibilis et similitudo intellecti, hoc est, rei quae intelligitur.” 14 Ibid., I, 823aB: “Cum omnis similitudo a veritate sit, et omne exemplum ab exemplari, formae autem intelligibiles, quae recipiuntur ab intellectu nostro sive virtute intellectiva nostra, similitudines sint, sunt igitur a veritate, ad quam similitudines dicuntur.” 15 Ibid., I, 823aBC: “Si vero sola similitudo est apud intelligentiam agentem (ut jam dictum est), similitudo autem omnis a veritate sua est; sic igitur veritas apud illum. Et quoniam impossibile est rem currere in infinitum, occurreret, uno vel pluribus numero deteriminato interpositis, aliud apud quod est veritas hujusmodi similitudinis. ...” 16 Ibid., I, 823aB: “Quodsi veritas ista est apud intelligentiam agentem, erit in ipsa modus verax [essendi] specierum et verarum formarum, et non erit similitudo sola veritatis apud ipsam, sed ipsa veritas, et ad hunc modum se habet de aliis formis.”

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the agent intelligence, “Aristotle falls back into the view of Plato which he thought that he had escaped by this position.”17 In order to avoid the position that the truth of the forms in our intellects is found in the agent intelligence, one might, William suggests, claim that their truth is to be found in particular things. But William points out that to do so would be to contradict Aristotle, since (1) “the agent intelligence receives nothing from particular things” and since (2) “truth is always prior to its likeness,” and yet Aristotle, i.e., Avicenna, “put the intelligences immediately after the creator in the order of the created universe.”18 Hence, for Avicenna the truth of the forms in our intellect cannot be found in particular things in the sensible world, for we receive these forms from the agent intelligence, which cannot receive these forms from particular things. William is convinced that Avicenna’s doctrine of the agent intelligence reverts to Plato’s doctrine of an intelligible world of forms that are the truth of things in the sensible world.

II. William’s Understanding of the Platonic World of Forms William admitted that he did not have the works in which Plato presented his arguments for the intelligible world.19 In fact, though William mentioned Plato 165 times in his works, it seems that the only contact with a work of Plato’s that William had was with a fragment of the Timaeus in Latin translation.20 The crucial passage in Plato’s Timaeus reads as follows: 17 Ibid.; see above n. 4 for the Latin text. 18 Ibid., I, 823aCD: “dico quod homo iste contradicit Aristoteli, primo quoniam intelligentia agens nihil recipit a rebus particularibus ... deinde quoniam omnis veritas prior est similitudine sua, in ordine autem universi creati ... primas post creatorem altissimum ipse posuit intelligentias. ...” 19 Ibid., ch. 14; I, 821bA: “in quo quae fuerunt rationes vel probationes Platonis non pervenit ad me.” 20 See William of Auvergne, De Trinitate: An Edition of the Latin Text with an Introduction, ed. Bruno Switalski (Toronto, 1976), Introduction, 3–4. References to the text of the De trinitate will be to the chapter and page in this edition.


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Whatever object we perceive to be constantly changing from one state to another, like fire, that object, be it fire, we must never describe as “this” but as “suchlike,” nor should we ever call water “this” but “suchlike”; nor should we describe any other element, as though it possessed stability, of all those which we indicate by using the terms “this” and “that” and suppose ourselves to refer to a definite object. For such an object shuns and eludes the names “this” and “that” and every name which indicates that they are stable. ...21

In Chalcidius’ translation, a rather loose translation of the Greek, which was William’s means of contact with Plato, the pertinent text reads as follows in my English version of it: Hence, regarding all changeable things of this sort one must hold this: that which seems to us to be often formed now one way, now another and generally to be in accord with the appearance of fire is not, I think, fire, but something fire-like, nor air, but something air-like, and is nothing at all as if having any stability. ... One should, therefore, consider that to be truly fire which is always the same and everything whose proper character remains.22

Despite his slight contact with the Platonic corpus, William does, nonetheless, reconstruct the arguments for the existence of the intelligible

21 Plato, Timaeus 49DE: ajei; o} kaqorw`men a[llote a[llh/ gigovmenon, wJ~ pu`r, mh; tou`to ajlla; toiou`ton eJkavstote prosagoreuvein pu`r, mhde; u{dwr tou`to ajlla to; toiou`ton ajeiv, mhde; a[llo pote; mhde;n w{~ tinj e[con bebaiovthta, o{sa deiknuvnte~ tw`/ rJhvmati tw'/` tovde kai; tou`to proscrwvmenoi dhlou`n hJgouvmeqav ti: feuvgei ga;r oujc uJpomevnon th;n tou` tovde kai; tou`to [kai; th;n tw`/de] kai; pa`san o{sh movnima wJ~ o[nta aujta; ejndeivknutai fa`s i~. ajlla; tau`ta me;n e{kasta mh; levgein, to; de; toiou`ton ajei; periferomevnon o{moion eJkavstou pevri kai; xumpavntwn ou{tw kalei`n: The English translation by R. G. Bury is taken from the Loeb Classical Library edition (Cambridge, MA, 1952). 22 Plato, Timaeus a Calcidio translatus commentarioque instructus, ed. Jan H. Waszink (London, 1975), p. 47: “Quapropter de cunctis huius modi mutabilibus ita est habendum: hoc quod saepe alias aliter formatum nobis uidetur et plerumque iuxta ignis effigiem non est, opinor, ignis sed igneum quiddam, nec aer sed aereum, nec omnino quicquam uelut habens ullam stabilitatem. ... Igitur ignem quoque eum esse uere putandum, qui semper idem est, et omne cuius proprietas manet.”

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world which Plato “seems to have had or could have had.”23 Indeed he gives five arguments. The first rests upon a comparison of the reliability of our intellect and our senses. William argues that, since the evidence or testimony of the senses forces us to posit a world of sensible things and the sensible world itself and a world of particular or singular things, so for even better reasons the intellect ought to force us to posit the world of intelligibles.24

Furthermore, since in this life our intellect properly and of itself apprehends only universals, that is, genera, species, and other common elements, which Plato called forms, this intelligible world must be a world of universals or of species. Second, William argues that “all our knowledge is an assimilation of the knower to the known according to that power or part through which it is known.”25 In the case of the senses the assimilation of the sense to the sensible object is produced by the action of the sensible object upon the sense; hence, the assimilation of the intellect will be produced by the action of the intelligible object upon the material intellect. “But what does not exist cannot act or impress anything; it is necessary, then, that the intelligibles exist, which impress upon our intellect such likenesses or modifications.”26 Moreover, not only must such universal or common forms exist, but they must exist in the way they are understood, just as sensible things must not only exist, but exist as they are sensed.27 Third, if there were no intelligible world, the senses would be better witnesses than the intellect, for sensible things have their being the way the senses testify that they have their being. Hence, intelligible 23 De universo Ia-IIae, ch. 14; I, 821bA: “Ponam igitur rationes quas vel habuisse videtur vel habere potuisset.” 24 Ibid.: “quia igitur testimonium seu testificatio sensus cogit nos ponere mundum sensibilium et ipsum sensibilem mundumque particularium sive singularium, cogere nos debet intellectus multo fortius ponere mundum intelligibilium. ...” 25 Ibid., I, 821bB: “omnis cognitio nostra assimilatio quaedam est ad ipsa cognita secundum eam vim vel partem per quam cognoscuntur. ...” 26 Ibid., I, 821bC: “Agere autem vel imprimere non potest quod non est; necesse igitur est intelligibilia esse quae hujusmodi similitudines seu passiones imprimunt in intellectu nostro.” 27 It is interesting to see that Thomas Aquinas says just the opposite in such similar language. See Summa theologiae Ia, qu. 84, a. 1c.


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things must for even better reasons have their being as the intellect testifies that they do. But the intellect testifies that they are common, everlasting, apart from generation and corruption and from all tumult of change.28 Fourth, William argues that, if there were no intelligible world, “only the senses would be true or reliable, and the whole intellect would be a deceiver, because it would lie about everything, about the being and truth of intelligible things, or about their mode of existing or about the way they are.”29 Fifth, William argues that, since intelligible forms are modifications or impressions, there must be an agent or agents impressing them. But sensible things impress only likenesses of themselves, and those likenesses can only be signs of them. Hence, they will not be signs of intelligible things. But it is not possible to know things except through their own proper signs. Intelligible things, then, will have their proper intelligible signs impressed by those things. Otherwise, the intelligibles, that is, intelligible things, will not be knowable by us in the present state.30

After reconstructing these five arguments, William faces an objection that “the intellect strips the forms that are impressed by sensible things and denudes them of their particular conditions, and in that way produces the intelligible forms and signs of intelligible things.”31 To that objection 28 De universo Ia-IIae, ch. 14; I, 821bD: “Quomodo verior testis putabitur esse sensus quam intellectus? Si ergo ita se habent res in esse suo, res, inquam, sensibiles quemadmodum testificatur de eis sensus, multo fortius necesse est res intelligibiles ita se habere, sicut de eis testificatur intellectus. Testificatur autem eas esse comunes, sempiternas, et seorsum a generatione et corruptione et ab omni tumultu mutationum; sic igitur eas et esse et se habere necesse est.” 29 Ibid.: “Si aliter esset, solus sensus verax esset, sive veridicus, et intellectus totus mendax, quia mentiretur de omnibus, de esse, et veritate rerum intelligibilium, aut de modo essendi et modo se habendi earum.” 30 Ibid., I, 822aE: “Non est autem cognoscere res aliquas nisi per signa sua propria. Erunt igitur rebus intelligibilibus signa propria intelligibilia impressa ab eisdem, vel non erunt cognoscibilia nobis in statu isto intelligibilia, hoc est, res intelligibiles.” 31 Ibid.: “formas quae imprimuntur a sensibilibus spoliat intellectus et denudat a conditionibus particularibus, et hoc modo facit eas formas intelligibiles et signa rerum intelligibilium. ...”

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William responds that, were that the case, nature would have neglected the intellective power in us in comparison with the sensible powers, which have an abundance of proper signs. For “it placed the intellective power in such poverty that it has to beg from sensible signs the signs necessary for itself, and it has been provided only with the remnants of them.”32 Furthermore, William objects to the whole idea of “stripping or laying bare,” though he admits he often finds this idea in Aristotle’s books and on the lips of those who think they are philosophizing.33 That is, William certainly does not think that the intellect obtains intelligible forms or signs by the process of abstraction. Given William’s reconstructed arguments in support of the position of Plato regarding the intelligible world, it might seems that he is in full agreement with the Platonic doctrine. But that is not the case. Rather, William argues against the Platonic archetypal world at considerable length, though he also holds an archetypal world in another sense.

III. William’s Arguments against the Platonic World of Forms William sees the heart of Plato’s position as maintaining “a world containing the truth of things and of species and forms.”34 The principal problem William finds with this view is that Plato “made this sensible world [a world] of copies (exemplorum) and likenesses. ...”35 That is, what William finds most objectionable in the Platonic doctrine of the archetypal world is that it entails the corollary that “what we have in our world is not true fire, nor fire at all, and that in our world there is not true earth, but something fire-like or earth-like, and that there is 32 Ibid., I, 822aF: “virtutem vero intellectivam in ea pauperatate constituerit ut a signis sensibilibus mendicare necesse habeat signa sibi necessaria, et non nisi de reliquiis eorum eidem consultum sit. ...” 33 Ibid., I, 822aG: “Licet igitur nondum approbem sermonem Aristotelis et opinionem, quia tamen toties legitur in libris ejus et aliorum qui eum sequuti sunt, et hoc tam crebro sonat in labiis quorundam qui se philosophari opinantur, exponam tibi sermonem hunc spoliationis et denudationis.” 34 Ibid., ch. 16; I, 823aC: “hoc autem est quod ponebat Plato, mundum scilicet veritatis rerum et specierum et formarum.” 35 Ibid.: “Mundum autem istum sensibilem ponebat exemplorum atque similitudinum. ...”


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not true humanity, but something humanoid.”36 Though William is well aware of the real Aristotle’s statement in the Metaphysics II that “each thing is related to truth as it is related to being,” he declines to use that statement as an argument from authority against Plato, “because an opponent is not a suitable witness against anyone.”37 William presents a series of arguments to show that the truth of things in this world is to be found in this world, not in the Platonic archetypal world. First, he claims that “an exemplar can neither truly nor properly be called the truth of a copy. For the truth of each thing is nothing but its substance or essence, that is, its being, and this is what the account or definition reveals.”38 William insists that the truth of anything is to be found in that being upon which the definition is first and principally imposed, just as the name “man” has been first and principally imposed upon that being which is a rational animal walking on two feet. Hence, William concludes, “The archetypal or exemplary world, then, is in no way the truth of particular things; that is, it is in no way the substance or essence or being of those things. ...”39 Second, William argues that, “when Plato said that the world of species was the exemplar of this sensible world and of particulars, he either understood those species that we say are predicated essentially of many numerically different things, or he understood the likeness of 36 Ibid.: “hoc non esse verum ignem, quod est apud nos, nec ignem, vel veram terram esse apud nos, sed igneum et terreum, nec veram humanitatem, sed humanum.” 37 Ibid., ch. 34: I, 835aD-bA: “Nec volo uti contra eum illo sermone Aristotelis quo dixit in libro Metaphysicorum quia unum quodque sic se habet ad veritatem, sicut ad esse, propter hoc quoniam adversarius non est testis idoneus contra aliquem.” See Aristotle, Metaphysics II, 993b31-2: e{kaston wJ~ e[cei tou` ei\nai, ou{tw kai; th`~ ajlhqeiva~. 38 Ibid., ch. 35: I, 835bD-6aE: “exemplar nec vere nec proprie dici potest veritas exempli. Veritas enim uniuscujusque rei non est nisi vel substantia vel essentia, sive esse ipsius. Et hoc est quod ratio sive diffinitio explicat.” 39 Ibid.; I, 836aF:“Mundus igitur archetypus, sive exemplaris nullo modorum est veritas rerum particularium, hoc est, nullo modorum est vel substantia vel essentia vel esse illarum… .” For an excellent study of William’s contribution to a revolutionary view of truth, see Steven P. Marrone, William of Auvergne and Robert Grosseteste: New Ideas of Truth in the Early Thirteenth Century (Princeton, 1983).

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things, either the ideas or exemplar images of things.”40 If Plato understood the world of species in the first sense, William points out that Plato contradicts what he said in the Timaeus, “since in the previously mentioned dialogue he removed true fire and true earth from the things in our world.”41 William does not argue against the second alternative at this point; in fact, as we shall see, he admits likenesses in the archetypal world in the second sense. Here he insists that the sort of species mentioned in the first alternative “is the whole being of individuals,” for everything else in an individual, such as Socrates, is accidental to him. But “since the whole being of all individuals is in the individuals themselves and not outside them, it is clear that species of this sort are wholly in their individuals or singulars and not outside them.”42 Again, William argues that, “where the truth of each thing is, there the thing itself is, and vice versa.”43 Hence, if the truth of earth or of fire is found in the archetypal world, true fire and true earth will necessarily be found there as well. However, as William points out, countless problems result from this. “The first is that true fire will not be a body; similarly, true earth will not be a body either. Hence, body will not be the genus in relation to fire and to earth, I mean, in relation to true fire and true earth.”44 Further problems are spelled out in detail. For example, on this view “a true body will not be found in this world, but in the archetypal world. And in the same way it follows that there will not be a true substance in this world.”45 William continues, pointing out 40 De universo Ia-IIae, ch. 35; I, 836aF:“Aut intellexit Plato species, dum dixit mundum specierum exemplar esse mundi istius sensibilis atque particularium, quas dicimus praedicari de pluribus differentibus numero in eo quod quid est, aut intellexit rerum similitudines sive ideas sive imagines rerum exemplares.” 41 Ibid.: I, 836aG: “cum ipsemet in praedicto sermone suo removeat verum ignem et veram terram ab his quae apud nos sunt.” 42 Ibid.: “Quia igitur totum esse individuorum omnium in ipsis individuis est et non extra, manifestum est hujusmodi species in individuis suis sive singularibus totaliter esse et non extra.” 43 Ibid.: “Ubi uniuscujusque veritas, ibi est ipsum, et e contrario.” 44 Ibid.: I, 836aH: “Primum quidem quoniam verus ignis non erit corpus, similiter nec vera terra. Quare corpus non erit genus ad ignem et terram, verum inquam ignem et veram terram.” 45 Ibid.: “Verum corpus secundum hoc non erit apud mundum istum, sed apud archetypum. Et eodem modo sequitur ut nec vera substantia sit apud


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that there will not be in this world true accidents, the true sun or the true moon, or the true Socrates. Only in the archetypal world will there be anything truly hot or truly cold, truly black or white, truly visible, tangible, and sensible, even anything truly particular. Ultimately, William catches Plato in a dilemma. On the one hand, Plato had to maintain that the intelligible world was a world indivisible into parts; hence, he could not locate in it anything with three dimensions. If, then, there is true earth in that world, true earth will be without such dimensions. Moreover, it will be neither cold nor dry nor heavy, since such sensible dispositions have no place in the intelligible world. “How then,” William asks, “will that earth, which has none of these dispositions, be true earth?”46 On the other hand, if Plato really does have true fire and true earth in that archetypal world, then “the archetypal world will be nothing but another sensible world like this one.”47 Hence, William concludes that Plato did not understand what he said about the archetypal world and about species. William does, nonetheless, admit an archetypal world in some sense, and it is that sense to which we now turn.

IV. In What Sense Did William Maintain an Archetypal World? In his De trinitate William not merely speaks favorably of “the intelligible world” or “the archetypal world,” but also identifies it with the wisdom of God. But the first wisdom is necessarily like the exemplar of all things through itself, not inscribed or engraved from outside, but through its essence the art and exemplar or all things. Hence, it is the intelligible world and that which certain people call the archetypal world.48 mundum istum.” 46 Ibid., I, 836bF: “Quomodo igitur vera terra est terra illa quae nullam istarum dispositionum habet?” 47 Ibid., I, 836bH: “Quare mundus archetypus non erit nisi alter mundus sensibilis similis huic.” 48 De trinitate, ch. 9, p. 65:“Prima vero sapientia necessario est velut exemplar omnium per se ipsam, non inscripta vel insculpta exterius, sed per essentiam suam ars et exemplar omnium. Quare ipsa est saeculum intelligibile et id, quod vocant quidam mundum archetypum. ...”

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William adds that“it ought to be called wisdom and the art of the universe ... because in it are the patterns or exemplar ideas of all things. ...”49 Again, in speaking of the divine essence, he mentions “archetypal world” as one among many expressions describing the divine essence. “It is wise through its essence, which is essentially light and the mirror of the universe, and art, and book, and intelligible world, or archetypal world, bright light and the light of all lights, pure light, entirely free of darkness and shadows. ...”50 William also characterizes the wisdom born of the Father, the Word of God, as the one copy of all that is knowable and as an intelligible world containing all that is knowable. “The begotten wisdom or knowledge is one word which spiritually speaks everything naturally knowable for it; it is at once intellective power and one thought or vision, and one model of all such knowable things and like an intelligible world of all of them.”51 But William maintains the existence of the archetypal world in his De universo as well. He says that the archetypal world, that is, the exemplar of all those things that were made or created by the creator or that will be made or even can be made is in the proper sense the Wisdom eternally born of the creator himself, which the law and doctrine and faith of the Christians most truly names the Son of God and God.52

49 Ibid.: “et ipsa debet dici sapientia et ars universi ... quoniam apud eam sunt rationes, et ideae exemplares omnium. ...” 50 Ibid., ch. 13, p. 81: “ipsa est sapiens per essentiam, quae essentialiter lux est, et speculum universi, et ars, et liber, et saeculum intelligibile, sive mundus archetypus, lumen praeclarum et lumen luminum omnium, pura lux, expers omnino tenebrarum et umbrationis. ...” 51 Ibid, ch. 15, p. 96: “Attende etiam, quod ista sapientia vel scientia genita unum est verbum, quod omnia sibi naturaliter scibilia loquitur spiritualiter, simul vis intellectiva et una cogitatio sive visio, qua omnia simul videt et cogitat, et unum exemplum omnium talium scibilium, et velut saeculum quoddam intelligibile omnium illorum.” 52 De universo Ia-IIae, ch. 39; I, 838bH: “mundus archetypus, hoc est exemplaris omnium eorum, quae facta sunt vel creata a creatore, vel quae fient aut etiam fieri possunt, proprie est sapientia ab ipso creatore aeternaliter genita quam Dei filium et Deum lex et doctrina fidesque Christianorum verissime nominat.”


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How, then, does the archetypal world of William’s view avoid the difficulties he finds with the archetypal world of Plato? There are at least two ways. First, William distinguishes two senses of “likeness.” In one sense a likeness is “that which arises from the truth and serves only to designate it, such as, an image of Socrates or of Caesar.”53 Such a likeness can, in turn, be the truth in relation to something else that is also a likeness, e.g., the image impressed on the mind of someone who sees it, and that likeness in the mind can be the exemplar of still another image that the person produces when, for example, he draws a picture. In another sense, though not with the same propriety and correctness, anything that is like can be called a likeness; in this way the ideas of all things are called their likenesses and said to have existed eternally in the mind of the creator, especially according to Plato who seems to have said this first.54

Thus the ideas in the mind of the creator can be called likenesses in the second sense, though these ideas in the mind of God are not the truth of particular things. Second, William distinguishes a set of names that belong properly and truly to God and are said of creatures only in an equivocal sense. When William undertakes to settle the contradiction between Plato and Aristotle, he begins by stating that the creator is truth through himself and in himself, and he is most correctly and most suitably called the first truth. He is also truth in relation to the universe which was created, established, and ordered

53 Ibid., ch. 16; I, 823bA: “Dico quia similitudo una intentione dicitur ipsum quod oritur a veritate et est tantum ad designandum ipsam, sicut imago Socratis vel Caesaris, quae indubitanter post utrunque est, ad ipsum solummodo designandum.” 54 Ibid., I, 823bB: “Alia vero intentione etiam similitudo ipsum simile dicitur, licet non aeque proprie aut recte, quomodo ideae rerum omnium similitudines earum dicuntur et fuisse ab aeterno in mente creatoris. Maxime vero secundum Platonem, qui hoc primus dixisse videtur. Et secundum hanc intentionem non est necesse ut omnis similitudo posterior sit eo cujus est similitudo vel quod originem habeat ab illo.”

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Studies in the Philosophy of William of Auvergne by him in a most beautiful order, and the universe is a very empty and very thin shadow in relation to him and in comparison to him.55

William says that Avicebron conveyed this idea when he said “that creatures raised themselves up and made a shadow for him.”56 He explains Avicebron’s statement as follows: when you consider the immensity and sublimity of the creator in all predications and the individual ones that convey his magnificence and providence and glory, you will clearly find that, when the same predications are referred to the universe or its parts, they signify only slight shadows and nods and traces and tiny signs of those things which they signify in the creator when they are said of him.57

William asks his reader to consider the intention of “powerful” or“power” when we speak about the creator and when we speak about creatures. The reader will find, William says, that “the power of the creature in relation to the power of the creator is not worthy to be called power, but only a slight trace or sign of it, since it is impressed by it.”58 So too, William asks his reader to consider the wisdom of the creator in relation to created wisdom and the goodness of the creator in relation 55 Ibid., ch. 33; I, 834aF: “creator est veritas per semetipsum et apud semetipsum et rectissime ac convenientissime nominatur primus verus. Est etiam veritas ad universum quod ab ipso creatum vel conditum et ordinatum est ordine pulcherrimo, et ipsum universum est umbra vanissima ac tenuissima ad ipsum et comparatione ipsius.” 56 Ibid.: “Et hoc insinuavit Avencebron in sermone suo quo dixit quod creaturae erexerint se ad creatorem et fecerunt ei umbram.” William refers Solomon Ibn Gabirol, or Avicebron, Fons vitae III, 55, ed. Clemens Baeumker, in Beiträge zur Geschichte des Philosophie des Mittelalters (Münster, 1892-1895) 1:201. 57 De universo Ia-IIae, ch. 33; I, 834aFG: “cum consideraveris immensitatem et sublimitatem creatoris in omnibus praedicationibus et singulis quae magnificentiam ejus innuunt et curam et gloriam, invenies manifeste easdem praedicationes cum ad universum vel ejus partes referuntur, non significare nisi umbras exiguas et nutus atque vestigia et signa permodica eorum quae significant apud creatorem cum de ipso dicuntur.” 58 Ibid., I, 834aG: “potentia creaturae ad potentiam creatoris non est digna ut nominetur potentia, sed signum vel vestigium permodicum illius, cum sit impressa ab illa.”


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to other instances of goodness, and so on with sweetness, generosity, beauty, loftiness, and nobility. He argues that “power” in its proper sense signifies only power that is free from powerlessness in every way. “In this way ‘powerful’ only denominates one who has power in the true sense, and the situation is the same with being and entity, true and truth, good and goodness, beautiful and beauty, wise and wisdom, lofty and loftiness, and noble and nobility.”59 In their true and proper significations such predicates belong only to the creator and apply to other things only equivocally and to some extent or by relation or in some likeness that is very small and most far from the creator. With respect to these names and denominations, their truths—so to speak—are in the creator. But in creatures there are only likenesses of such truths insofar as it is possible and appropriate to think that there are likenesses between the creator and creatures.60

Hence, for predications as “being,” “true,” “good,” “powerful,” “wise,” etc. God is the truth, and creatures are in comparison only faint copies. Plato’s mistake, William explains, was to extend such likenesses further than was necessary and further than the truth demanded. “He stated in his dialogue in the book that he called Timaeus that all naming of creatures takes place only by likeness and that no naming of them is done through the truth.”61 For that reason Plato maintained, as we have seen, that the sensible world does not contain true fire or true earth or true water, “not noticing that there are many namings of creatures that 59 Ibid., I, 834bGH: “Juxta hunc modum et potens non denominat, nisi habentem verae rationis potentiam, et per hanc viam currit res in ente et entitate, in vero et veritate, bono et bonitate, pulchro et pulchritudine, sapiente et sapientia, alto et altitudine, nobili et nobilitate.” 60 Ibid., I, 834bH: “verae et propriae significationes hujusmodi praedicationum soli creatori conveniunt, aliis autem non applicantur nisi aequivoce et secundum quid vel ad aliquam [for aliquid] vel qualiqualem et longissime distantem a creatore similitudinem. Quantum igitur ad hujusmodi nominationes et denominationes, veritates (ut ita dicatur) sunt apud creatorem. In creatura autem solae similitudines hujusmodi veritatum juxta modum quo similitudines inter creatorem et creaturas esse possibile est et conveniens cogitari.” 61 Ibid. ch. 34; I, 835aA: “expressit in sermonibus suis in libro quem Timaeum nominavit quoniam nominationes creaturarum omnes per similitudinem tantum fiunt et nulla earum per veritatem. ...”

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are stated without any comparison or likeness to the creator. For earth is not named earth as it is denominated good, nor is it denominated black as it is denominated good.”62 These former names pertain to the creature without any comparison and reference to the creator, and their truth is not found in the mind of the creator, but in the sensible world. Hence, William holds that the Wisdom of God is the archetypal world in which the ideas of all creatures are found. Though these ideas are likenesses of creatures, they are not the truth of what is found in the created world, except for those few names that are predicated properly and primarily of the creator. But with those few names, “being,” “true,” “good,”“powerful,” etc., their truth is found in the creator, and only faint copies or likenesses of these attributes are found in creatures. For all other predications the truth is found in creatures. In this sensible world we find true fire and true earth and true air—a healthy correction of the Platonic view that William opposed, while maintaining an archetypal world that contains the ideas of all things, but only contains the truth of such properties as are said of the creator first of all and most properly.

62 Ibid.: “non attendens quod multae nominationes sunt de creaturis quae nulla comparatione vel similitudinem ad creatorem dicuntur. Non enim terra nominata est terra, quemadmodum bona, nec denominata est nigra quemadmodum bona. ...”

William of Auvergne on the Relation between Reason and Faith

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n writing a recent paper on the meaning of the terms “divinale” and “sapientiale” in the title of William of Auvergne’s huge Magisterium divinale et sapientiale, I found myself confronted with what seemed a patent contradiction between the stated goals of William’s Magisterium and the means by which he set out to attain those goals. To state the problem in its full bluntness, but without the necessary qualifications, William says that the goal of philosophizing, which is the activity in which he engages in his Magisterium, is to give honor and glory to God and to attain the perfection of our souls, which consists in the beatific vision of God. On the other hand he clearly states that the mode of knowing which he will employ in his Magisterium is that of reasoning and proof, not that of faith in a divine revelation. The problem is even more acute because William admits that the path of proofs and investigations which he is using is not one which has any merit before God; rather, what is necessary for salvation is a faith in God that is quite unsupported by proofs and reasoning. Hence, it seems clear that there is a serious problem in William’s understanding of the relation between the stated goals of his huge work and the means of attaining those goals or, to put it in somewhat different terms, between the role of reason and that of faith or between the role of philosophy and that of theology. Or perhaps to state things more fairly, there at least seems to me to be a problem in what William said about what he was doing in his Magisterium. In order to confront the question, I shall first spell out the problem in some detail. Then I shall present the somewhat tentative resolution of it to which I have come, which, I believe, offers some fresh perspectives on the way in which William understood the relation between reason and faith, or between philosophy and theology, in his mammoth work, which in its scope anticipates the great Summae of the later thirteenth century. “William of Auvergne on Philosophy as ‘Divinalis’ and ‘Sapientialis’,” in Miscellanea Mediaevalia, ed. Jan A. Aertsen, Band 26: Was ist Philosophie im Mittelalter? (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1998), pp. 475-481.

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I. The Statement of the Problem In the early decades of this century Josef Kramp showed that seven works of William of Auvergne which has been previously treated as independent writings formed one single large work which William referred to by a number of names. More recently, Guglielmo Corti has shown that the most common of these names is Magisterium divinale et sapientiale. Corti listed the constituent parts of the huge Magisterium as: De trinitate, De universo creaturarum, De anima, Cur Deus homo, De fide et legibus, De sacramentis, and De virtutibus et moribus. In the first chapter of the immense De universo creaturarum, William states two reasons for his Magisterium, of which the De universo is the second part: “One is the honor and glory of the creator who is the chief and ultimate end of the whole teaching on God in the mode of wisdom.” William adds that “only those who philosophize on these topics on account of this end correctly and truly philosophize about them.” He explains that the works of the creator should be studied not merely “that they may be known, but rather that he may be exalted and acknowledged to be God and Lord of the ages and that in this way human souls may be persuaded or rather led to the honor of worshiping Josef Kramp, “Des Willhelms von Auvergne ‘Magisterium Divinale,’” Gregorianum 1 (1920): 538–616; 2 (1921): 42–103 and 174–195. See G. Corti, “Le sette parti del Magisterium Divinale ac Sapientiale di Guglielmo di Auvergne,” in Studi e Ricerche di Scienze Religiose in onore dei Santa Apostoli Pietro e Paulo nel xix centenario del loro martirio (Rome: Lateran Univ., 1968), 289–307, here 292–293. Ibid., p. 298. “De universo Ia-Iae, ch. 1; I, 593bD: “Hoc autem est propter duas causas, quarum altera est honor et gloria creatoris, qui est finis praecipus et ultimus totius sapientialis divinalisque magisterii. ...” Quotations from the works of William, except for De trinitate, are taken from the Opera omnia, ed. F. Hotot and B. Le Feron (Orléans-Paris, 1674; reprinted, Frankfurt am Main., 1963); translations from the De universo are taken from my William of Auvergne: The Universe of Creatures. Selections Translated from the Latin with an Introduction and Notes. Mediaeval Philosophical Texts in Translation 35 (Milwaukee: Marquette Univ. Press, 1998). Ibid., 593bBC: “propter hunc finem enim philosophantes in rebus hujusmodi soli recte vereque philosophantur in illis.”

William of Auvergne on the Relation between Reason & Faith

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him.” Knowledge of the creator does not of itself either honor God or perfect our souls; rather, we owe to the creator “the truth and sincerity of the highest degree of veneration,” which is at the same time the noble perfection of our souls, “the one ornament and supreme honor of human life.” William points out five ways in which certain misguided people philosophize and sin against the true philosophy. First, they empty it of what “it ought most of all to contain, namely, the glory or glorification of the creator.” Second, they deprive it of its fruit: “the reward of eternal felicity which is hoped for on the last day.”10 Third, they remove its chief beauty which consists in this end. Fourth, they misuse it, making themselves by means of it fools rather than wise persons. Fifth, they make it contemptuous toward God when they desire “foolishly to receive glory from it and not to glorify the creator with appropriate veneration.”11 The second reason William gives for this teaching on God is “the destruction of errors about the universe,” especially those errors which turn one from “the ways of truth and paths of rectitude through which one comes to ... the end of true philosophizing.”12 For these errors are opposed to the glory of God, for example, by maintaining a second first principle, as the Manichees of William’s day, namely, the Cathars did, or by denying the creator’s providence, as some Aristotelians did. Ibid., 593bC: “Non enim hac de causa sola investiganda sunt magnalia ac mirabilia creatoris ut cognoscantur, quin potius ut ipse magnificetur et agnoscatur esse Deus ac dominus saeculorum, et suadeatur per hoc vel potius ingeratur animabus humanis honorificentia cultus ipsius.” Ibid.; 593bCD: “veritas atque sinceritas ultimae venerationis ... humanae vitae decor unicus et decus eximium.” Ibid.; 594aE: “vacuam eam faciunt et inanem ab eo quod potissimum continere debet, videlicet gloriam seu glorificationem creatoris.” 10 Ibid.: “sterilem eam faciunt a fructo suo qui est remuneratio foelicitatis aeternae quae in novissimo expectatur.” 11 Ibid.: “dum illam gloriae suae inanissime applicant glorificari ex illa inaniter, et non creatorem glorificare veneratione congrua cupientes.” 12 Ibid.; 594aF: “Secunda causa est destructio errorum qui sunt circa universum ... quibus declinatur a viis veritatis et semitis rectitudinis per quas ad hunc finem, scilicet, verae philosophationis venitur.”

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In the Preface to the Second Principal Part of the De universo, William again speaks of the two goals of the sublime philosophy: “the exaltation of the creator and the perfection of our souls.” He tells his reader: [I]t is clear that you truly know the finest goals and most splendid blessedness of the sublime philosophy in the mode of wisdom; these are undoubtedly the exaltation of the creator and the perfection of our souls, which is nothing but the brilliance of such sciences and beauty of the virtues. From these two and in these two consists the entirety of religion, which is a mark of full honor and is the whole honor of our souls. But when religion has been brought to completion, it will be the glory of these same souls.13

Hence, the glorification and exaltation of the creator and the perfection of human souls through the sciences and virtues are really two sides of a single coin. For the one, it would seem, cannot be attained without the other. Again, a problem seems evident since William surely, one wants to say, thought that a Christian could glorify the creator with proper worship without engaging in the activity of philosophizing and without attaining the perfection of scientific knowledge. A text from De trinitate will, nonetheless, confirm the existence of the problem with William’s claims about the role of philosophizing. In chapter 26, William is discussing the image of the Trinity in the human soul. William asks, But who doubts that the possible intellect naturally understands and knows all things and is the mirror and intelligibility of all things in act? Hence, it is an intelligible world, and we previously called the first-born Word a sort of archetypal universe in act and the first intelligible world. And so you see that our intellect in its ultimate perfection is a perfect image and perfect exemplification of the firstborn Word.14 13 Ibid. Ia-IIae, Proemium; I, 807aB: “manifestum est te vere cognoscere sublimis ac sapientialis philosophiae fines optimos et beatificationes praeclarissimas quae indubitanter sunt magnificatio creatoris et perfectio animarum nostrarum quae non est nisi luminositas scientiarum hujusmodi et speciositas virtutum. Ex his enim duabus perfectionibus et in his consistit religiositatis integritas quae est totius decoris totumque decus animarum nostrarum.” 14 De trinitate, ch. 26, pp. 149–150: “Quis autem dubitat intellectum possibilem natum intelligere et cognoscere omnia et esse speculum omnium et rationem in effectu? Quare est saeculum intelligibile; et quendam mundum archetypum in effectu et saeculum intelligibile primum primogenitum ver-


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As our intelligible word is the image of the Word, so our intellective power that brings forth our word is the image of the Father. So too, the love between our intellective power and our word is a likeness of the Holy Spirit. William cites 1 John 3:2, namely, “When he appears, we shall be like him,” not as a scriptural proof, but as a confirmation of the truth to which his argument had led. He likewise cites Genesis 1:26 on our being created in God’s image and likeness and adds, “This likeness or image is potentially in the human soul. But it is brought to its ultimate act by philosophizing.”15 William goes on to spell out what he means by the activity of philosophizing: That is, by doing battle against the errors and darkness of falsity and depravity and against the wickedness of its loves—by pursuing with a chaste and other-worldly desire and love the light of truth by the true and salutary faith and by pursuing the sweetness of goodness by the trace of its scent which is hope.16

William here introduces as elements into the activity of philosophizing, or into the pursuit of the truth: faith, hope, and love, and yet there still remains the problem that there does not seem to be any other way to attain this perfection of our intellective power, which consists in the vision of God and in our becoming like God, than by the activity of philosophizing.

bum supra diximus. Vides igitur intellectum nostrum perfectione sua ultima imaginem perfectum et exemplum perfectum primogeniti verbi.” The Latin quotations of the De trinitate are taken from William of Auvergne. De trinitate: An Edition of the Latin Text with an Introduction. Edited Bruno Switalski (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1976); the translations are adapted from William of Auvergne: The Trinity, or the First Principle. Trans. by Roland J. Teske and Francis C. Wade (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1989). 15 Ibid., p. 150: “Haec igitur similitudo sive imago potentialiter in anima humana est. Accedit autem ad actum suum ultimum philosophando. ...” 16 Ibid.: “quod est contra errores et tenebras falsitatis et ignominiae, contra pravitates affectionum suarum dimicando—lucem veritatis per ipsum lumen eius, quod est vera fides ac salutaris, et suavitatem bonitatis per odoris sui vestigium, quod est spes, et amore castissimo et supermundano insequendo.”

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In the Prologue to the De trinitate William tells his reader that “there are three modes of knowing in this sacred and divine teaching.”17 The first mode is prophecy or revelation, that is, the mode in which a prophet attains this knowledge, and the second mode is virtue, the mode of the simple subjects of the divine law.18 He explains that in these two modes the divine knowledge is handed on, not as an art or discipline, but as law. “The first mode of knowledge by which one believes a prophetic revelation is more suitable, and the second by which one knows it through the obedience of faith above the human mind is more salutary.”19 But the third mode of knowledge “is that which is acquired through the path of proof and investigation; the divine authority did not chose this mode because by it only the errors of the learned can be dealt with, for the common people cannot be satisfied by the path of proofs.”20 The first two modes of knowing are received by a gift from God. “But the third mode is that of those who philosophize,” and William is determined to deal with those who philosophize, “not because faith of this sort, namely, a faith persuaded and incited by proofs, has merit or favor before God. Rather, in going along with their customary procedure, we shall try to satisfy them. ...”21 17 Ibid., Prologus, p. 15: “in isto sacro et divinali magisterio tres esse cognoscendi modos. ...” 18 William cites Aristotle as saying that “Metaphysica plus est virtus quam ars.” As Switalski has pointed out (p. 15), Aristotle never said precisely that, but he suggests that the idea can be derived from a comparison of Nicomachean Ethics II, 6, 1106b15 with Metaphysics I, 2, 983a1-11. 19 De trinitate, Prologus, p. 15: “primus modus cognitionis, quo propheticae revelationi creditur, est convenientior, et secundus, quo per obedientiam fidei supra sensum humanum cognoscitur, saluberiter.” Since William goes on to explain that the first mode is that of one who receives a prophetic revelation, which would seem less common than the second mode, I have followed the reading in the Chartres manuscript, namely, “convenientior” in place of “communior.” 20 Ibid.: “qui per viam probationis et inquisitionis acquiritur, quem modum ideo divina auctoritas non eligit, quia per ipsum non nisi eruditorum consuli potest erroribus; vulgo enim per viam probationum satisfieri non potest.” 21 Ibid., pp. 15–16: “Tertius vero est philosophantium ... non quod fides huiusmodi, videlicet suasa et exhortata probationibus, apud Deum meritum aut gratiam habeat, sed morem eis gerentes iuxta consuetudinem eorum eis


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Hence, William clearly maintains that the mode of knowing which he intends to use in his Magisterium is the mode of those who philosophize and clearly states that he will proceed by the path of proof and investigation, though he knows that such faith bolstered by proofs has no merit or favor in God’s sight. Yet, it seems that by philosophizing he expects to attain the perfection of the human intellect which consists in the vision of God and is the ultimate perfection of our souls. The problem is intensified if one turns to William’s De fide, for there he states that “the faith of the true religion is the foundation, the first root and principle of divine worship.”22 Furthermore, he states that those who intend to approach God through the path of proofs and signs alone, even if by that kind of knowledge they advance in some sense philosophically to this point, rightly show contempt for God by their unbelief, fall away from religion, are driven back further, and are deprived of the more sublime kind of knowledge.23

Though he qualifies the statement by adding “alone” to “through the path of proofs and signs,” he is quite insistent that genuine faith that is worthy of God should not rest upon signs or proofs. He compares faith which demands such signs or proofs to “an untrusting merchant who only believes a buyer if the buyer gives him a pledge as a guarantee or security, and a proof or persuasion is like a pledge or guarantee or a security, without which such an intellect does not believe.”24 Hence, William wants a faith worthy of God to be the sort of faith by which one believes him, that is, God, as is right and proper, that is, without any pledge or guarantee, namely, freely and obediently,

satisfacere conabimur. ...” I have followed all the manuscripts save that from Chartres in omitting “non” before “habeat.” 22 De fide, Prologus; I, 1bBC: “fides verae religionis fundamentum est, prima radix atque principium divinae cultus. ...” 23 Ibid., ch. 1; I, 5bC: “per viam probationum et signorum solam ad Deum accedere intendentes, etsi illo quidem genere cognitionis quodammodo philosophice in hoc proficiunt, merito contumeliam incredulitate sua Deo irrogant, a religione deficiunt, ac longius repelluntur, atque sublimiori cognitionis genere defraudantur.” 24 Ibid., I, 5aA: “est sicut venditor incredulus qui emptori non aliter credit nisi pignus vel cautionem sive securitatem det ipsi, et probatio sive suasio ut pignus est et cautio securitatis, sine qua non credit hujusmodi intellectus.”

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Studies in the Philosophy of William of Auvergne and not because he is truthful or because what he says is true, for in that way one would believe anyone.25

Such is the unconditional faith which, according to William, the human intellect owes to God and which alone is pleasing to God. He is, however, clear that he does not intend to rely upon such faith in his Magisterium. For example, in the De universo, he says, But understand that in all these special treatises I do not use the testimony of some law, nor is it part of my intention to defend the truth which is universal and is to be known or believed universally by human beings through testimonies, but through irrefragable proofs.26

In the De anima he refuses to use the works of Aristotle as authoritative and warns, Let it not enter your mind that I want to use the words of Aristotle as authoritative for the proof of those things which I am about to say, for I know that a proof from authority is only dialectical and can only produce belief, though it is my aim, both in this treatise and wherever I can, to produce demonstrative certitude, after which you are left without any trace of doubt.27

In a similar vein, he states in Cur Deus homo, the central work of the seven parts of his Magisterium, after citing several passages from the New Testament, 25 Ibid.; I, 7aA: “fides haec est digna credulitas qua ei, scilicet Deo, ut dignum et justum est, creditur, hoc est, sine omni pignore et cautione, scilicet, gratis et obedienter et non propter hoc quia verax est aut quia verum est quod ipse loquitur, sic enim crederetur homini cuivis.” 26 De universo IIIa-IIae, ch. 6; I, 1028aE: “Tu autem intellige quia in omnibus tractatibus istis specialibus non utor testimonio legis alicujus, nec intentionis meae est veritatem communem et communiter sciendam vel credendam ab hominibus astruere per testimonia, sed per probationes irrefrababiles.” 27 De anima, ch. 1, pt. 1, II, 65b: “Non intret autem in animum tuum, quod ego velim uti sermonibus Aristotelis tanquam authenticis ad probationem earum quae dicturus sum, qui scio locum dialecticum ab auctoritate tantum esse et solam facere posse fidem, cum propositum meum sit et in hoc tractatu et ubicumque possum certitudinem facere demonstrativam postquam non relinguitur tibi dubitationis ullum vestigium.” I have read “dubitationis,” as the text is cited by Valois, instead of “demonstrationis,” which is found in the 1674 edition. See Noël Valois, Guillaume d’Auvergne, Évèque de Paris: Sa vie et ses ouvrages (Paris: Picard, 1880), p. 239.


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We have not, however, produced these testimonies in order to rely on them or to use them as principles for our advantage, because we are not dealing with those who believe the testimonies of the scriptures, but we use them in order to display in writing the truth of the faith which we are investigating.28

Yet “divine authority did not choose this way,” as William acknowledges in the Prologue to the De trinitate.29 Hence, William clearly maintains that faith—genuine faith unsupported by proofs—is necessary as the foundation of religion and of the proper worship of God, which is the goal of the Magisterium. Yet, he tells us that he will not proceed in his Magisterium by the mode of faith. It is, moreover, clear that he intends to deal with those who do not accept the authority of the scriptures and who can only be instructed by the paths of proofs and investigation.

II. An Attempt at a Solution Guglielmo Corti has pointed out that there is an internal distinction in William’s Magisterium divinale between the magisterium in general and the primum magisterium.30 He cites a passage from the introduction to De fide et legibus, where William says, In the order of the sapiential and divine sciences, the first part of the first and theological philosophy explains and renders certain that this science of divine worship and true religion, about which we intend to write as we have received from above, holds the first place.31 28 Cur Deus homo, ch. 2; I, 556bG: “Haec autem testimonia non ideo adduximus, ut velimus eis inniti aut eis tanquam radicibus pro bono uti, quoniam non cum eis agimus, qui credunt testimoniis scripturarum, sed ut ipsam veritatem fidei, quam quaerimus, scriptam monstremus.” 29 See above note 20. 30 Corti, “Le setti parti,” p. 302. 31 De fide I, Prologus; I, 1aB: “In ordine sapientialium divinaliumque scientiarum, istam divini cultus veraeque religionis scientiam, de qua prout de sursum accepimus, scribere intendimus, primum locum obtinere, primae ac theologicae philosophiae prima pars declarat atque certificat.” The text is not free of problems. Corti notes (p. 301) that Kramp interpreted “primum locum” as “primarium locum” and suggested that the text led the editors to place the De fide first in their edition. Corti goes on to suggest that one should read “quintum locum” instead of “primum locum,” a reading found in Vat. Lat. 851,

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The phrase,“the first part of the first and theological philosophy,” seems to refer to De trinitate, though, as Corti admits, there is no such passage that he has been able to find in that work. Corti, nonetheless, finds in that expression a clear indication of a distinction in assigning names to parts within the Magisterium, and he points out that William uses “primum magisterium” to refer to De trinitate, De universo, and De anima, precisely those parts which are most philosophical in the sense that they do not appeal to the authority of revelation, but proceed by the paths of proofs and investigation.32 For example, in the Prologue of the De anima, William clearly locates the science of the soul in the first magisterium, when he insists that the knowledge of God’s image and likeness must belong to the same magisterium as the knowledge of God. Since, then, the knowledge of the creator which is acquired by the paths of philosophy belongs to the first sapiential and divine magisterium alone, the knowledge of his image and likeness will of necessity pertain to the same magisterium alone.33

From this passage Corti concluded—wrongly, I believe—that the object of the whole Magisterium divinale is the knowledge of God and that its method is the path of philosophical proof.34 I have argued that, though fol. 1ro a. In that case William calls De fide the fifth part of the Magisterium sapientiale et divinale, which fits with William’s statement in De sacramento in general ch. 1; I, 407aB: “scientia de vera religione et fide, quae fundamentum illius est, et de sinceritate cultus, qui solus Deo altissimo acceptus est, et de legibus, ac ritibus, et sacris quintum locum obtineat. ...” 32 See Corti, “Le sette parti,” p. 302. 33 De anima, Prologus; II, 65a: “Cum igitur cognitio creatoris quae per philosophiae vias acquiritur, solius sit primi sapientialis, et divinalis magisterii, erit ex necessitate cognitio imaginis et similitudinis pertinens ad idem magisterium.” 34 “Il magisterium divinale, dunque, ci fa acquistare la cognitio Creatoris, ma per philosophiae vias, proprio per questo e sapientiale: si dà in esso una dimonstrazione razionale, filosofica, si procede, cioè, per modum sapientialem et per viam probationum. Non si exclude, tuttavia da questa dimonstrazione, la Sapienza, che è sapida et saporosa scientia divinae suavitatis” (Corti, “Le setti parti,” p. 294). I have omitted the references to William’s works which Corti gives. Similarly, in the introduction to his edition of the De trinitate Switalski claims that “‘divinale’ and ‘sacrum’ refer to the theological content, ‘sapientiale’ refers to the thorough manner of treatment” (Switalski, p. 6, note 23). Swital-


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the claim that the content of the Magisterium divinale is knowledge of God is plausible for the De trinitate and for the De anima, which deals with God’s image, it is difficult to see how other parts of the Magisterium, for example, De universo have God as their content. Hence, I argued that it is much better to take “divinale” as signifying the end of the Magisterium divinale et sapientiale rather than its content.35 But the problem with which this paper is dealing is, rather, the incongruity of William’s adopted mode of knowing, that is, through proofs and investigation, with the goals of his whole magisterium.36 William also clearly regarded his De universo as part of the first magisterium as opposed to the whole of the magisterium. In the first chapter of the De universo William says of that work that“it is the second part of the first sapiential and divine teaching.”37 So too, in De anima William refers to De universo three times as “the second part” or “the second treatise of the first sapiential and divine teaching.”38 Texts from De universo, De anima, and De fide also indicate that the De trinitate was the first part of this first magisterium.39 Hence, Corti is certainly correct in pointing to the distinction internal to William’s huge work between the magisterium totum and the primum magisterium. He is also correct, I believe, in suggesting that, given the ski refers to De virtutibus, c. 11; I, p. 148a, as well as to the Prologue to De trinitate. 35 See note 1 for the reference to my paper. 36 The problem is particularly acute if one believes, as Switalski does, that the Prologue to the De trinitate “sets forth the purpose and method of the entire Magisterium Divinale. ... The third mode of knowing is rational demonstration. ... It proceeds by means of demonstration, that is, rational proofs. This is the method which William employs throughout the Magisterium Divinale” (Switalski, p. 6). 37 De universo Ia-Iae, ch. 1; I, 593bB: “et est pars secunda primi sapientialis ac divinalis magisterii.” 38 De anima, c. 5, pt. 2; II, 113b: “in secunda parte primi ac sapientialis magisterii”; in c. 6, pt. 8; II, 124b: “in tractatu secundo primi sapientialis ac divinalis magisterii”; and in c. 7, pt. 6; II, 211a: “audivisti in tractatu secundo primi ac sapientialis magisterii.” 39 See above note 31 for the text from De fide; Corti also cites: “in primae philosphiae prima parte declaratur” from De universo Ia–IIae, ch. 2; I, 594aH, as well as the text from the Prologus to the De anima (see above note 33).

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dating of the various components of the Magisterium divinale, with the De universo and De anima having been written last, though they are listed as the second and third parts of the primum magisterium, William’s view of the various parts of his huge work developed over time and that he most probably did not originally plan to write the De anima.40 What Corti does not bring out sufficiently is, I suggest, that it is only in the primum magisterium that William intends to proceed by the paths of proofs and investigation, whereas in other parts of the totum magisterium he proceeds on the basis of revealed knowledge. Hence, William could view the goal of the whole magisterium as directed to the honor and glory of God with the worship due to him, while maintaining that in the primum magisterium he was proceeding by the paths of philosophical proofs and demonstrations. William had, after all, as we have seen, explicitly stated that “the honor and glory of the creator” is “the chief and ultimate goal of the whole sapiential and divine teaching.”41 If this distinction is correct, then William’s Magisterium divinale et sapientiale has two parts, one quite philosophical, in which the author relies on proofs and demonstrations and aims to confront those who do not accept the faith, and another in which he proceeds in the mode of theological knowledge based upon a divine revelation. One might object that the De trinitate can hardly fit into a philosophical as opposed to theological part of William’s work, but such an objection overlooks William’s actual procedure in the work and presupposes that a work on the Trinity could not be based upon reason and proof. William thought otherwise, and he does in fact produce reasoned arguments to show, for example, that the First must generate an intellectual Word which is his equal and that from the First and his Word there must proceed the first mutual Gift.42 William even uses Avicenna’s principle, “Ex uno in quantum unum non est nisi unum,” to argue that the perfect causality of the First can generate only one Word.43 Moreover, for William the articles of faith do not absolutely surpass the grasp of human 40 Corti, “Le sette parti,” p. 305. 41 See above note 5. 42 See De trinitate, ch. 14, where William argues that there are two emanations within the divine essence. 43 De trinitate, ch. 14, p. 83: “Item ab eodem, in quantum idem, non est diversum nec diversitas ... similiter ab uno, in quantum unum, neque multa neque multitudo.” See also my “William of Auvergne’s Use of Avicenna’s Principle:


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reason, but are rather ranked on a scale of easier or less easy proof or of greater or lesser proximity to the human intellect. In speaking of what he accomplished in De fide, William says in De legibus, And we showed, moreover, that of these articles of faith some are basic and primitive and capable of easy proof and argument, but others follow upon them and have a long derivation and, for this reason, involve a difficult argument on account of their great distance from the human intellect.44

In accord with this view William claims in De universo that he has by philosophical means arrived at a truth contained in the word of God, showing that he has a clear awareness of the distinction and that he is in the De universo proceeding “per vias probationis et declarationum.” William says that he has brought his reader by such means to certitude about the prophetic message contained in the first verse of Genesis. “It is a conclusion drawn from three or four conclusions explained and demonstrated in the divine and natural sciences. ...”45 There are other indications which reveal William’s distinction between the first teaching, whose method is proof and investigation, and the whole teaching, which rests upon faith and leads to eternal felicity. For example, in the beginning of De fide, William says, as we have seen,“The first part of the first and theological philosophy,” that is, De trinitate, “explains and makes certain that this knowledge of divine worship and of the true religion, about which we intend to write as we have received it from above, holds the fifth place in the order of the sapiential and divine sciences.”46 William’s phrase, “prout de sursum accepimus,” marks a clear departure from the mode of knowing“per vias probationis et inquisitionis” ‘Ex Uno Secundum Quod Unum, Non Nisi Unum,’” The Modern Schoolman 71 (1993): 1-15. 44 De legibus, ch. 1; I, 18bG: “Et ostendimus insuper quod ipsorum articulorum alii sunt radicales et primitivi, facilisque probationis et suasionis; alii vero sunt consequentes et longae derivationis, et propter hoc difficilis suasionis propter elongationem suam multam ab intellectu humano.” 45 De universo Ia-Iae, ch. 30; I, 625bD: “Jam igitur ad hoc deduxi te per vias probationum et declarationum ut certum sit tibi inter corpora et corporalia primo creata esse coelum et terram. ... conclusio est aggregata ex tribus conclusionibus vel quattuor in scientiis divinalibus et naturalibus declaratis et demonstratis. ...” 46 See above note 31 for the Latin text.

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of the first teaching. William uses a similar expression in chapter three of De fide where he says that he dealt with “the sacraments, virtues, grace and free choice,” and has dealt with them “as we have received from above, in two complete treatises, namely, De sacramentis and De libero arbitrio et gratia.”47 There is a similar distinction in De virtutibus. In the first chapter William says, “We shall with God’s help begin to examine these topics [that is, virtues and morals, vices and sins, merits and recompenses] through the sapiential mode and through the ways of proofs. ...”48 Here he promises to establish the existence of the virtues to the point that the reader has acquired certitude about them. Then William adds, But after this we shall speak on these topics in other modes so that knowledge of them is not only clear in many ways, but is also pleasing and productive of affections by which the perfection of our souls is helped, by which they are aroused and even armed for wars against the vices and sins, by which virtues and good morals become desirable to them, not only because of the hope of reward, but also because of the perfection, glory, sweetness, healthiness, and beauty of their marvels.49

47 De fide, ch. 3; I, 15aF: “Et nos de his quatuor prout desuper excepimus, duabus tractatibus completis nos expedivimus, scilicet de sacramentis et libero arbitrio atque gratia.” William’s De libero arbitrio atque gratia has been edited by G. Corti in Il ‘Tractatus de Gratia’ di Guglielmo d’Avergne (Rome: Lateran Univ., 1966). Corti argues that De gratia is an addition to Cur Deus homo. See also De fide, ch. l: I, 5bD-6aE, where William speaks of the “virtues that are only gifts of God and descending only from above.” He says that “the faith with which we are here dealing itself descends from the first light” and declares that “it is more noble and more sublime than the sciences or beliefs which come to our intellect through the reflection of illumination which they receive from the first light.” 48 De virtutibus, ch. 1; I, 102bF: “Incipiemus auxiliante Deo perscrutari de his per modum sapientialem et per vias probationum. ...” 49 Ibid.: “Post haec vero loquemur de his modis aliis, ut sit non solum multipliciter lucida ipsorum cognitio, sed etiam jucunda et generans affectiones, quibus adjuvetur animarum nostrarum perfectio, quibus incitentur et etiam armentur ad bella contra vitia et peccata, quibus virtues et mores efficiantur eis desiderabiles, non solum spe retributionum, sed etiam ipsa perfectione, decore, suavitate, salubritate, et multitudine ac pulchritudine mirabilium earum.”


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After nine chapters in which William proceeds “per modum sapientialem et per vias probationum,” he begins to “examine the virtues in accord with theological and sapiential depth, making it clear how far the wise of the world were and still are from the truth of the knowledge of them.”50 Here he immediately begins to argue against the Pelagian heretics who thought that “our natural goods alone could suffice for our living well, for serving the creator in a worthy and laudable manner, and for meriting from him the reward of eternal felicity.”51 Hence, William, it seems, distinguishes a primum magisterium, which according to William’s own statements includes De trinitate, De universo, and De anima and which also, it seems, includes at least the first chapters of De virtutibus, from the totum magisterium which also includes De fide et legibus and De sacramentis, along with parts of De virtutibus. The primum magisterium proceeds by the way of proofs and investigation and is a part of the whole magisterium, whose goal is the glorification of the creator and perfection of the human intellect in eternal felicity.

III. Conclusion In the Prologue to De trinitate William said there were “three modes of knowing in this sacred and divine teaching.”52 Contrary to what he has been taken to say, William uses in his Magisterium divinale et sapientiale not only the mode of those who philosophize, but also the mode of those who are obedient subjects to the faith. He clearly distinguishes a first teaching from the whole teaching. The totum magisterium is theological in the sense that it is founded on faith and directed to the glorification and worship of God, but the whole magisterium contains as a part the primum magisterium which does not rest upon faith and proceeds by the paths of proofs and investigation. Parts of the whole magisterium are “divinales” in the sense that they are about God, but the whole magisterium is “divinale” in the sense that it is directed to the 50 Ibid., ch. 10; I, 130aE: “Deinceps igitur perscrutabimur de virtutibus juxta theologicam ac sapientialem altitudinem, palam facientes, quam longe fuerint, et adhuc sint a veritate cognitionis eorum mundi sapientes.” 51 Ibid., ch. 11; 1, 130bF: “multis enim et praecipue hereticis visum est sola bona naturalia nostra sufficere posse nobis ad bene vivendum, ad digne et laudabiliter creatori serviendum, et ad promerendum ab ipso remunerationem foelicitatis aeternae.” 52 See above note 17.

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glory and worship of the creator. William’s method or mode of knowing in his Magisterium divinale et sapientiale varies from the primum magisterium, which proceeds or attempts to proceed by the paths of proofs and investigation, to the other parts of the magisterium which clearly rely upon faith in a revelation and proceed in that mode of knowing “prout desuper excepimus.”53

53 See above note 47.

William of Auvergne on Time and Eternity

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n the early thirteenth century Christian thinkers in the Latin West encountered for the first time the Aristotelian philosophy which was pouring into Europe through translations from Arabic into Latin. William of Auvergne, bishop of Paris from 1228 until his death in 1249, was one of the principal figures in the first reception of the Aristotelian writings in the West. William, in fact, displayed a remarkable openness to Aristotelian thought, embracing much of it as his own, while firmly rejecting other teachings as opposed to the faith. Despite the various ecclesiastical prohibitions against the teaching of Aristotelian philosophy during the first half of the century, William said, “Although in many matters we have to speak against Aristotle, as is truly right and proper—and this holds for all the statements by which he contradicts the truth—he should still be accepted, that is, upheld, in all those statements in which he is found to have held the correction position.” See my “William of Auvergne’s Debt to Avicenna,” in Avicenna and His Heritage. Acts of the International Colloquium. Leuven-Louvaine-La-Neuve September 8–11, 1999. Ed. by Jules Janssens and Daniel De Smet. Leuven: Leuven Univerity Press, 2002, pp. 153-170. In that paper I argue that William made his own more elements of Avicenna’s thought than has been previously acknowledged. William, De anima ch. 2, pt. 12: II, 82b: “Quamquam autem in multis contradicendum est Aristoteli, sicut revera dignum et justum est, et hoc in omnibus sermonibus quibus dicit contraria veritati, sic suscipiendus est, id est, sustinendus in eis omnibus in quibus recte sensisse invenitur.” Except for De trinitate, all references to William’s works will be to Guilelmi Alverni Episcopi Parisiensis Opera omnia, 2 vols., ed. F. Hotot, with Supplementum, ed. B. LeFeron (Orléans-Paris, 1674; repr. Frankfurt am Main: Minerva, 1967). References to the De trinitate are to Bruno Switalski, William of Auvergne: De Trinitate. An Edition of the Latin Text with an Introduction (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1976). I have throughout slightly modified the punctuation of the 1674 edition.

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One of the chief philosophical problems which was raised by the introduction of the Aristotelian writings concerned the Aristotelian doctrine that the world is eternal. In previous studies I have examined William’s refutation of the doctrine of the eternity of the world and his arguments that the world’s past existence is finite in time. While some thinkers held that Aristotle’s teaching on the eternity of the world was not contrary to the faith, William, along with Robert Grosseteste, was one of the first thinkers in the Latin West to realize the danger which Aristotle’s teaching presented. In order to deal with the question of the eternity of the world, William decided that he first needed to clarify the nature of eternity and of time. In particular, he had to show that for Aristotle time was simply a part or section of eternity and not something essentially different from eternity, but that eternity in the sense in which God is eternal is something quite different from the temporal duration of the world. Hence, before undertaking to refute the Aristotelian proofs for the eternity of the world, William devoted the first chapters of the second part of the first principal part of his De universo creaturarum to a clarification of the nature of eternity and of time. In Medieval Discussions of the Eternity of the World (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1990), Richard C. Dales says,“It has usually been assumed that the thirteenth-century debates on the eternity of the world were occasioned by the libri naturales of Aristotle, and by the works of certain Arabic authors, especially Avicenna, Algazel, and Averroes” (p. 50). Dales claims that in the early years of the thirteenth-century the questions about the eternity of the world arose out of arguments contained in patristic sources, specifically Augustine and Boethius, and in Peter Lombard (pp. 50-51). That does not seem to be the case with William, as we shall see. See “William of Auvergne on the Eternity of the World,” The Modern Schoolman 67 (1990): 187–195, and“William of Auvergne’s Arguments for the Newness of the World,” Medievalia: Textos e Estudios 7-8 (1995): 287–302. See Dales, Medieval Discussions, p. 74. William’s De universo is divided into two principal parts, each of which is further divided into three parts. The first principal part deals with the material universe; the second with the spiritual universe. For a more detailed description of the contents of the parts, see my William of Auvergne: The Universe of Creatures. Selections Translated with an Introduction and Notes (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1998), pp. 17–28.

William of Auvergne on Time & Eternity

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William’s chapters on eternity and time, in fact, represent one of the first extended treatments of the concepts of eternity and time and of their interrelation by an author in the Latin West. Though there is considerable speculation on time during the earlier centuries, it was only, it seems, when the Aristotelian doctrine of the eternity of the world was thrust before the Christian thinkers of the West and when the problem of two senses of “eternity” was realized that there was a pressing need to reach some clarity on the topics of eternity and time. In this paper I shall first show that William recognized as the root of the problem that Aristotle—and by “Aristotle” he quite often meant Avicenna—regarded time and eternity as the same in their essence so that a particular time was merely a cross section or slice of eternity. Second, I shall show how William conceived of time and eternity so that they are seen to be essentially different. Third, I shall indicate why William held that eternity and time were incomparable. Fourth, I shall ask why, in developing an account of eternity that is so close to that which Boethius gave in his well known definition, William did not cite the Boethian definition or allude to Boethius or to Augustine as sources for this doctrine, even though he had read both of them.10 See Dales, Medieval Discussions, pp. 18–85, for a history of the period from Boethius up to and including the early thirteenth century. Also see Udo Reinhold Jeck, Aristoteles contra Augustinum: Zur Frage nach dem Verhältnis von Zeit und Seele bei den antiken Aristoteleskommentatoren, im arabischen Aristotelismus und im 13. Jahrhundert (Amsterdam: B. R. Gründer, 1994), for a discussion of the dependence of time upon the soul in the commentaries on Aristotle, in Arabic philosophy, and in the 13th century Latin thought. In “Pourquoi saint Thomas a critiqué saint Augustin,” Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen âge 1 (1026): 5–127, here 66, Etienne Gilson says, “Aristote se confond souvent pour lui avec Avicenne.” So too, In Notes et textes sur l’Avicennisme latin aux confins des XIIe-XIIIe siècles (Paris: J. Vrin, 1934), Roland de Vaux notes, “C’est donc Avicenne encore que nous allons retrouver derrière les sequaces Aristotelis.” William’s failure to appeal to Boethius is all the more peculiar insofar as at that time, according to Dales, questions about the eternity of the world arose out of Boethius, Augustine, and Peter Lombard rather than out of Aristotle or Avicenna. See Dales, Medieval Discussions, pp. 50-51. 10 In De trinitate ch. 1; Switalski, p. 17, William cites an axiom from Boethius’ De hebdomadibus; he also seems to allude to De consolatione philoso-

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I. The Distinction between Time and Eternity William begins by stating that “certain persons have supposed that eternity is nothing other in its essence than time.”11 As a result they claimed that “time is a part of the complete eternity,”12 and he identifies these people as the “Italici.” The identity of the “Italici” presents something of a problem.13 Later William says of a particular “Italicus,” He who said that time is a part of eternity called the whole of time, that is, infinite time, eternity. For this reason in his account or definition of it he did not speak of it, but of determinate parts of it, and so when he said, “Time is a part of eternity,” he added, “with a certain measure of a year measuring or of a day.”14

The “Italicus” who is the ultimate source of this statement would seem to be Cicero, who said, “But time—the time which we are now using, for it is, of course, difficult to define in general—is a certain part of eternity with a definite specification of some length of a year, month, day, or night.”15 Twice William of Conches cited variants of the definition phiae V, Prose 6, in De universo IIIa-Iae, ch. 15; I, 778aE–780aF, where he discusses foreknowledge and necessity. So too, he cites Boethius’s De trinitate in De universo Ia-IIae, ch. 11: I, 819aD. In De anima ch. 7, pt. 1; II, 203b, he paraphrases Boethius’ De musica V, ch. 1. 11 William, De universo IIa-Iae, ch. 1; I, 683aA: “opinati sunt quidem aeternitatem aliud non esse in essentia quam tempus.” 12 Ibid.: “tempus esse perfectae partem aeternitatis.” 13 See my “The Identity of the Italici in William of Auvergne’s Discussion of the Eternity of the World, Proceedings of the PMR Conference 15 (1990): 191–203. 14 William, De universo IIa-Iae, ch. 1; I, 685bAB: “qui dixit tempus partem esse aeternitatis vocavit totum tempus, scilicet infinitum, aeternitatem, propter quod in ratione, seu definitione sua non est locutus de illo, sed de partibus determinatis ipsius, et ideo cum dixisset: Tempus est pars aeternitatis, adjunxit, cum anni mensurantis, diurnique certa commensuratione.” The last phrase of the Latin is impossible as it is, though it is not hard to figure out how Cicero’s words were corrupted to this. See the following notes. The 1674 edition suggests in the margin “animi” in place of “anni.” 15 Cicero, De inventione I, 26, 39: “Tempus autem est—id quo nunc utimur, nam ipsum quidem generaliter definire difficile est—pars quaedam aeternitatis cum alicuius annui, menstrui, diurni, nocturnive spatii certa significatione.”


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which he attributed to Cicero in forms that may help to bridge the gap between the words Cicero wrote and those William had.16 But William also explicitly claimed that Aristotle held that “eternity ... is only eternal time, that is, a duration infinite in both directions.”17 He earlier mentioned that Aristotle thought that time was eternal, that is, that it had neither beginning nor end. William adds that, “if time were, as Aristotle thought, that is, without beginning and without end, perpetuity would really be half of time infinite in both directions; this, however, can be called eternity only equivocally.”18 When William speaks of Aristotle in this passage, there is good reason to believe that he had in mind not merely the Stagirite himself, but also Avicenna. For, William explains that Aristotle was led to locate the ten or more intelligences in eternity on account of his belief that they have nothing in potency and, on this account, nothing can be added to them, nothing diminished or acquired by them, but they have in act as a whole whatever they could naturally have, and on this account nothing of those things which they have can flow out of them and nothing of those things which they have can flow into them, and this is undoubtedly a certain proximity and nearness to eternity.19 16 William of Conches says, “Tempus est quedam pars eternitatis, id est illius magni spacii, cum certa significatione alicuius spacii diurni, nocturni mensurnive” (Glossae super Platonem. Texte critique avec introduction, notes et tables. Ed. Edouard Jeauneau [Paris: J. Vrin, 1965], p. 177). He also says, “tempus est pars eternitatis, id est illius magni spacii quod a philosophis eternitas vocatur—vera enim eternitas caret omni parte—cum certa significatione certi spacii, sed non magnum spacium” (Glossae super Priscianum, cited from Jeauneau, p. 177). 17 William, De universo IIa-Iae, ch. 5; I, 688bE: “aeternitas ... non est nisi tempus aeternum, hoc est, duratio ex utraque parte infinita.” 18 Ibid., ch. 1; I, 685bA: “si tempus esset juxta opinionem Aristotelis sine principio scilicet et sine fine, revera perpetuitas esset dimidium temporis ex utraque parte infiniti; hoc autem dici non potest nisi equivoce aeternitas.” 19 Ibid., ch. 5; I, 688bF: “eas nihil habere in potentia et propter hoc nihil eis addi posse, nihil minui vel acquiri ab eis, sed totum habere actu quidquid habere naturaliter poterant, et propter hoc nihil eorum quae habent eis posse fluere, nihil eorum quae non habent ad eas posse influere, et haec est quaedam indubitanter propinquitas et vicinitas ad aeternitatem.”

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The mention of “ten intelligences” certainly fits better with the thought of Avicenna than with that of Aristotle himself. Furthermore, William later explicitly links Avicenna with Aristotle on the doctrine of the eternity of the world, an eternity which is simply a duration without beginning or end.20 William points out a number of implications of this view of eternity, that is, the view of the “Italici” as well as of Aristotle and Avicenna. First, “eternity does not differ from time except as the whole from its part and as a larger time from a smaller time.”21 Second, William points out the oddity that on this view eternity does not precede time. After all, since time is merely a part of eternity and since every part is prior to and a cause of its whole, time must precede eternity. Third, William points out that on this view perpetuity, that is, duration which has a beginning but no end, such as, the existence of an immortal soul, turns out to be half of eternity. And if one calls “anti-perpetuity” the duration which has no beginning but comes to an end at some point, for example, the non-existence of that soul, which ceases when that soul comes to be, then anti-perpetuity is the other half of eternity.22 One could supposedly select any moment of time as the divider between anti-perpetuity and perpetuity, though, if William’s later argument against the possibility of such infinite time, that is, either of time without beginning or of time without end, is correct, such concepts would have to be self-contradictory. Otherwise, his arguments that the world cannot have a duration without beginning or without end are invalid, for the impossibility of such a duration must rest on the self-contradictoriness of the concept. 20 See ibid., ch. 8; I, 690bH: “Quidquid dicatur et quicumque conentur excusare Aristotelem, haec indubitanter fuit ejus sententia, quod mundus est aeternus et quod non coepit esse; et de motu similter sensit. Et Avicenna post eum.” 21 Ibid., ch. 1; I, 683aB: “non differt aeternitas a tempore nisi sicut totum a parte sua et sicut maius tempus a minori.” 22 See ibid., 684bG. William also points out, however, that perpetuity and anti-perpetuity do not in every case constitute an eternal duration since there can be a duration between anti-perpetuity and perpetuity; see ibid., I, 686bEF: “perpetuitas animae humanae quae nunc creatur et antiperpetuitas ipsius non esse coeli non complent unam durationem aeternam. Deest ab hujusmodi duratione aeterna tota duratio coeli a creatione sua usque in presens nunc.”


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II. Time and Eternity as Essentially Different William begins his discussion of eternity with what he calls the common human understanding of “eternal.” He points out that everyone defines the eternal as what has neither beginning nor end where they understand no beginning or end of its duration.23 Secondly, human beings “commonly say that the eternal neither begins nor ends; hence, eternity is infinite in accord with the common understanding of human beings.”24 To this common understanding William adds that “eternity is indivisible into parts (impartibilis) in terms of earlier and later.”25 William goes on to explain that “in eternity there cannot be earlier and later according to succession or flux or cessation; hence, the being of eternity is whole at once (totum simul)—not ‘at once’ by temporal concomitance, but by the denial of priority and posteriority, just as if I said that in it nothing is before and nothing after.”26 Eternity has, as everyone admits, neither beginning nor end; “likewise, it has neither first nor last, and for this reason it does not have a middle. For, where there is a middle in duration, it is necessary that there be an earlier and a later and an order of succession. Hence, it is necessary that eternity be simple and indivisible into parts.”27 Again William says that eternity “is indivisible into parts with the divisibility of a continuity,” that is, in the way a continuum can be divided, and that eternity “is proper to the 23 Ibid., 683aC: “Manifestum autem quod omnes diffiniunt aeternum quod nec habet principium neque finem, et intelligitur principium et finis durationis sive permanentiae suae.” 24 Ibid.: “Similiter aeternum dicunt homines communiter quod nec incipit nec desinit esse; quare aeternitas infinita est secundum communem intelligentiam hominum.” 25 Ibid.: “Dico insuper quod aeternitas impartibilis est secundum prius et posterius. ...” 26 Ibid., 683bBC: “In aeternitate non posse esse prius neque posterius secundum successionem aut fluxum, sive desinentiam; quare esse aeternitatis totum simul est, non, inquam, simul concomitantia temporali, sed abnegatione prioritatis et posterioritatis, quemadmodum si dicerem quod in ea nihil ante, nihil post.” 27 Ibid., 683bC: “similiter nec habere primum, nec habere ultimum, et proper hoc nec habere medium. Ubi enim est medium in duratione, necesse est esse prius et posterius et successionis ordinem; quare simplicem et impartibilem necesse est esse aeternitatem.”

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blessed and sublime creator.”28 While everything other than the creator begins to be and ceases to be, “only the being of the creator is necessary [being] of itself in all its modes, but every other being is possible being through itself and not necessary being”29 Hence, William asks whether the being of eternity is simply the being of the creator. He sees a problem if it is, since the being of the creator does not have a contrary or opposite except non-being, though eternity has time as its opposite.30 On the other hand, worse problems result if eternity is something other than the being of the creator since everything else begins to be. William’s solution is that eternity is nothing but the being of the creator or the creator himself, but the term ‘eternity’ says something more than his being, namely, the privations of beginning, of ceasing to be, and likewise of flux and change, and this both in act and in potency, for many such privations truly follow upon the being of the creator, and by them his glory and magnificence is conveyed to us.31

Since eternity, then, is merely the being of the creator along with the privation of any change or flux, the eternity of the creator follows immediately upon his simplicity and indivisibility into parts, a doctrine which William had demonstratively established in the first part of his Magisterium divinale et sapientiale, the De trinitate.32 As the opposite or contrary of eternity, time is “being that flows and in no way lasts, that is, that has nothing of itself lasting in act or

28 Ibid., 685bB: “ipsa impartibilis est partibilitate continuitatis. ... ipsa est propria creatoris benedicti et sublimis.” 29 Ibid.: “Solum enim esse creatoris est necesse per se ex omnibus suis modis, omne autem aliud esse possibile est esse per se et non necesse esse. ...” 30 Ibid., I, 685bC: “Quod si dixerit quia est ipsum esse creatoris, qualiter igitur erit contraria tempori? Esse quippe creatoris non habet contrarium neque oppositum nisi non esse, sicut jam te scire feci in aliis.” 31 Ibid., I, 685bD–686aE: “aeternitas non est nisi esse creatoris aut creator ipse, sed nomen aeternitatis plus dicit quam esse ipsius, videlicet, privationes incipiendi et desinendi, similiter et fluxus atque mutationis, et hoc tam actu quam potentia, quod revera esse creatoris sequuntur multae privationes hujusmodi, quibus utcumque insinuatur nobis gloria et magnificentia ejus.” 32 See William, De trinitate ch. 3; Switalski, pp. 25-28.


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potency.”33 If any time did last, “it would not be time or a part of time, since the being of time is nothing but flowing in accord with its totality, I mean, flowing without being able to be held back and without stability.”34 As unceasingness is part of the definition of eternity, “cessation is essential to time, just as flowing is. To flow in time is nothing but to fall continually into non-being, while to fall into non-being is nothing but to cease to be.”35

III. The Incomparability of Time and Eternity Once he has shown that eternity is simple and indivisible into parts, while time is neither simple nor indivisible, William notes that many questions arise. The first is the classical objection that, given these definitions of eternity and time, time seems greater than eternity. “Since eternity is indivisible, while time is infinitely divisible, eternity is related to time as the indivisible ‘now’ to the whole of time; hence, time is infinitely greater than eternity.”36 But William insists that no one has ever doubted that “eternity is infinitely greater than time and that time is within eternity; for eternity precedes it and follows it. For, if time ceased, that is to say, if time stopped, eternity would be after it; likewise, if time began, eternity was before it.”37 33 William, De universo IIa-Iae, ch. 1; I, 683aD: “fluens esse et nullo modo permanens, id est, nihil sui habens permanens in actu vel potentia.” 34 Ibid.: “jam non esset illud tempus vel pars temporis cum esse temporis non sit nisi fluere secundum totum, fluere, inquam, irretentibiliter et influxibiliter.” 35 Ibid., I, 683aD-bA: “Desinentia vero essentialis est temporis, sicut et fluere; fluere enim in tempore non est nisi continue cadere in non esse; cadere autem in non esse non est nisi desinere; quare desinentia essentialis est temporis. ...” 36 Ibid., I, 683bC: “cum aeternitas sit impartibilis, tempus autem in infinitum partibile, est igitur aeternitas ad tempus, quemadmodum ipsum nunc impartibile ad totum tempus; quare tempus est in infinitum majus quam aeternitas.” 37 Ibid., I, 683bC-D: “aeternitas sit major in infinitum tempore et quia tempus intra aeternitatem est; ipsum enim et praecedit aeternitas et sequitur. Si enim cessaret tempus, post ipsum esse aeteritas, hoc est dicere, si desineret esse tempus, similiter, si coepit tempus, ante ipsum fuit aeternitas.” The 1674 edition has “infra” in the margin in place of “intra.”

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This question or objection leads William into a discussion of spiritual and bodily amplitude or greatness. He reminds his reader that, though the blessed creator is simple and indivisible, he is infinite and immense in his amplitude, containing and surrounding all things with his nonbodily amplitude.38 To exemplify a non-bodily amplitude, he develops the idea of the potential amplitude of a species, which potentially contains an infinite number of individuals: “In the amplitude of a species an individual is like a point on a line, and the reason is that there is an infinite [number] of individuals; hence, the amplitude of a species is potentially infinite.”39 William notes that the examples offered by Avicebron, the Jewish author of Fons vitae, whom William took to be a Christian,40 are not really appropriate. Avicebron had said, according to William, in speaking of the amplitude of being, “In that amplitude of this community the sensible world is like a little boat in the midst of the sea or like a little bird in the midst of the air.”41 These examples, however helpful, are inappropriate to the point at issue, for, as William points out, the sea and the air as well as little boats and birds are finite. Unlike the potential amplitude of the species, which contains an infinite number of individuals, the sea or air cannot contain an infinite number of boats or birds. There is only a finite number of boats which the sea can admit and beyond which it cannot admit even one more, but with the amplitude of a species it is otherwise. Hence, William states the general principle: “Quantities that do not belong to the same genus and that do not have one mode of measurement are not proportionally comparable. And on this account eternity 38 See ibid., I, 683bD. 39 Ibid., I, 684aE: “individuum est in amplitudine speciei, sicut punctus in linea, et hoc est quoniam [numerus] individuorum infinitus est; quare amplitudo speciei potentialiter infinita est quantum ad individua.” 40 See ibid. Ia-Iae, ch. 26; I, 621bB. 41 Avicebron, Fons vitae III, 57, ed. Clemens Baeumker in Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters I (Münster: Aschendorff, 1896), p. 205, where the disciple says, “Iam inueni quod iussisti, et eleuaui me per gradus substantiarum intelligibilium, et deambulaui in amoenitatibus earum floridis; et inueni corpora sensibilia in comparatione illarum in ultima uilitate et imperfectione, et uidi totum mundum corporalem natantem in illis, sicut nauicala in mari et auricula in aere.”


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and time are not comparable to each other.”42 Just as bodily and spiritual amplitude are not comparable, so time and eternity are not comparable. “For the multitude and gathering together of parts produces bodily amplitude, but unity and simplicity produces spiritual amplitude.”43 God is, of course, in the ultimate degree of simplicity and indivisibility into parts, and “the order of simplicity and indivisibility into parts is the same as the order of spiritual amplitude and capacity.”44 On the other hand, stability produces amplitude or length in eternity, while flux or flowing produces amplitude or length in time; hence, they are not comparable to each other. “Simplicity keeps eternity from having an aggregation of parts and an order of them; hence, it prevents it from having earlier and later and, consequently, a first and a last.”45 Times, places, and numbers are similarly without proportion to one another. One cannot, William claims, say that a certain number is greater than a certain time, or that a time is greater or less than a place. He mocks the sophistical comparisons by which it is said that “an hour or some part of time is greater than or less than or equal to a mile.”46 William appeals to Aristotle’s claim that “a curved line and a straight line are incommensurable,” and adds that “the reason he said this is that they do not have the same mode of measurement.”47 42 William, De universo IIa-Iae, ch. 1; I, 684aH: “Quantitates non sunt proportionaliter comparabiles quae non sunt ejusdem generis et quibus non est unus modus mensurandi, et propter hoc aeternitas et tempus non sunt ad invicem comparabiles.” 43 Ibid.: “Amplitudinem namque corporalem facit multitudo partium et aggregatio; amplitudinem vero spiritualem unitas et simplicitas.” 44 Ibid.: “Et qui est ordo simplicitatis et impartibilitatis, idem est ordo amplitudinis spiritualis et capacitatis. ...” 45 Ibid., 684bE: “Simplicitas enim prohibet eam ab aggregatione partium et ordine ipsarum; quare prohibet eam habere prius et posterius, et consequenter primum et ultimum.” 46 Ibid.: “horam vel aliam partem temporis majorem esse vel minorem vel aequalem milario.” We can, of course, say that Chicago is an hour and a half from Milwaukee, where we introduce the idea of a vehicle traveling at a velocity of sixty miles per hour. 47 Ibid., 684bF: “Aristoteles autem dixit lineam curvam et lineam rectam incommensurabiles esse; causa vero propter quam haec dixit quia non est eis

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William does, nonetheless, take up a comparison of eternity to time—presumably to show their incomparability—and even offers several examples to help the imagination with this comparison. He begins by asking “whether eternity preceded time and by how much and in what way.”48 William first argues that eternity either preceded time or it did not. But, he continues, if it did not, it did not follow it either for the same reason. “Hence, it came to be simultaneously with time, and it will end simultaneously with it, and it will be equal to it, and it will be finite, if time is finite. But if time is infinite, eternity will be no greater than time.”49 On the other horn of the dilemma, if eternity preceded time, it could not precede time by time. Hence, it preceded time by eternity. “But it is evident that it did not precede time by a part of itself, since it does not have a part. Hence, it preceded time by its whole self, just as it is said that any line is greater than any point by the whole of itself.”50 But then the whole of eternity preceded time, and it will follow by the same argument that the whole of eternity is after time. And this is the conclusion that William wants:“Eternity preceded time by the whole of itself and is posterior to time by the whole of itself. But the reason for this is that eternity is whole always (tota semper); nothing of it comes about; absolutely nothing of it has been. Hence, it does not follow that, if the whole of eternity was before time or preceded time, nothing of it will, for this reason, be future.”51 idem modus mensurandi. ...” See Aristotle, Physics VII, ch. 4, 248b4-7, for a possible source. 48 Ibid., ch. 2; I, 686aG: “utrum aeternitas praecesserit et quantum et qualiter.” 49 Ibid.: “quare simul incoepit cum tempore et simul desinet, et erit aequalis eidem, et erit finita, si tempus finitum est; si vero infinitum, non erit major aeternitas quam tempus.” 50 Ibid., 686aGH: “Manifestum autem est quia non parte aliqua sui praecessit ipsum cum partem non habeat; quare praecessit ipsum tota se, quemadmodum dicitur quod linea quaelibet tota se major est quolibet puncto.” 51 Ibid., 868bE: “Aeternitas vero et se tota praecessit tempus, et se tota est posterior tempore. Causa autem in hoc est quoniam tota semper est aeternitas, nihil de ea succedit, nihil ejus omnino fuit; quare non sequitur si tota fuit ante tempus vel praecessit aeternitas, quoniam propter hoc nihil ejus futurum sit.”


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William argues by analogy with divine omnipresence. Just as God is wholly in heaven, though that does not preclude his being wholly on earth “because he is whole everywhere (totus ubique),”52 so in an similar way, “eternity is whole always (tota semper); hence, its being before time does not prevent its being after time.”53 William, on the other hand, warns against comparisons. “For eternity cannot be said to be greater than time by the whole of itself in the way in which a line is said to be greater than its initial or end point by the whole of itself. Nor can the creator be said to be greater than the world by the whole of himself.”54 His first reason is that greatness is not said of the creator and of the world univocally; hence, they are incomparable. The second reason is that the “initial point or end point of a line are in the same position, as a point on and of the line. Thus the whole line is really after the point, and if the point is removed from the line, no particle is for this reason removed [from the line], and the line would not become smaller.”55 But the situation is not the same with eternity and time, “for eternity is not a point of time, nor are eternity and time in the same position or same series.”56 Is eternity in time? William says that we must distinguish “just as when one asks whether God is in time. For he is not in time in a measurable way, but concomitantly, so to speak. He is when time is and whenever any time is.”57 But such concomitance does not mean that God is in 52 Ibid.: “quoniam totus ubique est.” 53 Ibid.: “Sic aeternitas tota semper; et propter hoc esse ipsam ante tempus non prohibet ipsam esse post tempus.” 54 Ibid., 686bF: “Non enim sicut linea dicitur puncto suo initiali vel terminali major se tota, sic potest dici aeternitas major tempore se tota, quemadmodum nec ipse creator potest dici mundo major se toto.” I have removed an extra “major” from after “dicitur.” 55 Ibid., 686bFG: “punctus initialis vel terminalis alicujus lineae sit in eodem situ ut punctus in linea et de linea, sic tota linea revera est post punctum, et detracto puncto de linea, nulla particula propter hoc detrahetur, et ideo linea non fieret minor.” 56 Ibid., 686bG: “non enim aeternitas punctus temporalis est, nec velut in eodem situ aut eadem serie sunt aeternitas et tempus.” 57 Ibid.: “quemadmodum et cum dicitur an Deus sit in tempore. Non enim est in tempore mensurabiliter, sicut saepe dictum est, sed comitabiliter, ut ita dicatur. Est enim dum tempus est et quandocumque aliquid temporis est.”

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time, since in this sense one can say that God is in every house or city. “To be in a time and to be in a place are not said with a single meaning. For to be in a place is to be surrounded and contained by the place.”58 But motion in time does not have the same three dimensions as a body. “Motion, which is in time, is not surrounded in that way by time, that is, by every dimension and part, but is applied to it as if by the length of succession, and for this reason only short and long of the names of the dimensions are said of time.”59 A particular motion, then, “is properly said to be in a time that exactly accompanies it, that is, which has nothing before the first motion or beginning of the motion and nothing after the last or end of the motion, and this concomitance is temporal measuring.”60 Certain people say, William notes, that “all things are present at once in eternity”—a claim which he finds strange. He points out that “contraries cannot be present in the same thing at the same time.”61 How, then, William asks is Socrates in eternity? Is he there at the same time as a boy and as an old man, as healthy and as ill? Is only his old age there, or only his boyhood, or neither, or both? William’s resolution of the problem harks back to his rejection of the Platonic archetypal world, for he insists that “nothing, after all, of temporal things, as has already been shown to you, can truly and properly be in eternity.”62 Plato’s mistake was to locate the truth of sensible things in the intelligible world so that the fire and water of this world 58 Ibid., 686bGH: “esse in tempore et esse in loco non dicuntur intentione una. Esse enim in loco est circundari et contineri ab ipso loco.” 59 Ibid., 686bH: “motus autem qui est in tempore non circumdatur eo modo a tempore, hoc est, per omnem dimensionem et partem, sed quasi per longum successionis applicatur ei, et propter hoc solum breve et longum dicitur de tempore in nominibus dimensionum.” 60 Ibid.: “Motus igitur dicitur esse in tempore proprie quod ipsum praecise comitatur, videlicet quod nihil habet ante primum seu principium motus, nihil post ultimum seu finem ipsius, et ista concomitantia est mensuratio temporalis.” 61 Ibid., ch. 3; I, 687aD: “Contraria enim simul in eodem esse non possunt. ...” 62 Ibid., 687bA: “nihil enim temporalium, prout jam tibi patefactum est, in aeternitate vere et proprie esse potest.”


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are not truly and properly fire and water, but merely like fire and water.63 William explains that people who claim that everything is all at once in eternity mean that “all the things that eternity has are always present in it, since nothing in it flows or passes, begins or ceases.”64 But that does not mean that the real Socrates is contained in eternity. What those who say everything is present in eternity mean, William concludes, is that “the eternal creator, who is the most clear or infallible viewer of all ages, has all things present to himself, that is, sees and contemplates them, because he does not see present things more than past or future ones or those in some other way absent.”65 The fact that things are present or existing adds nothing to his knowledge, just as the fact things are past or future does not detract from it, “because the creator does not see through anything other than himself. He is, after all, the light by which he sees, and he himself is the likeness, example, or mirror in which he sees whatever he sees.”66 William promised an image of the relation between eternity and time that we could picture. He, in fact, provides three. First, he asks that we imagine eternity as an immense wheel and within it the wheel of time such that the wheel of time touches it at only one point. He reminds us that a circle touches a circle at only one point. “And this contact exists only to the extent that by its revolution [the wheel of time] only point by point touches a point [of the wheel of eternity], and this is time, and for this reason no whole of time exists at the same time.”67 Secondly, 63 See my “William of Auvergne’s Rejection of the Platonic Archetypal World,” Traditio 55 (1998): 117-130. 64 William, De universo IIa-Iae, ch. 3: I, 687bA: “omnia quae habet aeternitas sunt apud eam semper praesentia cum nihil apud eam fluat aut praetereat, incipiat aut desinat.” 65 Ibid., I, 687bAB: “creator aeternus, qui est lucidissimus aut infallibilis conspector omnium saeculorum habet omnia sibi praesentia, hoc est, videt et intuetur, quoniam non magis videt praesentia quam praeterita vel futura vel quolibet modo aliter absentia.” 66 Ibid., I, 687bB: “creator non videt per aliud quam per semetipsum. Ipse enim est sibi ipsi lux per quam videt, et ipsemet est sibi similitudo vel exemplum vel speculum in quo videt quicquid videt.” 67 Ibid., ch. 4; I, 687bC: “contactus in tantum est quantum punctatim tantum sua revolutione ipsam tangit punctum, et est ipsum tempus, et propter hoc nihil totum de tempore simul est.”

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William asks us to imagine eternity as a wheel of light that pours forth its light over time insofar as time can receive it, “and this is not according to its totality nor according to the totality of one of its parts; the light of being flows over it from eternity only point by point, just as such a wheel can be touched only point by point.”68 Third, William asks us to imagine time like water flowing from some vessel drop by drop and unable to escape from it in any other way “so that time can emerge from it into act only point by point.”69 Each of the three images emphasizes the momentary actuality of time in relation to eternity. Hence, William concludes, “Of all created things time has a weaker being; this, however, is evident from the fact that its actuality is in the ultimate degree of smallness, but its potentiality is just the opposite.”70 William notes that there is no mean between eternity and time because the former is wholly lasting and the latter wholly in flux. He also notes that, since perpetuity shares with time a beginning and shares with eternity no end, “the philosopher called it the horizon of eternity and time and after eternity above time.”71 Here William alludes to the Liber de causis72 and struggles to explain what the author meant by “before eternity and above it.”73

68 Ibid., I, 687bD: “hoc est neque secundum totalitatem suam neque secundum totalitatem alicujus ex partibus suis; non fluit lumen essendi ab aeternitate super ipsum nisi punctatim.” 69 Ibid.: “ut de ea exire nisi punctatim tempus non possit in actum.” 70 Ibid., I, 687bD: “Omnium quippe rerum creatarum debilioris esse est tempus; hoc autem apparet ex hoc quia actualitas ejus est in ultimate parvitatis, potentialitas vero econtrario.” 71 Ibid., I, 688aE: “propter ista duo dixit philosophus ipsum esse horizontem aeternitatis et temporis et post aeternitatem supra tempus. ...” 72 Liber de causis II, 22, ed. A. Pattin (Leuven: Tijdschrift voor Filosofie, 1967), p. 50: “Esse vero quod est post aeternitatem et supra tempus est anima, quoniam est in horizonte aeternitatis inferius et supra tempus.” 73 William, De universo IIa-Iae, ch. 4; I, 688aG: “Potest autem et merito quaeri quid intelligit Philosophus quia omne esse est ante aeternitatem et supra ipsam, aut est in aeternitate et cum ipsa, aut post aeternitatem et supra tempus, ut anima, quae est in horizonte aeternitatis.” William seems to conflate II, 19 and II, 22 from the Liber de causis.


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IV. The Silence about Boethius One of the puzzling features of William’s account of eternity is the lack of any reference to Boethius or Augustine or to the Boethian definition of eternity as “the complete possession of unending life all at once”74—a definition which was cited in preceding and contemporary Latin authors75 and which is thoroughly in accord with William’s understanding of eternity as opposed to time. William, moreover, was familiar with the works of Boethius so that he could hardly have been ignorant of his definition of eternity. I am going to propose a hypothesis which, I think, accounts for William’s silence about the Boethian definition and is in accord with other things we know about William’s way of proceeding. My hypothesis is that William made no mention of the Boethian definition or of any other Christian source for such an understanding of eternity because he wanted to derive the concept of divine eternity as timeless from Avicenna’s own account of divine simplicity or indivisibility into parts. In that way Avicenna’s claims about the eternity of the world would be shown at least implicitly to run counter to his own philosophical account of God. For, though Avicenna’s God, as simple and indivisible into parts, should not have a temporal duration in which there is a before and an after, Avicenna’s account of God not only makes no claim to such a timeless eternity that is tota simul, but even seems to imply a duration without beginning and without end coextensive with a similarly infinite time. 74 Boethius, De consolatione philosophiae V, Prose 6; CSEL 67, 121: “Aeternitas est interminabilis vitae tota simul et perfecta possessio.” 75 See Dales, Medieval Discussions, pp. 51–52 for William of Durham, p. 63, for Philip the Chancellor, p. 71, for Grosseteste. An electronic search of the Patrologia latina turned up very few citations of the Boethian definition and those comparatively late. Prior to Bonaventure and Aquinas I found only three: two in scriptural commentaries of Paschasius Radbertus (c. 785–c. 860) in PL 120, 102C and 1025C and in a commentary on Isaiah by Hervaeus Burgidolensis (c. 1150) in PL 181, 522C. In God, Eternity, and the Nature of Time (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992), Alan Padgett claims that the views of Augustine and Boethius dominated the Latin West, but between Boethius and Aquinas he points only to the doctrines of Anselm (d. 1109), in the Proslogion chs. 13 and 18, and of Richard of St. Victor (d. 1173), in De trinitate II, 4 and II, 9: PL 196, 903 and 906.

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Let me develop my argument. First, early in his De anima, a work written soon after the De universo, which was most probably completed around 1240,76 William says after citing Aristotle’s definition of the soul, But let it not enter your mind that I want to use the words of Aristotle as authoritative for proving what I am going to say. I know that authority can only amount to a dialectical argument and can only produce belief, while my aim both in this treatise and everywhere I can is to provide demonstrative certitude, after which you are left with no trace of doubt.77

Hence, William’s declared aim in all his writings is to proceed by demonstrative proof, however far short of such proofs he may fall in the actual execution of his work. For William to have appealed to the Boethian definition of eternity would have produced at most a dialectical argument and would have appealed to an authority that neither Aristotle nor Avicenna would have had any reason to recognize. Second, William likes to take a statement of an opponent, such as Avicenna, and use it against its author. William, for example, read in Avicenna, “A natural [cause] does not act through free choice, but in the manner of a servant.”78 As early as De trinitate, in rejecting Avicenna’s argument for the eternity of the world, an argument which supposedly 76 For this dating of the De anima, see R. A. Gauthier, “Notes sur les débuts (1225–1240) du premier ‘Averroïsme,’” Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques 66 (1982): 321–374, here 362. Gauthier claims that the composition of the De universo may well have continued up to 1240 and that William probably began his De anima only a short time earlier. 77 William, De anima ch. 1, pt. 1; II, 65b: “Non intret autem in animum tuum quod ego vellem uti sermonibus Aristotelis tanquam authenticis ad probationem eorum quae dicturus sum, qui scio locum dialecticum ab auctoritate tantum esse et solum facere posse fidem, cum propositium meum sit et in hoc tracatu et ubicumque possum certitudinem facere demonstrativam, postquam non relinquitur tibi dubitationis ullum vestigium.” I have followed the conjecture of “dubitationis” in place of “demonstrationis” in Noël Valois, Guillaume d’Auvergne. Évèque de Paris: Sa vie et ses ouvrages (Paris: Picard, 1880), p. 239. 78 Avicenna, Metaphysics IX, ch. 2, in Avicenna latinus: Liber de philosophia prima sive scientia divina, ed. S. Van Reit, p. 488: “Naturalis enim non agit per electionem sed ad modum seruientis. ...”


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rested upon “the testimony of a pure and true intellect” that, if a cause is unchanged, no new effect comes from it, William points out that the Aristotelians “have forgotten what they correctly said, namely, that nature does not operate according to choice and will, but in the manner of a servant.”79 The implication is that a non-natural cause, such as God, will not act in the manner of a servant, but with knowledge and freedom. William again and again reminded the Peripatetics of the statement that they made correctly and seemed to have forgotten.80 If, then, I may generalize from such an example, when William catches his opponent saying something damaging to himself, William latches onto it and uses it with a vengeance. Third, William points out that Aristotle’s “official” position is that eternity is merely time without beginning or end, that is, a duration which is endless before and after. He said, “Know also that according to Aristotle this eternity is only eternal time, and according to the meaning of that philosopher this term means only eternal time, that is, duration that is infinite in both directions.”81 Furthermore, he is clear that both Aristotle and Avicenna held that the world was eternal in that sense. “Whatever, then, may be said and whoever may try to excuse Aristotle, this was undoubtedly his opinion, namely, that the world is eternal and that it did not begin to be, and he held this likewise concerning motion, and Avicenna did after him.”82 79 William, De trinitate ch. 11; Switalski, p. 75: “His igitur exemplis manifestum est eos imposuisse puro et vero intellectui falsum testimonium. Sed obliti quod ipsi quidem recte dicerunt, quod natura non operatur secundum electionem et voluntatem, sed ad modum servientis.” 80 See De universo Ia-Iae, ch. 9: I, 603aA; IIa-Iae, ch. 9: I, 694aF; Ia-IIae, ch. 2: I, 808bF; Ia-IIae, ch. 8: I, 816bE; Ia-IIae, ch. 30: I, 833aB; De legibus ch. 20: I, 55bBC. See Michael Miller, “William of Auvergne and Avicenna’s Principle‘Nature Operates in the Manner of a Servant,’” in Medieval Philosophy and the Classical Tradition in Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, ed. John Inglis (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, 2002), pp. 263–276. 81 William, De universo IIa-Ia, ch. 5; I, 688bE: “Scito etiam quod aeternitas ista non est secundum Aristotelem, neque secundum intentionem ejus Philosophi est iste sermo, nisi tempus aeternum, hoc est, duratio ex utraque parte infinita.” 82 Ibid., ch. 8; I, 690bH: “Quicquid igitur dicatur et quicumque conentur excusare Aristotelem, haec indubitanter fuit ejus sententia, quod mundus

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Fourth, though Avicenna spoke of the creator as eternal, it seems that he thought of God’s eternity as a temporal duration without beginning or end. He never distinguishes between the sort of eternity that is all at once and not divisible into before and after and the sort of eternity that he claims belongs to the world.83 In fact, Avicenna’s principal argument for the eternity of the world presupposes that God is eternal in the same sense as the world is eternal. For “the creator either preceded the world or did not precede the world. If he did not precede the world, then the creator existed only if the world existed. The world, therefore, did not begin to be, and this is what they are aiming at, or the creator did not exist before the beginning of the world.”84 This latter alternative is, of course, rejected as impossible. “But if the creator preceded the world and did not preceded it by time, as Avicenna says, he preceded it as a cause precedes its effect.”85 But the priority of cause to effect means that the creator existed as long as the world existed. If then the duration of the world is temporal, though without beginning or end, then so is est aeternus et quod non coepit esse, et de motu similiter, et Avicenna post eum.” 83 An electronic search of Avicenna’s Metaphysics reveals that the term “eternity” occurs twice, once in VII, 3 and once in IX, 7. In the first case he speaks of something that “potest sustinere aeternitatem,” and in the latter Avicenna contrasts “duiturnitas aeternitatis” with “diuternitati variabili corruptibili.” The adjective “eternal” occurs only nine times; once it modifies “truth” (I, 8), once it modifies “universals” (IV, 2) and once a particular universal, such as humanity (VII, 2). Once it occurs in indirect discourse (IV, 2). Once it modifies “horror of pain” (X, 2) and once “labor” (IX, 7). Once it modifies “principium” (IX, 1). Once things always in act are described as eternal (IV, 2). Only once does it seem to refer to God: “primus aeternus” (IX, 1). But there is certainly no doctrine of eternity as tota simul as compared to the before and after of time. 84 De universo IIa-Iae, ch. 8; I, 690bH: “creator vel praecessit mundum vel non praecessit. Si non praecessit, non fuit ergo creator quin et mundus non esset. Mundus, igitur, non incoepit esse, et hoc est quod intendunt, vel creator non fuit ante incoeptionem mundi. ...” I have introduced the major punctuation after “esset,” which the sense demands. For Avicenna’s version of this argument, see his Metaphysics IX, ch. 1; ed. Van Reit, p. 443. 85 Ibid., I, 690bH–691aA: “Si vero praecessit mundum creator, et non praecessit ipsum, ut ait Avicenna, tempore, non praecessit igitur ipsum nisi quomodo causa praecedit effectum.”


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the duration of the creator. Yet, given his view that the First is simple and indivisible into parts, Avicenna should have seen that this doctrine precluded temporal parts just as much as spatial parts. Fifth, when William develops the idea of divine eternity as tota simul, as “all at once” without any before or any after, that is, without any temporal parts, he is drawing out the implications of Avicenna’s own description of God’s being as simple and indivisible into parts.86 Hence, I suggest that the reason why William did not appeal to Augustine or to Boethius for his doctrine of divine eternity as essentially other than time was that he wanted to proceed by way of demonstration, as he did, following Avicenna’s metaphysics, to refute Avicenna out of Avicenna’s own account. In other words, William found that he could derive the doctrine of timeless eternity from attributes of God which Avicenna himself had demonstrated and which William, following Avicenna, had incorporated into his own philosophy of God in the De trinitate.87 Hence, William was able to achieve of his goal of demonstrative knowledge and, while doing so, was able to turn Avicenna’s own doctrine against him by the method of retortion.

86 See above pp. 7–8, the text corresponding to notes 25–31. 87 See Jon McGinnis, “Ibn Sina on the Now,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 73 (1999): 73-106, which contains a new translation of Avicenna’s De tempore along with a commentary on it. Though William draws out of Avicenna’s teaching on God a doctrine of eternity as tota simul—a doctrine which Avicenna did not have, but ought to have had, according to William, William does not pay much attention to Avicenna’s doctrine on time which seems quite at odds with William’s view. For William, time is in perpetual flux with nothing that lasts, as we have seen earlier in this paper. William’s account of time is, in other words, very much in accord with the Augustinian account of time found in Confessions 11, while the Avicennian account of time as found in McGinnis’s article and Jeck’s study (op. cit., pp. 103–113) describes time as a continuum that is not divided by the now or the instant. The fact that William’s account of time is similar to that of Augustine reinforces the oddness of William’s not appealing to Augustine or to Boethius for his account of eternity and confirms, I believe, my hypothesis that William wanted to refute Avicenna with an account of eternity that he derived from what was implied by Avicenna’s account of God.

William of Auvergne’s Debt to Avicenna

M

y original interest in William of Auvergne was largely accidental. A good friend and colleague, the Reverend Francis C. Wade, S.J., asked me to check his translation of William’s De trinitate which he had undertaken after his retirement in 1985. After a period during which we worked together on a revision, Fr. Wade suddenly died, leaving me with the translation about half revised. I decided to complete the project as a memorial to him, and in the process of doing so, I became fascinated by the thought of this highly intelligent and very pushy man who, while a canon of the cathedral of Notre Dame and master of theology in Paris, went to Rome and appealed directly to the pope because he was displeased by the election of a new bishop of Paris. William managed to convince Gregory IX to ordain him priest and to consecrate him bishop of Paris instead of the chosen successor, as Gregory did on April 10, 1228. The man from Auvergne remained as bishop of Paris until his death in March of 1249, though he mishandled the students’ strike in 1229 so badly that Gregory roared from Rome, “We regret having made this man.” Both before and during his episcopacy William maintained a lively interest in the wealth of Greek and Islamic thought which was entering the Latin West through translations, and during this same period he wrote his immense, summa-like opus, the Magisterium sapientiale et divinale which contains seven parts: De trinitate, De universo creaturarum, De anima, Cur Deus homo, De fide et legibus, De sacramentis, and De virtutibus. From my first encounter with William while translating and annotating his De trinitate, I became convinced that much of the secondary literature excessively emphasized William’s defensive stance in the face of the philosophical errors pouring into the West. For example, Josef Gregory IX, cited from Noël Valois, Guillaume d’Auvergne évèque de Paris (1228-124): sa vie et ses ouvrages (Paris: Picard, 1880), pp. 344. See Guglielmo Corti, “Le sette parte del Magisterium diuinale et sapientiale di Guglielmo di Auvergne,” in Studi e richerche di scienze religiose in onore dei santi apostoli Petro et Paulo nel XIX centenario del loro martirio, 289-307 (Rome: Lateran University, 1968), for the composition of the Magisterium divinale.

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Kramp, whose studies of William’s writings in 1920 first clearly showed that the various parts of the Magisterium divinale were intended to form one huge opus, viewed the aim of William’s work as basically apologetic. After mentioning Aristotelian and Arabian philosophy, the pantheism of Amaury of Bène, the Albigensians, and the moral laxity of the era, Kramp said, “All diesen Irrtümern und Misständen zu begegnen, den mit erschreckender Gewalt sich Bahn schaffenden Häresien in den Weg zu treten, die Veriirten auf den rechten Weg zurückzuleiten, die Gläubigen vor dem Abfall zu bewahren: das is der Zweck des magisterium divinale.” Kramp admitted that William was influenced by Avicenna’s vocabulary, manner of presentation and thought, but explains this merely in terms of William’s having found a non-Christian author who suited his purpose. In articulating his own stance with respect to Aristotle, William was more balanced and said in De anima, the last part of the Magisterium divinale to be written, But though on many points we must oppose Aristotle, as is truly right and just, and this is the case in all the statements in which he speaks contrary to the truth, so he should be accepted, that is, upheld in all those points on which he is found to have held the correct view.

Here it is important to bear in mind that in much of William’s thought, as Gilson said, “Aristote se confond souvent pour lui avec Avicenne” or Avicenna is taken to be an authentic interpreter of Aristotle to the point that William uses Aristotle’s name or the expression, “Aristoteles Josef Kramp, “Des Wilhelm von Auvergne ‘Magisterium dininale,’” Gregorianum 1 (1920): 538-616 and 2 (1921): 42-103 and 174-195; here, p. 578. Ibid., 2, p. 48. William of Auvergne, De anima ch. 2, pt. 12; II, 82b: “Quamquam autem in multis contradicendum sit Aristoteli, sicut revera dignum et iustum est, et hoc in omnibus sermonibus quibus dicit contraria veritati, sic suscipiendus est, i.e., sustinendus in eis omnibus, in quibus recte sensisse invenitur.” References to William’s works, except for De trinitate, are to Guilelmi Alverni Episcopi Parisiensis Opera Omnia, ed. François Hotot, 2 vols., with Supplementum, ed. Blaise Le Feron (Orléans-Paris, 1674; facsimile reprint Frankfurt am Main: Minerva, 1963). Each reference will indicate the volume, page, and column as well as the section, if that is given. Étienne Gilson, “Pourquoi saint Thomas a critiqué saint Augustin,” Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen âge 1 (1026): 5-127, here 66.


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et sequaces ejus,” when he in fact refers to Avicenna. For example, William maintains that there is no agent intellect in the human soul as part or power of it and adds, Nor did Aristotle … ever maintain or think this; rather, he maintained an agent intelligence that was separated and stripped [of matter] like an intelligible sun, by the rays of which the sciences come to be in our material intellect, and he maintained that it was the tenth and the last and the lowest of the separate intelligences.

Here William clearly attributes to Aristotle a position which Aristotle himself did not hold, but Avicenna did. Many authors have emphasized points of Avicenna’s philosophy which William rejected. De Vaux has even made a list of the errors which William found in Avicenna and condemned: Le monde n’a pas commencé dans le temps. La cause première opère par nécessité, à la manière d’une cause naturelle. La cause première n’a pu produire immédiament qu’une seule créature: c’est la première intelligence. Le monde a été créé par degrés, chaque intelligence créant l’intelligence suivante, et il n’y a que dix intelligences. Les substances célestes gouvernent le cycle perpétuel des générations et les affaires humaines n’échappent pas à leur influence. L’intellect agent est une substance séparée: c’est l’intelligence motrice de la dernière sphère. L’intellect agent est cause efficiente des âmes humaines. La béatitude des âmes humaines consiste dans leur union à l’intellect séparé. In Notes et textes sur l’Avicennisme latin aux confins des XIIe-XIIIe siècles (Paris: J. Vrin, 1934), Roland de Vaux said, “C’est donc Avicenne encore que nous allons retrouver derrière les sequaces Aristotelis.” William, De anima ch. 7, part 3; II, 210a: “Nec Aristoteles … hoc unquam posuit vel cogitavit, verum intelligentiam agentem separatam et spoliatam posuit tanquam solem quemdam intelligibilem, cujus irradiatione scientiae fiunt in intellectu nostro materiali, et eam posuit decimam et novissimam, infimamque intelligentiarum separatarum.” I confess that almost all the articles I have written on William have dealt with the errors he found and rejected in Avicenna. William emphasizes these errors and his reasons for rejecting them; he does not comparably emphasize what he borrows from Avicenna and makes his own.

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Studies in the Philosophy of William of Auvergne La principe d’individuation étant la matière, il n’y a pas deux substances séparées de la même espèce. Les âmes humaines sont individuées par leur corps; il faut en conclure que les âmes séparées perdent leur individualité. L’intelligence en tant que telle ne saisit pas les singuliers. Les âmes séparées participent à cet état. On en conclut qu’elles ne peuvent pas saisir Dieu.10

Given such a list of errors, one might suppose that William found nothing of value in Avicenna’s philosophy. De Vaux’s list, moreover, is hardly complete. For William reserves some of his sharpest criticism for Avicenna’s consenting to what William took to be the Islamic belief in an afterlife of sensual pleasures. William comments, And for these reasons some of the wise among the Saracens hold that Mohamad did not understand these promises literally. … Avicenna, nonetheless, explicitly consents to these ravings in his first philosophy where he says that bodily joys are found in our law which Mohamad gave, speaking of joys after death, on which point he clearly showed himself not to be not a philosopher, but a partaker in this madness, and his condemnation is the more just to the extent that so great a philosopher could better see and neglected to see these ravings.11

De Vaux acknowledges that William borrowed certain definitions from Avicenna, referred to his classification of the sciences, used examples from him, followed his ideas in his theological speculations in De trinitate, and developed a theory of the human soul which was Avicennian with the agent intelligence removed.12 This sort of view is precisely what I believe is an unfair picture of how things really stand. It seems to me that William of Auvergne is much more deeply indebted to the 10 De Vaux, op. cit., p. 37. 11 De legibus ch. 19; I, 54aH: “Et his de causis volunt quidem sapientes de Saracenis, non juxta literam Macometum intellexisse promissiones istas …. Avicenna tamen in philosophia sua prima deliramentis istis expresse consentit dicens, quia gaudia corporum expressa sunt in lege nostra, quam dedit Macometus loquens de gaudiis post corpora, in quo non philosophum sed insaniae istius consortem se evidenter ostendit, cujus damnatio tanto iustior, quanto ista deliramenta tantus philosophus magis videre potuit et videre neglexit.” 12 See de Vaux, pp. 22-23; there he points to the definition of truth in De universo IIIa-Iae, ch. 26; I, 791aAB, the definition of ignorance in De retributione sanctorum I, 325bB, and the definition of habit in De virtutibus ch. 9; I, 117aB.


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thought of Avicenna than has been previously acknowledged, and I hope to take at least a small step to rectify that view in this paper. The paper will single out five areas which, if they do not mark William’s most significant debt to Avicenna, at least are areas which show how the great Islamic philosopher positively influenced the thought of William of Auvergne.

I. Language and Style Gilson isolates various features of Avicenna’s style and phraseology which he notes are also apparent in the writing of William and of Roger Bacon. In terms of style William’s resembles Avicenna’s insofar as he writes in a continuous discourse which is broken down into chapters or parts and in which there is nothing like the “quaestio” method of the scholastics or like a literal commentary on a text.13 Rather, both authors write in the first person singular or plural, and both address their reader in the second person singular more often, I believe, than plural. Both frequently indulge in digressions and alert the reader that they are now returning to the point. Both point out to the reader that he already knows or should know something which has been previously treated. Particular phrases common to both authors indicate William’s deliberate imitation of even the wording of the Islamic thinker’s text as William knew it in its Latin translation. Gilson, for example, says that William’s discussion of the immortality of the soul in the De universo “s’y présente aussi sous une forme avicennienne de discours direct s’addressant personnellement au lecteur: Jam autem audivisti … ; Dico igitur … ; Dico etiam insuper … ; Nec te conturbet … ; Jam autem feci te scire … ; Tout lecteur de l’Avicenne latin se sent aussitôt chez lui.”14 In English we have the saying that imitation is the highest form of flattery. It may be that William did not deliberately set out to imitate Avicenna, but it would at least seem clear that he thought that the Avicennian style was the style in which one did philosophy. I take that to be the first indication, however slight it may be, of William’s debt to 13 Étienne Gilson, “Avicenne en Occident au moyen âge,” Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen âge 44 (1969): 89-121, here 90-93. 14 Ibid., p. 101, note 12. With Avicenna’s Liber de philosophia prima available in electronic version, it is easy to find many of William’s phrases in the Latin text of Avicenna, and there is no need here to add to Gilson’s examples.

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Avicenna. No one adopts another’s style of writing unless one regards the other as worthy of imitation and respect.

II. William’s Debt to Avicenna on the Name of God One of the powerful signs of William’s debt to Avicenna’s thought is the fact that William acknowledges that “Aristotle and his followers” most correctly named the first principle “necesse esse per se.” Though William does not acknowledge the fact, Avicenna’s metaphysics is clearly the source of this name, a name which William calls a proper—or even the most proper—name of God. In his De universo he says, But both Aristotle and all his followers … thought that they explained in their discourses that the first principle, which they most correctly named “being necessary through itself,” does not have an equal or anything else of equal duration and that its being is incommunicable in every way and that “being necessary through itself ” is in no way predicable of a multitude. But a proper name or proper nomination is one which cannot possibly be predicated of a multitude. Hence, “being necessary through itself ” is its proper nomination.15

To claim that the most correct and proper name of the Christian God is “necesse esse per se” is a rather bold move, since the expression is pure Avicenna,16 well removed from the biblical “Ego sum qui sum” of Exodus 3:14 in which Augustine found the proper name of God.17 Nor is this text the only one in William; in De anima he says, 15 De universo IIa-IIae, ch. 10; I, 853aD-bA: “Sed et ipse Aristoteles, et omnes sequaces ejus … existimaverunt se declarasse sermonibus primum principium, quod rectissime nominaverunt necesse esse per se, non habere comparem et coaequaevum aliud, et ejus esse incommunicabile omni modo, et ipsum necesse esse per se nullo modorum praedicabile esse de multitudine. Proprium nomen vero, seu propria nominatio est quam impossibile est naturaliter praedicari de multitudine, quare necesse esse per se est propria nominatio ipsius.” 16 An electronic check of Avicenna’s Liber de philosophia prima sive scientia divina, which is found on CETEDOC, reveals that the expression “necesse esse per se” is found nineteen times with, of course, many other slight variations. 17 In De trinitate, which was most probably the first part of the Magisterium divinale et sapientiale to be written, William does not give “necesse esse per se” as God’s proper name. Rather, with a series of biblical allusions to Exodus 3:14, Wisdom 13:1, and Job 23:13, he says, “Quia igitur de eo dicitur ens per essentiam, secundum hanc intentionem, singulare est et proprium nomen eius,


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Remember, then, that the highest and most noble essence of the creator is not only necessity in being, that is “being necessary through itself,” but also necessity for a created substance or essence, and I mean: necessity to the point that the intimate presence of the creator is so necessary for every creature that without it they can in no way exist.18

Not merely is the most correct and proper name of God for William “necesse esse per se,” but he also often refers to the creator simply as “primus,” that is, “The First,” here too following Avicenna’s manner of referring to God. Especially in Book VIII of his Metaphysics, Avicenna uses, “The First,” to refer to God and says that the First does not have a quiddity or a genus, is not composed, is free from matter and corruption, has no contrary, has no definition, is not subject to time, and knows the principles of all things.19 “But if one says of him that he is the First, one understands only the relation of this being to all.”20 Similarly, William says that “it is clear that the First is the principle of all other things created or generated or made,” adding in a less Avicennian quod quaerimus. Hoc igitur non frustra se nominavit Exodi III ad Moysen ‘qui est’, quod utique testimonium fidei sufficit ad certitudinem eorum, quae diximus. Similiter Sapientiae XIII nominatur ‘qui est’, et Job ad ipsum dicit ‘tu enim solus es’” (De trinitate ch. 4, p. 32). References to the De trinitate are by chapter and page to: Bruno Switalski, William of Auvergne: De Trinitate. An Edition of the Latin Text with an Introduction (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1976). The texts in which William says the proper name of God is “necesse esse per se” are considerably later—by perhaps more than fifteen years later—than the De trinitate, which was written about 1223. William’s language for speaking about God, it seems, became more Avicennian with time. 18 William, De anima ch. 6, pt. 37; II, 197b: “Tu igitur reminiscere quia essentia altissima ac nobilissima creatoris non solummodo necessitas est in esse, hoc est necesse esse per se, sed etiam necessitas est creatae substantiae vel essentiae, et intendo necessitatem in hoc, quia omni creaturae seu essentiae adeo necessaria est intima praesentia creatoris, ut sine ea nullo modorum esse possunt.” 19 See Avicenna, Metaphysics VIII, ch. 4; ed. Van Reit, p. 402; ch. 5, ed. Van Reit, p. 411; and ch. 6, ed. Van Reit, p. 422. 20 See Avicenna, Metaphysics VIII, ch. 7; ed. Van Reit, p. 430: “Si autem dicitur de eo quod est primus non intelligitur nisi relatio huius esse ad omne.”

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vein that “everything that comes from the First comes from it through wisdom and will.”21 Furthermore, in the beginning chapters of De trinitate William presents an argument for the existence of God which at least implicitly relies upon Avicenna’s dialectic of possible and necessary existence, though the argument also contains a mixture of elements from Boethius and others.22 William’s language about the proof for the existence of God is in De universo far more explicitly Avicennian.23 Let one example suffice. In explaining Boethius’ principle that “everything simple has its own being and that which it is as one,”24 William says, Such a simple being is in the ultimate degree of simplicity, as I have made clear to you in the first part of this sapiential philosophy, namely, in the chapter on “being necessary through itself.” This, then, is the explanation of necessity through itself in him [i.e., Boethius] that it is one in every way and its being is not separable from it in act or in 21 William, De trinitate ch. 18; Switalski, p. 106: “manifestum est primum creatorum et generatorum et factorum aliorum esse principium… . omne autem quod est a primo, ex ipso est per sapientiam et volumtatem.” For other references to “the First” in William, see De trinitate, chs. 1, 14, 28: Switalski, pp. 20, 82, 163. In its ontological structure William’s world is Avicennian, but in its mode of origin it is Avicebronian in its emphasis on will. See Kevin J. Caster, “William of Auvergne’s Adaptation of Ibn Gabirol’s Doctrine of the Divine Will,” Modern Schoolman 74 (1996): 31-42. 22 See De trinitate, especially chs. 2, 3, and 4. The Avicennian influence is, to my mind, clearer in ch. 3 where William points to the conclusion that “an essential being is necessary, eternal, and incorruptible” and in ch. 4. where he points to the conclusion that such a being is “simple in the ultimate degree of simplicity” and “in no sense common.” When William speaks of the relation between God and creation in the De universo, his language is more explicitly Avicennian, perhaps in accord with the greater influence of Avicenna in William’s later work which we noted with regard to God’s name. 23 William does not offer a proof for the existence of God in De universo, but he does speak of possible being and necessary being and refers back to De trinitate to the chapter on “being necessary through itself,” though William in fact does not use that expression in the earlier work. 24 William, De universo IIa-IIae, ch. 8; I, 852aG: “omne simplex suum esse et id quod est habet unum”; see Boethius, De hebdomadibus (The Theological Tractates and the Consolation of Philosophy), trans. H. F. Stewart and E. K. Rand (London: William Heinemann, 1918, p. 42.


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the intellect. But from every possible and from everything which is necessary through another its being is separable either in act or in the intellect or reason.25

Here the Avicennian language is unmistakable, and William refers to the first chapter of De trinitate, though he does not there mention “being necessary through itself ” and “being necessary through another.”26 The point is that no one gives to God a name derived from a metaphysics that he does not think basically correct, and no one uses as a way of proving the existence of God and of understanding the dependence of all other beings upon him a metaphysics which he does not regard as basically correct.

III. William’s Use of Avicenna against the Cathars In the first part of the first principal part of the De universo creaturarum, William turns to the claim that the universe of creatures has two first principles or gods, one good, the other evil. He mentions that the error of those who hold this view began in Persia with Manes and that his followers were called Manichees by the Christian people. William notes that the Manichees survive up to William’s own day as a most dangerous and harmful error. Though he clearly has in mind the Albigensians or Cathars of southern France, he never calls them anything but Manichees. He summarizes Mani’s teaching as follows: He maintained that there were two principles, that there are two gods, and he called one the god of light and the good god, but the other the god of darkness and evil god. In that way he maintained two universes, two kingdoms, even two nations, and he called them in accord with the previously mentioned names the nation of light 25 William, De universo IIa-IIae, ch. 8; I, 852aG: “hujusmodi autem simplex est in ultimitate simplicitatis, sicut patefactum est tibi per me in prima parte istius philosophiae sapientialis, in capitulo scilicet de necesse esse per se: haec igitur declaratio est necessitatis per se apud ipsum, quia unum per omnem modum ipsum est et suum esse non est separabile ab ipso actu vel intellectu. Ab omni vero possibili et ab omni eo quod est necesse esse per aliud est separabile suum esse aut actu aut intellectu sive ratione.” 26 This passage is also one of the important texts which reveals how William followed Avicenna in the distinction between “esse” and essence in created beings.

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Studies in the Philosophy of William of Auvergne and the nation of darkness, the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness.27

He mentions further elements of the Manichaean myth, such as the good and bad angels and the eternal warfare between the two kingdoms, but William’s chief concern is with the refutation of this error to which he devotes chapters two through ten of the first part of the first principal part of De universo. William’s refutation of the Manichees is purely philosophical insofar as it does not appeal to either scripture or Church teaching. He does not even mention Augustine of Hippo whose early writings had been so heavily directed against the original Manichees. William’s chief argument against the Manichees is, in fact, based upon the purely Avicennian concept of “necesse esse per se.” Though in his typical fashion William provides a long list of arguments, an examination of one of his metaphysical arguments will suffice for the point I wish to make. He first argues: When these misguided people affirm two coeval and eternal principles, they necessarily have as a consequence to maintain that each of them is “being necessary through itself ” and, on this account, simple in the ultimate degree of simplicity. For, if one of them were composed in some way, it would of necessity be divisible into parts and would, on that account, have parts in some way. Hence, neither of them would be a principle without qualification, since each of them would have many things prior to itself, namely, its parts or components. For all parts and all components are prior to their whole which they compose.28 27 William, De universo Ia-Iae, ch. 2; I, 594bE: “posuit duo esse principia, duos esse Deos, et nominavit alterum Deum lucis et Deum benignum, alterum vero Deum tenebrarum et Deum malignum. Sic posuit duo universa, duoque regna, duas etiam gentes et vocavit eas juxta praedictas nominationes gentem lucis et gentem tenebrarum, regnum lucis et regnum tenebrarum.” 28 William, De universo Ia-Iae, c. 3; I, 594bG: “Cum erronei isti ponunt duo principia coaeva et aeterna, necesse habent consequenter ponere utrumque esse necesse esse per se et propter hoc simplex in ultimitate simplicitatis. Si enim aliquo modorum alterutrum earum esset compositum, esset ex necessitate partibile, et propter hoc haberet aliquo modo partes, quare neutrum eorum esset principium simpliciter, cum utrumque haberet multa priora se, videlicet partes suas sive componentia sua; omnes enim partes et omnia componentia sunt priora suo toto quod componunt.”


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That is, if the Manichees assert two coeternal principles, each of them must—on the assumption that Avicenna’s metaphysics is correct—be “necesse esse per se” and absolutely simple. For, if they were not absolutely simple, but composed, neither of them will be “being necessary through itself ” on this view; in fact each will be being possible through itself, since each is caused by its parts which compose its totality.29

Hence, William goes on to argue that, since each of them must be “necesse esse per se,” each must be simple, and each must, therefore, have whatever it has as essential to it. But the Manichees claim that the goodness of the good principle is essential to it, just as they claim that the evil of the evil principle is essential to it. If each is being necessary through itself, each will be simple in the ultimate degree of simplicity; in neither, therefore, will there be something essentially present which is not that principle. Since, then, goodness and evil are present in them essentially, one of them will of necessity be its own evil.30

A dilemma arises: “Necesse esse per se” will be said of the two principles either univocally or equivocally. If it is said of both univocally, whatever one principle has because it is “necesse esse per se” the other will have. That is, if one is good insofar as it is “necesse esse per se,” the other must also be good. Necessity through itself, then, will either be said of both univocally or equivocally. But if it is said univocally, whatever, then, will belong to the one by the fact that it is being necessary through itself or through its essence will also belong to the other. Hence, if the one has goodness by reason of the fact that it is being necessary through itself, the other will likewise have it, and with regard to evil it is necessarily the

29 William, De universo Ia-Iae, ch. 3; I, 594bG: “Neutrum eorum erit necesse esse per se secundum hoc, immo utrumque erit possibile esse per se, cum utrumque sit causatum ab ipsis partibus componentibus totalitatem ipsius.” 30 William, De universo Ia-Iae, ch. 3; I, 594bH-595aA: “Si utrunque necesse est esse per se, utrumque erit simplex in ultimatate simplicitatis: in neutro igitur aliquid erit essentialiter quod not sit ipsum. Cum igitur bonitas et malitia sint in eis essentialiter, ex necessitate alterum erit sua ipsa malitia.”

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Studies in the Philosophy of William of Auvergne same way. Hence, either each will be good essentially or each will be evil or each will be both good and evil.31

On the other hand, if “necesse esse per se” is said equivocally of the two principles, that is, in two different senses, even worse problems result. For William insists that “in one sense the being itself is nothing other than goodness, while in the other sense the being itself is nothing but evil.”32 Hence, William produces against the Manichee position a “reductio ad absurdum” argument which rests upon the metaphysics of “necesse esse per se,” that is, first principle of the metaphysics of Avicenna. My point is that, in order to refute what one considers a deadly error, no one makes use of a metaphysics which one does not believe to be correct. Hence, William’s use of the dialectic of “necesse esse per se” against the Cathars or Manichees is strong evidence that William believed that the fundamentals of Avicenna’s metaphysics were correct—so correct that William saw no need to as much as mention the Church’s strongest opponent of Manichaeism, Augustine of Hippo.33

IV. The Immateriality of the Separate Substances William seems to have been the first or one of the first in the Latin West to hold that the angels and human souls were strictly immaterial beings.34 James Weisheipl has argued that the universal hylomorphism so 31 William, De universo Ia-Iae, ch. 3; I, 595aA: “Necesse ergo per se aut dicetur univoce de ambobus aut aequivoce: quod si univoce, quidquid igitur erit alteri per hoc quod est necesse esse per se, sive per suam essentiam erit et alteri; quare si alteri est bonitas per hoc quod est necesse esse per se, erit similter et alteri, et de malitia eodem modo se habere necesse est, quare vel utrunque erit bonum essentialiter, vel utrunque malum, vel utrunque bonum et malum simul.” 32 William, De universo Ia-Iae, ch. 4; I, 595bA: “altera intentione ipsam entitatem nihil aliud esse quam ipsam bonitatem, altera vero ipsam entitatem nihil aliud esse nisi ipsam malitiam.” 33 It has been suggested that William avoided any invocation of Augustine’s authority or line of argumentation because some of the dualists of his age had appealed to Augustine for support. 34 See M.-D. Roland-Gosselin, Le “De ente et essentia” de s. Thomas Aquin (Le Saulchoir: Kain, 1926; repr. Paris: J. Vrin, 1948), pp. xvii-xviii, where the author notes that William and Albert the Great were virtually the only


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staunchly defended by John Peckham as the longstanding Augustinian tradition actually stemmed from Avicebron and that until the 1220’s it was not even taught in the university of Paris.35 Though the Augustinianism of the early thirteenth century was certainly influenced by sources other than Augustine, such as Avicebron, the view that the human soul and angels contained matter, albeit a spiritual matter, is found in Augustine;36 hence, William’s treatment of the noble intelligible substances as strictly immaterial is a departure from Augustine’s views as well as from those of the early representatives of the Franciscan theology in Paris. The spiritual universe to which William devotes the second principal part of the De universo is divided into three parts and deals with the Aristotelian separate substances, the good angels, and the bad angels. This spiritual universe was, according to William, a world of strictly immaterial beings, pure forms, though he expresses some initial hesitation about the evil demons.37 Admittedly, William rejected many of the functions which the Peripatetics attributed to the separate substances, but he did not reject the Avicennian view that they were strictly immaterial. For example, William argued fiercely against the idea that the tenth intelligence created human souls and was the ultimate source of their happiness and against the idea that each of the higher intelligences produced only a single intelligence beneath it.38 But as William viewed theologians of the first half of the 13th century not to hold that angels and the soul were composed of matter and form. 35 James Weisheipl, “Albertus Magnus and Universal Hylomorphism,” Southwestern Journal of Philosophy 10 (1979): 239-260. 36 See Augustine, Confessions XII, 3, 3-6, 6, where matter is declared to be the principle of mutability in all created things. 37 See De universo IIa-IIae, ch. 7; I, 850aF-851aC, where William presents a whole list of arguments that the separate substances are substances without matter of any kind. In ch. 8: I, 851bC ,William cites Averroes, something which he does only twice in the whole Magisterium, as saying that “materia prima potentia est substantiae sensibilis” and that “substantia sensibilis est ultimus actus materiae primae.” 38 For William’s arguments against agent intelligence as creator of human souls, see his De anima ch. V, pt. 2; II, 112b-114a; for his argument against the agent intelligence as the source of human beatitude, see his De universo Ia-IIae, ch. 21; I, 826aE-827aD; for his rejection of the claim that each intelligence

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them, the Aristotelian intelligences were basically of the same ontological order as that of the angels and demons. One of William’s most interesting objections to the Aristotelian intelligences is that there are too few of them. When he sets out to establish the existence of the spiritual universe, William argues against the Jewish sect of the Saduccees which denied the spiritual universe entirely and Aristotle who denied it in part, that is, with respect to the evil demons. Those who deny the whole spiritual universe deprive the universe, he claims, of its more noble part. One who denies that there are such substances cuts from the universe its more noble part. For the more noble part of it is its spiritual part and in its spiritual part this part is most noble. Hence, they make the universe intolerably imperfect when they cut off that part and in that way deform it.39

Moreover, in admitting the existence of the noble separate substances, while limiting these intelligences to ten in number, Aristotle deprived the creator, William claimed, of a major part of the of his kingdom and glory. How much they detract from the kingdom and glory of the creator is evident from this very fact, since such substances are the chief part, in fact, the head of his kingdom.40

Moreover, in limiting the intelligences to ten, Aristotle has left the court of heaven with only ten courtiers in attendance, a number which would hardly suffice for any respectable earthly king or prince. Moreover, according to this error there will be only ten intelligences found naturally, and for this reason the belief concerning the angels and all the heavenly hosts will be vain, and yet that belief is supported by every law and by the opinion of almost all human beings… . They emanates only one other intelligence, see his De universo Ia-Iae, chs. 24-26; I, 618bG-623bB. 39 William, De universo IIa-IIae, ch. 3; I, 848aE: “Qui negat hujusmodi substantias esse, detruncat universum nobiliori parte sua. Nobilior enim pars illius est pars ejus spiritualis et in parte spirituali pars ista nobilissima. Quare intolerabiliter imperfectum faciunt universum detruncantes ipsum sic ac deturpantes.” 40 William, De universo IIa-IIae, ch. 3; I, 848aE: “Ipsi regno et gloriae creatoris quantum detrahant ex hoc ipso manifestum est. Cum potissima pars regni ipsius, immo caput, hujusmodi substantiae sunt.”


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give less honor to the creator than to any of the kings and princes when according to that view they do not give him a multitude of attendants and servants. … Hence, they make him very solitary and without royal honor; for a group of ten is not by itself a multitude worthy of regal magnificence and ought not to appear by itself in a royal palace.41

Whether or not William broke with a longstanding tradition which held that human souls and angels contained matter, he did, it seems to me, conceive of the angels in terms of the Avicennian intelligences, to which he added will and which he increased vastly in number, while trimming away some of their other functions. Does William derive the concept of such immaterial separate substances from Avicenna? We know that he read Avicenna and that the Avicennian intelligences were such substances. I do not know of any other author William read from whom he could have derived such a position. Furthermore, William does explicitly mention the ten intelligences, while complaining about their fewness and lack of will.42 Hence, I conclude that William derived his view of the noble substances as strictly immaterial substances from Avicenna. He had a lot of correcting to do on them to turn them into the angels of the heavenly court, but that, I think, is what he did.43 41 William, De universo Ia-Iae, ch. 26; I, 622bH-623aA: “Secundum hunc errorem non erunt nisi decem substantiae spirituales observatae naturaliter, et ideo inanis erit credulitas de Angelis et de omnibus militiis coelestibus quae tamem est omni lege et jam omni opinione pene omnium hominum firmata. Stabilietur autem tibi stabilitione demonstrativa mutiplici loco suo. Amplius. Minorem honorem ponunt creatori quam cuivis ex regibus vel principibus cum juxta eum non ponant multitudinem assistentium et ministrantium eidem; proprie enim non assistunt ei vel sunt coram eo nisi qui (ut ita loquamur) facie ad faciem intuentur, et hoc secundum ipsos non est possibile nisi decem intelligentiis vel aliquibus earum; quare solitarium valde et absque honore regio illum ponunt; denarius enim non est multitudo magnificentia regia sola digna neque sola apparere debet in regali palatio.” 42 Besides their fewness William objects to Avicenna’s having made the intelligences merely intelligences so that they lack will and virtues. 43 In the light of my reading of William, I find puzzling Gilson’s description of the attitude William adopted with regard to Avicenna as “rejet énergique de sa cosmologie, et spécialement de sa doctrine de l’Intelligence séparée… (E. Gilson, “Pourquoi saint Thomas a critiqué saint Augustin,” p. 49).

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V. William’s Debt to Avicenna on the Soul William seldom mentions Avicenna’s philosophy with approval, but prefers to mention Avicenna when he can denounce his error or insanity on some point.44 When, however, William comes to the spirituality of the human soul, he clearly cites Avicenna’s views with approval. In his De anima William twice appeals to Avicenna’s “flying man” thought experiment. First, in dealing with the proof of the spirituality of the human soul, he quotes Avicenna as saying that, if we put a man in the air who has his face covered and is without the use of any sense and who never had used any sense, it is undoubtedly possible that he thinks or understands. Hence, he will know that he thinks or understands, and he will know that he is that. And if he asks himself whether he has a body, he will undoubtedly say that he does not have a body, and in the same way he will deny of himself each and every part of the human body. He will deny that he has a head and likewise that he has feet and hands and the rest in the same way. He will grant that he has being, but he will deny, Avicenna says, that he has a body.45

Again, William appeals to the same Avicennian idea for the proof that the soul is the whole human being and not a part of it. But when you look into Avicenna’s book, On the Soul, you will clearly read in it that a man, without using any bodily sense, but thinking of himself or of his being, grants that he is only spiritual and that he has no body, where Avicenna believes that he explains that a man thinking of himself in that way finds that the body is not part of

44 See William, De trinitate ch. 10; Switalski, p. 69, where he quotes Avicenna’s testimony of a pure and true intellect which he proceeds to show is false; also see above note 11 on the topic of a heaven of sensible pleasures. 45 William, De anima, ch. 2, pt. 13; II, 82b-83a: “si posuerimus hominem in aere velatam faciem habentem et omnino nullo sensu utentem et qui etiam nullo sensu fuerit usus, non est dubium quin possibile sit hominem hunc cogitare et intelligere. Quapropter sciet se cogitare vel intelligere et sciet eum se esse, et si interrogaverit seipsum an habeat corpus, procul dubio dicet se non habere corpus et eodem modo negabit de se partes omnes et singulas corporis humani. Negabit se habere caput, similiter se habere pedes et manus et ad hunc modum de aliis; concedet se habere esse et negabit, inquit Avicenna, se habere corpus.”


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himself. Hence, he finds that his whole being or whole essence is his soul.47 46

William is clearly indebted to Avicenna for such an argument that the soul is not a body and that the body is not a part of the human being. But William also goes on and spells out the implications of the sort of self-knowledge of which Avicenna speaks, namely, that such selfknowledge implies the soul which is the subject of such self-knowledge is without parts and incorporeal. He argues that every soul which understands also understands that it understands. Likewise, it knows that it understands and understands that it knows this. It, therefore, understands that its act of understanding exists and exists with it or in it. And if you ask it about its act of understanding whether it is in part of it or in the whole of it, it will necessarily have to answer that it is in the whole; otherwise, it would understand that only part of itself understands and not itself. … But every soul says that it understands without qualification whenever it looks at itself in thought; it cannot see part of itself understand and part not understand. It is necessary, therefore, that the whole of it understand. Because, then, the act of understanding is indivisible as a continuum is divided, it is necessary that the subject in which it is be of itself and without qualification indivisible.48 46 See Avicenna, On the Soul I, ch. 1, ed. S. Van Reit, pp. 36-37 and V, ch. 7, pp. 162-163. 47 William, De anima, ch. 3, pt. 11; II, 101a: “Cum autem inspexeris librum Avicennae de anima, leges in eo evidenter quod homo non utens aliquo sensu corporeo cogitans aut de se aut de esse suo concedit se spirituale tantum esse et nihil habere corporis ubi se credit declarare Avicenna quod sic cogitans homo de se invenit corpus non esse partem sui. Quapropter invenit quod totum esse suum sive tota essentia sua anima ipsius est.” 48 William, De anima ch. II, pt. 10; II, 80a-b: “Dico igitur quia omnis anima intelligens intelligit etiam se intelligere. Similiter scit se intelligere et intelligit se scire hoc; intelligit igitur ipsum suum intelligere esse et esse apud se vel in se. Et si interrogaveris eam de ipso suo intelligere utrum sit in parte ipsius an in ea tota, necesse habebit respondere quod in ipsa tota; alioquin intelligeret partem sui solummodo intelligere, non se. … Omnis autem anima dicit se simpliciter intelligere quandocumque cogitatu se inspicit, non potest videre partem sui intelligere et partem non intelligere. Necesse igitur est eam totam intelligere. Quia igitur intelligere impartibile est partitione continuitatis, necesse est subjectum in quo est per se et simpliciter impartibile esse. …”

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And since the subject of the act of understanding is the soul, the soul is, therefore, indivisible and, for that reason, incorporeal.49 William develops another argument from the simplicity of the object of understanding. An understanding of man in the universal or of any other non-complex concept is not a concept put together from concepts of its parts. He argues from the character of such a simple or non-complex concept to the simplicity of the subject of it. It has already been explained to you that the act of understanding by which one non-complex object is understood is not composed or divisible; hence, it is impossible that its true and proper subject be divisible. But I call that the true and proper subject outside of which there is nothing of the act of understanding.50

This argument merely indicated here is found in Avicenna developed in a somewhat different form than it is in William, but the basis structure of the argument is the same.51

VI. William’s Debt to Some Avicennian Principles One of the basic principles of Avicenna’s metaphysics is that from what is one insofar as it is one there comes only what is one.52 William argues 49 William’s dependence upon Avicenna is not obvious from the words used, but the idea of a spiritual subject wholly present to itself in the act of knowing itself is not all that common in the history of philosophy. In his introduction to Avicenna Latinus: Liber de anima seu Sextus de naturalibus (Louvain: Éditions orientalistes, 1968), p. 37*, Van Reit points to Augustine’s De trinitate X, 10, 13-16, though he admits Avicenna could hardly have known it. But see Avicenna, De anima V, 2: Van Reit, p. 92: “Dicemus igitur quod virtus intellectiva, si intelligeret instrumento corporali, oporteret ut non intelligeret seipsam, nec intelligeret instrumentum suum, nec intelligeret se intelligere.” 50 William, De anima ch. II, pt. 11; II, 81b: “Jam igitur declaratum est tibi intelligere quo unum inconplexum intelligitur non esse compositum sive partibile; quapropter subjectum ejus verum et proprium impossibile est esse partibile. Illud autem voco subjectum verum et proprium extra quod nihil habet sui ipsum intelligere.” 51 See Dominicus Gundissalinus, De anima, ed. J. T. Muckle, Mediaeval Studies 2 (1940): 23-103, specifically 37-38 for a similar version of this argument. 52 See Avicenna, Metaphysics IX, 4; ed. Van Reit, p. 481, ll. 50-51, as well as my “William of Auvergne’s Use of the Avicennian Principle: Èx Uno, In


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against some of the conclusions which Avicenna draws through using this principle, such as that the First can create only one first creature. William points to the principle which is the source of this conclusion of the Peripatetics, “They, of course, thought that from what is one insofar as it is one there can in no way come except what is one.”53 William does not argue that the principle is incorrect, but that creatures do not proceed from the creator insofar as he is one. Their claim, therefore, that from what is one insofar as it is one and through that which is one in every way, etc., does not pertain to the creator in these acts of causing and creating. For the creator does not produce these effects through that which is one or insofar as it is one, but through his will and as he wills.54

Hence, William concedes that Avicenna’s principle is true, but denies that the creator causes creatures insofar as he is one. In fact, William regarded the principle as so true that he himself used it in De trinitate when he argued that from the first source, the Father, there can proceed only one first emanation, the Son. William argues, Likewise, from the same as the same there is not something diverse or a diversity, just as from what is white as white or from what is black as black. Likewise, from what is one as one, there is neither many nor a multitude. … From the first source, then, by himself it is impossible that there be something else or of another sort, since insofar as it emanates it is by itself one and the same and of the same sort in every way.55 Quantum Unum, Non Nisi Unum,’” Modern Schoolman 71 (1993): 1-15. 53 William, De universo Ia-IIae, ch. 24; I, 618bGH: “Visum quippe est eis ex uno, secundum quod unum, non posse esse ullo modorum nisi unum.” 54 William, De universo Ia-IIae, ch. 27; I, 624aE: “Quod ergo dicunt quia ex uno secundum quod est unum et per id quod est unum omni modo, etc. non pertinet ad creatorem in causationibus et creationibus istis. Non enim operatur creator haec causata vel causat per id quod unum aut in quantum unum, sed per voluntatem suam et prout vult.” 55 William, De trinitate ch. 14; ed. Switalsi, p. 83: “Item ab eodem, in quantum idem, non est diversum nec diversitas, sicut nec ab albo, in quantum album, nec a nigro, in quantum nigrum, similiter ab uno, in quantum unum, neque multa neque multitudo. … Ex primo igitur fonte secundum se impossibile est aut aliud aut alterius modi esse, quoniam in quantum emanans secundum se est, unus et idem et eiusdem modi per omnem modum.”

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So too, he argues, Again, I say that the first emanation from the first source is one in every way and simple in the ultimate degree. For, if it were many in itself so that the intellect should find in it “this and this,” then from what is one there would be a multitude through itself and from the same one there would be a diversity—something which only a nodding mind accepts.56

Thus, in his De trinitate William appeals to Avicenna’s principle to show that the Father can generate only one Son. So too, William found in Avicenna a claim which he treats as a principle, namely, that nature acts in the manner of a servant. In his Metaphysics Avicenna said, “A natural [cause] does not act through free choice, but in the manner of a servant.”57 As earlier as De trinitate, in rejecting Avicenna’s argument for the eternity of the world, an argument which supposedly rested upon “the testimony of a pure and true intellect” that, “if one essence is now as it was before when there was nothing from it, there will now be nothing from it,”58 William points out that the Aristotelians “have forgotten what they correctly said, namely, that nature does not operate according to choice and will, but in the manner of a servant.”59 And William reminds them of what they have forgotten again and again, obviously pleased to find in Avicenna a principle which is both true and handy for refuting errors of Avicenna.60 56 William, De trinitate ch. 14; ed. Switalski, p. 86: “Item dico, quod prima emanatio ex primo fonte est unum per omnem modum et simplex in ultimo, quia si fuerit in se multa, ut reperiat in ea intellectus “hoc et hoc”, tunc ex uno multitudo per se et ex eodem diversitas, quod nisi somnians intellectus non recipit.” 57 Avicenna, Metaphysics IX, ch. 2; ed. Van Reit, p. 488: “Naturalis enim non agit per electionem sed ad modum seruientis. …” 58 William, De trinitate ch. 10; ed. Switalski, p. 69: “intellectus purus et verus testatur, quod, si essntia una est modo, sicut erat ante, cum non erat ab ea aliquid, nec modo erit ab ea aliquid. …” 59 William, De trinitate ch. 11; Switalski, p. 75: “Sed obliti sunt eius quod ipsi quidem recte dixerunt, quod natura non operatur secundum electionem et voluntatem, sec ad modum servientis. …” 60 See De universo Ia-Iae, ch. 9: I, 603aA; IIa-Iae, ch. 9: I, 694aF; Ia-IIae, ch. 2: I, 808bF; Ia-IIae, ch. 8: I, 816bE; De legibus ch. 20: I, 55bBC.


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Conclusion I have tried to indicate to some extent William’s positive debt to Avicenna. I have singled out six factors and argued that with respect to each of them William is an heir of Avicenna to a much greater extent than has, I believe, commonly been recognized, even though William is certainly a rather ungracious heir who far too seldom shows any, much less a sufficient, acknowledgment of his debt to Avicenna.

William of Auvergne on the Various States of our Nature

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lthough William of Auvergne, bishop of Paris from 1228 to his death in 1249, criticized Avicenna severely, he also adopted many philosophical positions of Avicenna. In a recently published article, I emphasized William’s considerable debt to the philosophy of Avicenna, and in a more recently published article I pointed out how William was indebted to Avicenna for his view of what it is to be a human being, and especially for his view of the spirituality of the human soul. For much of his lengthy work De anima, William follows Avicenna’s philosophy as he found it in the great Islamic thinker’s, De anima, seu liber sextus de naturalibus, not, of course, without serious criticism on many points. In chapter 5, however, of his De anima, William rather abruptly introduces an historical concept of human nature, which is closer to that of Augustine than of Avicenna or Aristotle, in place of the See Roland de Vaux, Notes et textes sur l’Avicennisme latin aux confins des XIIe–XIIIe siècles (Paris, 1934), 37, for a list of errors from Avicenna that William criticized. See“William of Auvergne’s Debt to Avicenna,” in Avicenna and His Heritage, Acts of the International Colloquium, Leuven-Louvain-la-Neuve, September 8–September 11, 1999, ed. Jules Janssens and Daniel De Smet (Leuven, 2002), 153–170. “William of Auvergne’s Spiritualist Concept of the Human Being,” in Autour de Guillaume d’Auvergne,” ed. Franco Morenzoni and Jean-Yves Tilliette (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005). For the critical edition see Avicenna Latinus: Liber de Anima seu Sextus de Naturalibus, ed. Simone van Riet; intro. by Gerard Verbeke, 2 vols (Louvain and Leiden, 1968–1972). William’s De anima is divided into seven chapters, each of which has many parts. For William’s works, except for the De trinitate, which has a modern critical edition, see his Opera omnia, ed. by François Hotot and Blaise Le Feron (Paris, 1674; repr. Frankfurt am Main, 1963), 2 vols. The De anima is found in volume 2, pp. 65–288. For an English translation, see William of Auvergne: The Soul, tr. with intro. and notes by R. J. Teske, S.J. (Milwaukee, 2000).

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philosophical concept of human nature which he derived, largely from Avicenna, whom he often confused with the real Aristotle. In introducing such an historical concept of human nature or of the nature of the human soul, William raises several rather intriguing problems that I want to discuss in this paper. First, he raises a question about how the various historical states of human nature are to be conceived and how they are to be combined with the philosophical concept of nature that he derives from Avicenna. Second, he raises a question about how he can, while claiming to proceed exclusively by means of philosophical proofs, introduce such topics as the original state in which Adam and Eve were created, the original sin by which they fell and which they passed on to the rest of the human race, and Christian baptism by which the harm stemming from their sin can be undone. Finally, William speaks about the soul’s state of natural happiness as opposed to the state of glory, and though his treatment of these states is rather brief, it raises a further question about how William envisaged these states and their relationship to each other. Hence, the paper will have three parts: the first on the present and past states of human nature of which William speaks and on their relationship to the philosophical concept of human nature, the second on how William introduces such apparently theological topics into what he claimed was strictly philosophical, and the third on how William understands the relation between the soul’s state of natural happiness and the state of glory.

1. The Historical and the Philosophical Concepts of Nature When a philosopher in the Aristotelian tradition speaks about the nature of human beings or of the nature of the human soul, nature means the essence of human beings or of the human soul, considered as a source of its activities. In this sense the nature of human beings or of the human soul contains only their essential characteristics, and in accord with this sense of nature William goes about establishing various essential characteristics of the human soul. For example, he argues that simplicity, indivisibility, incorporeality, and immortality are essential characteristics William, for example, attributes to Aristotle the emanation of the ten intelligences, the last of which is the agent intelligence; see De anima ch. 7, pt. 3, 210a. References to William’s De anima will include chapter, part, page, and column of the Opera omnia, volume 2.


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of the human soul. The philosophical concept of human nature or of the human soul—William thinks that the two coincide—is unchanging over time, and a change in essential characteristics, he realizes, would entail the emergence of another species. Augustine of Hippo, on the other hand, spoke of human nature in an historical sense. For example, he says: Thus we also speak of nature in one way when we refer to man’s nature as he was first created, blameless in his own kind, and we speak of it in another way when we refer to the nature into which, as a result of the penalty of condemnation, we are born mortal, ignorant, and enslaved by the flesh. Of this the Apostle says,‘We also were by nature the children of wrath, as were the others.’10

In accord with this historical concept of human nature, Adam and Eve were created so that they were not destined to die and so that they did not suffer from ignorance in knowing what to do and from difficulty in doing it, as we human beings, who are their descendants, are destined to die, and suffer from ignorance and difficulty. Given such an historical concept of human nature, nature can and does change over time. It once enjoyed great knowledge and freedom, but is now in a state of ignorance and enslavement. It was once whole and is now corrupted and vitiated. Furthermore, given the Augustinian concept of nature, there is really little room for supernatural or preternatural gifts, since what later thinkers referred to by these terms was at least to a large extent See his De anima ch. 2, pt. 3, 75a-b on the incorporeality of the soul, ch. 2, pt. 10, 80a-81a, ch. 2, pt.13, 82b-84b, and ch. 3, pt.1–2, 86a–88b on the soul’s simplicity or indivisibility into parts. For immortality as an essential or natural disposition, see De anima ch. 5, pt. 22, 147a. See De anima ch. 3, pt. 11, 100a-102a, where William argues that the soul is not a part of a human being, but the whole human being. De anima ch. 5, pt. 2, 114a: “Circa essentialia namque nihil possunt ea quae forinseca sunt. Et intendo nihil diminutionis vel alterius transmutationis essentialis. Alioquin possunt abstrahere a specie, hoc est transferre rem aliquam ab una specie in aliam.” 10 De libero arbitrio III, 19, 54: “Sic etiam ipsam naturam aliter dicimus, cum proprie loquimur, naturam hominis, in qua primum in suo genere inculpabilis factus est, aliter istam, in qua ex illius damnati poena, et mortales et ignari et carni subditi nascimur; juxta quem modum dicit Apostolus: ‘Fuimus enim et nos naturaliter filii irae, sicut et ceteri’ (Eph. 2:3).”

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included as a part of the nature in which Adam and Eve were created. The difference between the two concepts of human nature, Augustinian and Aristotelian or historical and philosophical, did not, to the best of my knowledge, pose a problem for thinkers in the Latin West until the 12th and 13th centuries, when the philosophical works of Greek and Islamic thinkers were translated into Latin. William was heir to both traditions, one of the first in the Latin West to take into serious account the newly translated works of Greek and Islamic philosophy. But in his De anima there is, I believe, not the slightest clue that he has any concept of human nature except the philosophical one, which he derived largely from Avicenna, until part 10 of chapter 5 of that huge work, when he introduces the historical concept of human nature. At that point, however, he begins to point out our soul’s present state of perversity and misery and to contrast it with our soul’s former state of natural health, purity, and freedom. Thus, he tells us that he is now inquiring “about the human soul in this state of its freedom and purity in which it is free from all the servitude and bondage of inordinate passions and carnal and spiritual shamefulness. ...”11 So too, he tells us that “human souls, when established in that state of freedom and purity burn with a love of spiritual and lofty goods more intensely than they can burn in the state of misery and corruption with a love of sensible and temporal goods.”12 He also tells us that, in accord with its natural purity, health, and freedom, the human soul “presides over its body, and the body serves it by natural right and law and in full subjection without any rebellion or resistance.”13 It was “the souls of the first human beings or those human beings themselves” who were in this “state of natural

11 De anima ch. 5, pt. 11, 134b: “Quaero igitur de anima humana in hoc statu libertatis et puritatis suae in quo libera est ab omni servitute et alligatione passionum inordinatarum ac turpitudinum carnalium et spiritualium. ...” 12 Ibid. pt. 15, 137b: “Animae humanae in statu libertatis et puritatis constitutae tanto vehementius calerent et arderent amore bonorum spiritualium et sublimium quam ardere possunt in statu miseriae et corruptionis istius amore bonorum sensibilium et temporalium.” 13 Ibid. pt. 22, 147b: “Anima vero rationalis quantum est ex naturali puritate, sanitate, ac libertate ... praeest corpori suo, et ipsum servit ei jure ac lege naturali et plenae subjectionis absque ulla rebellione et resistentia.”


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health, purity, and freedom.”14 By way of contrast William describes our present state of misery and corruption: “the misery and perversity, the illness and wounds, the drunkenness and captivity, and the darkness and weakness by which the human soul is injured, wounded, pressed down, held captive, intoxicated, darkened, and weakened or debilitated by the body so that it can be wounded and taken captive by all goods and evils.”15 And this is the state of misery in which all the descendants of the first parents are born. William is, if anything, more eloquent than Augustine in describing the wretchedness of our present state of misery in contrast with the former state of natural health, purity, and freedom. He, however, never says that our nature is corrupted or vitiated, but speaks rather of the various states or conditions of our nature. He, moreover, distinguished between natural or essential characteristics and those that are external or adventitious. He speaks of natural or essential characteristics as ones that souls have from the side of their creation, as opposed to injuries and perversities that are adventitious and from the outside.16 But he holds that external factors “can do nothing to essential characteristics—and I mean no lessening or other essential change. Otherwise, they would be able to remove something from its species, that is, transfer it from one species to another.”17 Hence, the diseases or illnesses of the irascible power “do not belong to it from its creation, for it is not possible that 14 Ibid. pt. 16, 140b: “Manifestum est animas primorum hominum sive ipsos in stato antedicto sanitatis, puritatis, et libertatis naturalis ... fuisse.” 15 Ibid. 139a: “Miseriam et perversitatem, aegritudines et vulnera, ebrietatem et captivitatem, et servitutem nequissimam, pariter et turpissimam, necnon et tenebrositatem, infirmitatemque quibus anima humana a parte corporis laeditur, vulneratur, deprimitur, captivatur, inebriatur, et obtenebratur, adeoque infirmatur seu debilitatur, ut ab omnibus bonis et malis et vulnerabilis et captivabilis sit.” 16 Ibid. pt. 15, 138a:“Omni enim inhonestati et turpitudini vitiorum inimicae ac rebellantes naturaliter nascuntur animae humanae, et intendo naturaliter, ut saepe audivisti, videlicet a parte creationis suae, et naturalium atque essentialium suorum. Praenominati autem perversitates et laesiones adventitiae sunt et a foris tanquam inflictae et illatae. Sed hoc est a parte corporis noxii, et ut audivisti, corrupti.” 17 See above n. 9.

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anything perverse either be inflicted upon or infused into any creature by the creator.”18 In that way William is able to distinguish between natural and essential characteristics of the human soul and those that are external and adventitious. Thus he can maintain that the human soul did not lose any of its natural or essential characteristics in passing from its state of natural health, purity, and freedom to its present state of corruption and misery. Rather, he views the perversity and wounds of the soul in our present state as “directly opposed to the natural order.”19 They are additions and offer to the soul various impediments to its activity, but they do not change its natural or essential characteristics. Furthermore, these impediments come to the soul from its body. William claims that all the present perversity “is accidental to” human souls “and separable from them both actually and by reason.”20 For this perversity, he says, is “something extrinsic to the essential characteristics and to all those things that the human species or human nature has from the creator or by the gift of the creator, because of which human nature and the human species is as it ought to be and as it is fitting that it be.”21 He clearly maintains that the natural or essential characteristics of human nature or of human souls remain unchanged as a result of the fall, though the state or condition of our present misery and corruption represents a dramatic change from the state in which human beings were originally created. Though William wrote his De anima late in his own life and merely a few decades prior to Aquinas,22 he says nothing about any preternatural or supernatural gifts, but simply refers to the state of 18 De anima ch. 5, pt. 13, 131b–132a: “Non ex creatione sua sunt virtuti nostrae irascibili. Nihil enim perversum ex parte creatoris vel ingeri vel infundi possibile est cuicumque ex creaturis.” 19 Ibid. pt. 10, 126a-b. “Et intendo perversitatem qua econtrario se habet naturali ordinatione. ...” 20 Ibid. pt. 13, 133a: “Ista vero quam dixi perversitas accidit et separabilis est et actu et ratione.” 21 Ibid.: “Extraneum igitur est ab essentialibus et eis omnibus quae habet species humana vel natura humana ex creatore sive dono creatoris quo est natura humana et ipsa species humana sicut debet and sicut decet eam esse.” 22 R. A. Gauthier has argued that William was still writing his De universo as late as 1240 and had begun the De anima only shortly before that date. See Gauthier, “Notes sur le début (1225–1240) de premier ‘Averroïsme,’” Revue


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Adam and Eve prior to the Fall as the state of our natural health, purity, and freedom in contrast with our present state of misery.

II. Philosophy or Theology? In his Magisterium divinale et sapientiale,23 William claims to proceed

by the way of philosophical proofs rather than by the way of faith, even though he admitted that the path of demonstrative proofs had no merit before God.24 At least in part, his motivation was to meet the arguments of those who did not share the Christian faith with arguments that were demonstrative proofs. He even insists that he does not appeal to the testimony of Aristotle as proof, since he knows that an appeal to authority can produce no more than a dialectical argument.25 On the other hand, William says that the principal and ultimate goal of his Magisterium divinale is the honor and glory of God and the perfection of our souls, which ultimately consists in the vision of God.26 Hence, des sciences philosophiques et théologiques 66 (1982): 321–374. Aquinas, on the other hand, was in Paris as a student of Albert by 1245. 23 The Magisterium divinale et sapientiale is the huge summa-like work of William, which includes the De trinitate, De universo, De anima, Cur Deus homo, De fide et legibus, De sacramentis, and De virtutibus et moribus. It was only in the early twentieth century that scholars recognized that William had intended the various parts to form one whole work. Hence, the 1674 Paris edition treats them as separate and independent works. 24 See De trinitate, prologus, ed. Bruno Switalski (Toronto, 1976), 15–16. William distinguishes three ways of acquiring knowledge of God. The first two are by way of a gift of God. “Tertius vero est philosophantium, et ex toto cum ipsis agendum suscepimus, non quod fides hujusmodi, videlicet suasa et exhortata probationibus, apud Deum meritum aut gratiam habeat, sed morem eis gerentes iuxta consuetudinem eorum eis satisfacere conabimur. ...” 25 De anima ch. 1, pt. 1, 65b: “Non intret autem in animum tuum quod ego velim uti sermonibus Aristotelis tanquam authenticis ad probationem eorum quae dicturus sum, qui scio locum dialecticum ab auctoritate tantum esse, et solum facere posse fidem, cum propositum meum sit et in hoc tractatu et ubicumque possum certitudinem facere demonstrativam, postquam non relinquitur tibi dubitationis ullum vestigium.” Following Valois, I have conjectured “dubitationis” instead of “demonstrationis.” 26 William says that the Magisterium exists “propter duas causas, quarum altera est honor et gloria creatoris, qui est finis praecipuus et ultimus totius

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there is—to say the least—a tension in applying apparently purely philosophical means to a goal that a Christian philosopher could hardly suppose was attainable by merely philosophical means. Following Gugliemo Corti, I previously argued that William distinguished between a primum magisterium, which was in his eyes strictly philosophical and included his De trinitate, De universo creaturarum, De anima, and parts of De virtutibus, from the totum magisterium, which goes beyond the paths of philosophical proof and includes Cur Deus homo, De fide et legibus, De sacramentis, and the rest of De virtutibus.27 The distinction between the primum magisterium and totum magisterium solves at least to some extent the tension between William’s claim to proceed solely by means of demonstrative proofs and his claim that the goal of philosophy is to give honor and glory to God and to bring our souls to their full perfection, which consists in the vision of God. That is, the primum magisterium proceeds by purely philosophical arguments, while the totum magisterium includes parts that rest upon the Christian faith. In working with William’s De anima, however, I came to realize that the problem does not seem to be completely resolved by that distinction, since in the De anima, which is supposedly a strictly philosophical part of the Magisterium divinale et sapientiale, William speaks of many matters that would seem to be strictly theological and knowable only by faith. For example, William speaks about the original state of the first human beings, about their sin, about the inheritance of its punishsapientialis divinalisque magisterii” (De universo Ia-Iae, ch. 1, 593bB; references to the De universo, which is found in volume one of the Opera omnia, give the part, principal part, chapter, page, column, section). And in the De trinitate he claims that the image and likeness of God in us “accedit ... ad actum suum ultimum philosophando” (De trinitate ch. 26, p. 150). This ultimate actuality of the soul is found “in intellectu glorificato, hoc est, cuius tota potentialitas in effectum suum ultimum et perfectionem exivit” (De trinitate ch. 26, p. 152). Or, as he says in De universo, the fruit of true philosophizing is “remuneratio foelicitatis aeternae quae in novissimo expectatur” (De universo Ia-Iae.. ch. 1, 594aE). 27 See Guglielmo Corti, “Le sette parte del Magisterium diuinale et sapientiale di Guglielmo di Auvergne,” Studi e richerche di scienze religiose in onore dei santi apostoli Petro et Paulo nel XIX centenario del loro martirio (Rome, 1968), 289–307. See also my article, “William of Auvergne on the Relation between Reason and Faith,” The Modern Schoolman 75 (1998): 279–291.


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ment by all other human beings, and about the remedy for its effects in Christian baptism, which brings new life for the sinner and transforms us from animal beings into spiritual beings. He speaks of the grace of sanctification and of the restoration to the life of grace through penance, if one falls from grace through serious sin. How can William introduce all these apparently theological topics in a work that is allegedly purely philosophical? What I want to do in the second part of this paper is to examine how William actually proceeds. My thesis is that William argues that the present state of our misery can only be explained as a punishment upon the human race imposed by God on account of a sin committed by the first human pair. William, as I see it, uses the condition in which human souls now find themselves in order to infer what must have been the original state of human souls in which God created them, the cause of their fall into this present state, and the inherited evils into which all their descendants are born. First, let us look at the context of the discussion of our present state of misery. In chapter 5 of De anima William begins to deal with the origin of the human soul. He argues against the view that souls are generated from other souls, against the Avicennian view that the agent intelligence is the creator of human souls, and against the view of Alexander of Aphrodisias that the soul arises from the harmony of the elements. William also argues against the view that human souls were created by God outside their bodies and claims that souls would have had to have sinned greatly prior to their embodiment in order to have merited the punishment of being united to these bodies.28 At this point William announces the points he plans to take up in what follows: “First, why the creator willed that [human souls] should be in a body or in bodies so harmful to them, which offer such great impediments to their noble perfections, and why he created them in the body; secondly, regarding their state and their command over bodies; thirdly, their mode of being in them.”29 28 For these topics see De anima ch. 5, pts. 1–9, 110a-124b. 29 Ibid. pt. 9, 125b: “Et primum quam ob causam in corpore vel in corporibus tam noxiis eisdem, tantaque impedimenta nobilibus perfectionibus earum praestantibus velit eas creator esse et creet eas in ipso. Deinde de statu earum et imperio in corporibus. Tertio de modo essendi ipsarum in illis.”

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In part 10 of chapter 5, William begins his account of our present state of nature with an expression of wonder that “the best and wisest creator either adapted or gave so inept and so harmful an instrument as is the human body to so noble a worker as is the human soul.”30 He compares the bodies of other animals to the bodies of human souls and notes that the bodies of other animals do not prevent them from knowing what is good for them or from doing the sort of actions they need to do to take care of themselves. “But human beings alone are born so in the dark that they do not take care of either their food or drink, nor do they know how to take care of them; rather, they are unable either to walk or to do anything that sustains or nourishes their life or helps them in any other way. ...”31 William claims that this perversity is “not only unnatural, but also contrary to nature” because “natural beginnings and initial states are naturally proportional and ought to be naturally proportional to the perfections” of those beings.32 But the perfection of human beings and of human souls is incomparably more excellent than the perfections of other animals and of their souls. Hence, the perfection of human beings at their beginning ought to be better than the perfection of other animals at their beginning. What we find in human beings is, he claims, not merely a universal defect or failure, but a perversity contrary to all the ruling powers of the soul, as a result of which human beings are unable to govern their lives from the moment of their birth, as many of the other animals can do. William points to the partridge chick, which often flies off with a part of the eggshell still clinging to it.33 30 Ibid. pt. 10, 125b: “Creator optimus ac sapientissimus tam ineptum tamque noxium instrumentum ut est corpus humanum tam nobili operario, ut est anima humana, vel adaptaverit vel dederit.” 31 Ibid. pt. 10, 125b: “Homines vero soli adeo obtenebrati nascuntur ut neque de cibo sive alimento vel curent vel curare noscuntur, sed neque gradi, neque quidquam quod vitam ipsorum vel sustentet vel nutriat, vel quolibet aliorum modorum adjuvet et operari vel possunt vel sciunt.” 32 Ibid. 126a: “Quis intelligens ... non videat hanc ... perversitatem non solum innaturalem sed etiam contra naturam ... cum initia et rudimenta naturalia proportionalia naturaliter sint et esse debeant perfectionibus suis.” 33 Ibid. 125b–126a: “Videmus siquidem perdices nondum pene exclusas ab ovis, imo etiam cum aliqua parte ovorum evolantes et ad pastum matrem sequentes.”


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Everyone admits, William claims, that the goodness of morals is a beauty and perfection of human life, and moral goodness is the spiritual health of human beings. But each of us perceives in himself a constant and strong rebellion against moral goodness. For example, William calls attention to the difficulty with which we apply ourselves to the pursuits of the sciences and the practice of the virtues and to the necessity of fighting against hatred, anger, and other deadly passions, which we repel and conquer only with difficulty and courage. He points to the perversity of the concupiscible power with respect to sexual sins, to the perversity of the irascible power with respect to anger, and to the perversity of the rational power, which is so ready to believe the wrong things and not to believe the right ones.34 In our present state of misery our irascible power is so perverted that we are at peace with our vices and sins, while the good health and rectitude of that power would makes us implacably angry at them. So too, our concupiscible power is feeble and weak in desiring good things and quite alert and ready for desiring evils. And the rational power is “wretchedly wounded, corrupted by many perversities, and darkened by the most ruinous ignorance of things useful and salutary for it.”35 William rejects the idea that such imperfection or perversity is our nature or natural disposition on the grounds that it is perpetual and universal. He argues that, since human nature is more noble and more perfect than the natures of other animals, human nature ought to be incomparably more free from this weakness or debility.36 Hence, the delay in human nature’s development, which results from one’s tender age and weakness, clearly is not due to nature nor naturally just. William, therefore, claims that it is necessary to assign another cause for this misery and infirmity. That is, it is necessary to admit that “the blow of this misery was inflicted by the providence of the governor of the universe, who is God most high. For it is impossible that it be natural to human nature.”37 An injury to itself, after all, “is natural to no nature, 34 See ibid. 126b. 35 De anima ch. 5, pt. 13, 132a: “Ad vim vero rationalem si attenderis, invenies eam miserabiliter vulneratam multis perversitatibus corruptam et suorum utilium ac salutarium pernitiosissimis ignorantiis obtenebratam.” 36 See ibid. pt. 10, 126b. 37 De anima ch. 5, pt. 10, 127a: “Concedere coguntur de necessitate plagam miseriae istius providentia gubernatoris universi qui est Deus altissimus

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but is rather contrary to nature and is so opposed to it and perverts it to the point that it not only makes that nature on a par with and equal with the nature of irrational animals, but makes it far more inferior or worse or more ignoble.”38 William argues that the universality and perpetuity of the injury rules out chance as a source of our misery, and the devil is likewise ruled out on the grounds that the devil has only as much power as God has given him.39 William insists that Aristotle ought to have seen that these punishments and miseries had not been inflicted on human beings, in fact on the whole human race, without a reasonable cause. “But,” he adds, “the reasonable cause on account of which punishments are inflicted by the most just creator is only sin. For, if punishments are inflicted upon anyone without sin, there is no doubt that they are inflicted unjustly. Hence, since injustice can have no place with the creator, it is evident that sin is the cause of this destructive penal condition and that it preceded this penal condition.”40 If Aristotle or one of his followers objects that newborn little ones did not merit this punishment, William says that he has already dealt with this in his Cur Deus homo and in his De vitiis et peccatis. In the De anima, however, he repeats some of what he said in these works. He distinguishes between punishment (poena) and requital or vengeance (vindicta). Requital is inflicted upon those who are punished for sins they themselves have committed, while punishment alone is inflicted upon the children of those who sinned.41 As I understand William here, this distinction means that children are born without the guilt of inflictam esse.” 38 Ibid.: “Nulli namque naturae laesio sua naturalis est, quin potius contra naturam, cum ei adeo adversetur, eamque quousque pervertat, ut non solum illam naturae irrationalium animalium parem faciat vel adaequat, sed etiam longe inferiorem vel viliorem et ignobiliorem efficiat.” 39 See ibid. 40 De anima ch. 5, pt. 10, 127a: “Causa autem rationabilis propter quam poenae a justissimo creatore infligantur non est nisi culpa; si enim sine culpa poenae cuiquam infliguntur, non est dubium quin injuste infligantur. Quapropter cum injustitia nullum locum habere possit apud creatorem, manifestum est culpam illam esse causam perniciosae poenalitatis eamque praecessisse poenalitatem hujusmodi.” 41 See ibid. 127a-127b.


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Adam’s sin, but with the punishment stemming from that sin. William appeals to the example of someone who is afflicted by God with leprosy because of a sin he committed; this is an instance of requital. But in that person’s child, the leprosy, if inherited, is not requital, but merely punishment. In a version of the “kalam arguments,” which claim to demonstrate the impossibility of an infinite past time, William has elsewhere argued that the series of past human generations could not go back to infinity.42 He explicitly mentions here that he has refuted such an infinity “by a demonstrative refutation.”43 Hence, there must have been first human beings who did not come to be by generation from other parents. These first human beings, then, were made by the creator in some other way, and William notes that we read in the law of the Hebrews how God made them. William argues that the first human beings must have been created perfect in their bodies and with a perfect power of command over their bodies and members. “But such a power of command is not perfect where it encounters rebellion or sluggishness in obedience or execution. Hence, it is evident that the bodies and members of the first human beings were most obedient to their souls without any rebellion or slowness in carrying out their commands.”44 The state of those souls was, William claims, regal and imperial in their power of command over their bodies. Hence, there were first human beings, and because of their sin the rest of the human race has been born in the present state of misery and perversity. Furthermore, it is perfectly just that a sinner is punished in the respect in which he sinned. Hence, “if the first human beings sinned against the regal or imperial state of God by their rebellion and diminished it in themselves, to the extent they could, it follows by the law of justice that they should suffer in their own kingly and imperial state the same 42 See my article, “William of Auvergne’s Arguments for the Newness of the World,” Mediaevalia: Textos e Estudios 7–8 (1995): 287–302. 43 De anima ch. 5, pt. 11, 127b: “Jam autem hoc removi tibi remotione demonstrativa.” 44 Ibid. 128b: “Non est autem perfecta hujusmodi imperiositas ubi rebellionem habet aut retardationem obedientiae sive executionis. Quapropter manifestum est corpora primorum hominum et membra absque ulla rebellione obedientissima fuisse animabus suis et absque tarditate exequendi imperia earumdem.”

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thing they did to the creator.”45 Since the obedience of the body and its members to the soul is natural, the first human beings were punished for their disobedience to God by the loss of the natural obedience of the bodies and members to them. Hence, the sin of the first human beings resulted in the rebellion and perversity in their bodies, which was requital (vindicta) in them, and we have inherited that rebellion as punishment (poena). Facing the question as to why this rebellion and perversity was passed on to their offspring, William pointed out that generation takes place according to likeness and, hence, that it is not surprising that a corrupt human being generates another corrupt human being.46 He furthermore claims that corruption is so imbedded in human bodies and souls that it can be removed only by the omnipotent creator.47 A closer consideration of this corruption reveals that “rationality has been put to sleep and buried, but that a brutality and a perversity far worse than brutality has come to the same human soul from its union with the corrupted body.”48 William describes our present disorder or perversity as a brutality or animality—not the brutality found in a particular species of irrational animals, but something much worse. For “a human being is likened to many and perhaps all animals by some perversity, such as, to a lion in his anger, to a wolf in his rapacity, to a fox in his insidiousness, to a serpent in his poisonous bite, and to a horse in his pride and precipitousness.”49 This animality is contrary 45 Ibid.: “Manifestum est si primi homines contra Dei regalitatem sive imperiositatem rebellione deliquerunt et eam in eis in quantum fuit minuerunt, consequens esse lege justitiae ut in ipsa sua regalitate sive imperio hoc ipsum quod creatori intulerant paterentur.” 46 Ibid. 129b: “Nec tu mireris si operatio ista naturae videlicet humana generatio secundum similitudinem est, et quia corruptio naturalis est, non est enim mirabile si corruptus corruptum generat.” 47 See ibid. 48 De anima ch. 5, pt. 11, 129b: “Cum autem consideraveris istam corruptionem perscrutatius in ipsa anima humana, rationalitatem sopitam atque sepultam, brutalitatem vero et perversitatem brutalitate longe deteriorem eidem animae humanae ex conjunctione corporis adventitiam.” 49 Ibid. 129b–130a: “Ipse assimilatur multis et forte omnibus aliqua perversitate, sicut iracundia leoni, rapacitate lupo, insidiositate vulpi, venenosa mordacitate serpenti, superbia seu praecipitatione equo.”


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to spirituality, which is “the perfection by which we, first of all, ward off from our souls spiritual evils, which are the vices and sins, and the punishments, which are given for them by the judgment of the creator.”50 By this spirituality we also seek for our souls “spiritual goods, which are all the virtues and gifts of the graces, as well as future rewards, which are aspects of eternal life.”51 This animality, in which we are born, is “a certain privation of rationality in terms of action or use only, not in terms of the essence of rationality itself.”52 William calls our attention to the fact that the teachers of the Christian people say that we are born as animal or brutal, that is, in the disposition opposed to the spirituality that he just described. Hence, William appeals to the words of the lawgiver of the Christians, who says, “Unless one is reborn from water and the Holy Spirit, he will not be able to enter the kingdom of Heaven” ( John 3:5). The first birth by which we are born as animal, therefore, prevents us from entering the kingdom of heaven. In order to be reborn spiritually, we must first extinguish our animal or brutal life. And by this renewal or rebirth the Christian people believe that they are saved from original corruption and perdition. The Christian people believe that the power of Christian baptism can put to death that animality in us, end its reign by its sanctification, and give them the power to live spiritually.53 From the soul’s present state of misery and perversity, then, William infers that, in the soul’s state of natural health, purity, and freedom, the soul was free to apply itself to intelligible things. For, if it were not free in that way, it would be suffering an impediment, and such an impediment would be part of our present oppression and misery.54 So too, since it would be free from every impediment to its operation, the 50 Ibid. 130a: “Spiritualitas autem est perfectio per quam avertimus imprimis ab animabus nostris mala spiritualia quae sunt vitia et peccata atque poenas, quae pro eis redduntur judicio creatoris.” 51 Ibid.: “Per hanc similiter quaeruntur animabus bona spiritualia, quae sunt virtutes omnes et dona gratiarum, sed et praemia futura quae sunt partes foelicitatis aeternae.” 52 Ibid.: “Ista animalitas non est actu species aliqua animalitatis, sed privatio quaedam est rationalitatis secundum actum tantum vel usum, non secundum essentiam ipsius rationalitatis.” 53 See ibid. 130b. 54 See ibid. pt. 14, 133b.

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intellective power would understand intelligible things, both those that are intelligible through themselves and others that are only intelligible though those things that are intelligible through themselves. Hence, in that state of freedom and goodness, nothing would slow down the human soul from knowing intelligible things and philosophizing through demonstrative proofs.55 The intellective power would be able to detach itself from sensible things, like persons in rapture and ecstacy, which William seems to regard as a not infrequent occurrence.56 Human souls in the state of purity and freedom burn with the love for spiritual and lofty goods,57 and in that state cannot cling to or be held captive by an inordinate love for or foolish curiosity about sensible things.58 This state of natural health, purity, and freedom was the state of the souls of the first human beings—or of the first human beings themselves— “before they fell into the abyss of corruption ... and into the sea of miseries, of which you have heard.”59 They were in that state of natural health, purity, and freedom “intent upon lofty and spiritual goods and were held back from bodily goods, as if they hardly knew them in that state.”60 At this point William appeals to the statement in Genesis about Adam and Eve realizing their nakedness only after their sin as confirmation of what he has said. Has William in this discussion abandoned philosophical proof for the scriptures and the Christian faith? I initially thought so, but I have come to believe that he is using rational or philosophical arguments—regardless of what we might think of those arguments—to establish the reasonableness of the Christian faith or to show that what reason can infer is in accord with what is found in the Bible and in the Christian faith. In his De universo, William had argued that God created by 55 See ibid. 134a. 56 See ibid. pt. 22, 147b, where William appeals to states of rapture and ecstasy as proof of the soul’s ability to survive separation from the body and, hence, of its immortality. 57 See ibid. pt. 15, 137b. 58 See ibid. 138b. 59 De anima ch. 5, pt. 16, 140b: “Antequam in abyssum corruptionis ... et pelagus miseriarum quas audivisti decidissent.” 60 Ibid.: “Sublimibus bonis et spiritualibus intentos et abstentos a corporalibus suis fuisse tanquam in eodem statu et tempore minime cognoverunt.”


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speaking a word, not an audible or perceptible word, but a spiritual word. He says of what he has done: “I have brought you to know the profundity of the statement by which it was said, “God said, Let there be light, and light was made” (Gen. 1:3). He tells his reader that, “as you see in this statement philosophical depth, so I intend to show you in certain other statements of the prophets, where I shall make you know concerning many of their reports that they are the conclusions of certain sciences, just as you see concerning this same statement that it is a conclusion of first philosophy.”61 Just as William here explicitly claims that he has shown that a biblical statement has philosophical depth and is a conclusion of the first part of first philosophy, so I believe that his use of the biblical texts from Genesis and from the Gospel of John, which we saw above, are not used as proof texts, but to point out that conclusions to which he has come in arguing from the experience of our present misery are in fact in accord with what is said in the Bible and with the Christian faith. Similarly, when in De anima William faces the question of why the good and wise creator joined a human soul to so harmful a body, he tells his reader that he should know “that the people of the Christians have many answers that they give to this question.”62 He points to “the grace of baptismal sanctification that casts down ... the original corruption and elevates and raises the human soul to a state more noble than the state of its nature”63 so that the soul’s apprehensive powers are enlightened and so that original corruption and animality cannot prevail against the soul’s more noble virtues. Here William introduces baptism and its effects, but only, I believe, to show the reasonableness of accepting the Christian faith, given the corruption and perversity of our nature. Hence, William is offering, I believe, a sort of defense of the 61 De universo Ia-Iae, ch. 20, 614bE: “Et sicut vides in isto sermone profunditatem philosophicam, ita intendo et tibi ostendere in quibusdam aliis sermonibus prophetarum ubi faciam te scire de multis narrationibus eorum quod ipsae sunt conclusiones quarundam scientiarum, sicut vides de hac eadem quod conclusio est primae partis primae philosophiae.” 62 De anima ch. 5, pt. 20, 144b: “Scito tamen hic quod gens christianorum habet multa quae respondeant ad quaestionem istam.” 63 Ibid. 145a: “Baptismalis sanctificationis gratiam quae corruptionem originalem dejicit et prosternit et animam humanam ad nobiliorem statum quam sit status naturae ipsius elevat et attollit.”

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reasonableness of accepting the Christian faith or a sort of philosophy of religion aimed at the same purpose.

III. Natural Happiness and the State of Glory When William speaks of the rational soul’s state of rest, he talks of the state of natural happiness and the state of glory. The state of natural happiness is a state in which the rational soul is free from the misery that William has spoken of at length so that it is free “to ascend to the higher world, which is the world of natural intelligible things, and likewise to descend to the lower world, which is the world of sensible particulars, and to apply itself to either of these worlds.”64 He claims that he has already explained to us that “the abode or dwelling delightful and pleasing to” the rational soul “is the region or world of ... intelligible things, but that the world of sensible things is not a dwelling suitable” for the soul to dwell in or remain in. It is rather for it “a porch or an inn,” and “a small and narrow one.”65 But he adds that this higher, intelligible world is also not enough for the soul “unless there lies open the amplitude and immensity of the region of glory, which is wider than the higher world of natural intelligible things to the extent that glory is more ample than nature”66 The higher, natural world “is not sufficiently spacious for the human soul ... to stay or rest in it as a goal, nor does” the soul “have perfect rest except in the world of glory or in the creator himself. ...”67 64 Ibid. 146a: “In statu isto ... libera est a saepe dicta miseria, liberrima ad ascendendum in mundum superiorem qui est mundus intelligibilium naturalium, similiter ad descendendum in mundum inferiorem, qui est mundus sensibilium particularium, necnon ad applicandum se utrique istorum mundorum.” 65 Ibid.: “Commoratio ejus sive habitatio sibi delectabilis ac jucunda est regio sive mundus praedictorum intelligibilium, mundus vero sensibilium non est ei conveniens habitatio ... sed est ei deambulatorium sive diversorium, verum modicum et angustum.” 66 Ibid.: “Sed nec sufficit ei eadem nisi pateat amplitudo et immensitas regionis gloriae quae tanto latior est mundo superiore intelligibilium naturalium, quanto gloria amplior est natura.” 67 Ibid.: “Nec mundus iste superior natura satis spatiosus est animae humanae ... in eo sistere vel quiescere finaliter, nec est ei quies perfecta nisi in


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In his De universo William tells us that “every created power and potency has being for the sake of its ultimate perfection, and this is its glory. ...”68 When the intellective power attains its ultimate perfection, “it does not seek or desire anything more, and nothing is lacking to it.”69 Hence, William holds that the intellective power was created for the sake of understanding the creator alone. If someone objects that, unless the intellect understood other things, its perfection would not be complete, William replies that to know or to understand “the first and most noble intelligible, which is the creator, is not the knowing of the creator alone. Rather, it is the knowing or act of understanding of all things. ... For the creator himself is in himself the intelligible world and clearest exemplar of all things. ...”70 Similarly, in his De trinitate, when William claims that “in its ultimate glory and ultimate beauty and in the happiness promised it, the human soul will be most like its creator,” he explains that, “because of its immediate union” with God, the human soul “will reflect him like a mirror of the highest purity, which reflects the face of one looking at it. ...”71 In that perfection the soul is necessarily at rest, “and it is impossible for it to seek something beyond that perfection.”72 There are then two higher worlds of intelligible things besides this sensible world. The world of natural intelligible things seems to be the world of the separate substances and of human souls, which are for William very similar to the separate substances, although William is not very clear about what is contained in the world of natural intelligible mundo gloriae sive in ipso creatore.” 68 De universo Ia-IIae, ch. 8, 816aF: “Omnis enim virtus et omnis potentia creata habet esse proper perfectionem sui ultimam, et haec est gloria ipsius.” 69 Ibid.: “Ultra nec aliud quaerit aut desiderat, nec aliquid ei deest.” 70 Ibid. 816aG: “Sed intelligere sive intellectus primi et nobilissimi intelligibilis, quod est creator, non est intellectus solius creatoris, immo est intellectus sive intelligere omnium. ... Ipse enim creator benedictus est in seipso velut mundus intelligibilis et exemplar lucidissimum omnium.” 71 De trinitate ch. 26, p. 149: “In gloria sua ultima et decore ultimo et beatitudine sibi promissa, simillima futura est anima humana conditori suo ... quoniam de immediata coniunctione sua relucebit ad ipsum velut speculum tersissimae puritatis reddens faciem suam inspectori suo.” 72 Ibid.: “Et impossibile sit aliquid eam quaerere ultra perfectionem istam.”

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things. The higher world of glory seems to be the creator himself, the knowledge of whom is the glory of the intellective power. William is not very clear about these two higher worlds. He is clear, however, that the higher natural world is inadequate as a place of rest for the human soul and that the natural powers of the soul are insufficient to ascend to that higher habitation. “For natural powers cannot go beyond the bounds and limits of nature, since the state of glory and all those things which belong to glory are unthinkable and beyond nature.”73 The state of natural happiness is great, but it “is in no way proportionate to the happiness of glory.”74 William argues that the human soul in that natural happiness has a further desire for the happiness of glory. For, “if the human soul has no such desire, it will be content with natural happiness.”75 William appeals to the Law of the Hebrews from which it is known that the souls of the first human beings wanted to be “like gods, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:5). “And they had not only such natural happiness, but also the great splendor and joy of glory”76 Though the first human beings enjoyed natural happiness and the happiness of glory, they were not content with these two. Hence, William claims, they would not have been content with only one. And so, on account of their disordered desire to be like gods, knowing both good and evil, “they were deprived both of natural happiness and of that extra addition of glory.”77 Furthermore, William argues that, if a soul situated in a state of natural happiness were content with it, it would regard it as its ultimate good, and “it would be acting

73 De anima ch. 5, pt. 21, 146a: “Non possunt vires naturales ultra naturales fines et limites, cum status gloriae incogitabilis ultra naturam sit et omnia illa quae gloriae sunt.” 74 Ibid.: “Licet igitur status ille naturalis foelicitatis magnus sit, ad foelicitatem gloriae nullo modorum proportionalis est.” 75 Ibid.: “Si enim nullum est ei desiderium hujusmodi erit contenta igitur foelicitate naturali.” 76 Ibid.: “Quibus non erat solum hujusmodi foelicitas naturalis, sed etiam magis gloriae splendor atque jocunditas.” 77 Ibid. 146b: “Et foelicitate naturali et superadditione illa gloriae privati sunt.”


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contrary to the providence of God, who created it and destined it for an incomparably greater good.”78 The state of glory for William, then, is not supernatural in the sense that it involves an elevation of human nature to a state above nature, about which the human soul could not know without divine revelation and which it could not attain without elevating grace. The state of glory, which is the perfection of the intellective power and of the noble appetitive power or will, is natural in the sense that our first parents were created in such a state of nature and that our souls cannot attain their end in a happiness that falls short of it, and yet in our present fallen state of misery we cannot know of the state of glory or of the grace by which we are helped to attain it, except by the grace and gift of God. Hence, despite his absorption of a great deal of Aristotelian philosophical thought filtered through Avicenna, William tries to situate the Aristotelian or Avicennian concept of human nature within the historical context of the Augustinian concept of human nature. There are clearly some unanswered questions in William’s view, such as how the first parents could have sinned, given that they were in a state of natural happiness and of glory. William also seems to blame the misery and perversity of the present state of our nature on our bodies, and yet it is difficult to see how this move exonerates the creator, even if it allows him to keep the evils of our present condition away from the essence of the soul. In any case William’s De anima contains one of the first explicit attempts to bring together the historical and philosophical concepts of nature since the rediscovery of Greek philosophical thought in the Latin West. It should not be reason for surprise that he did not solve all the problems, some of which continued to baffle some of the greatest theologians of the last century, and fell far short of the Thomistic position, which was developed only a few decades later. But William’s position certainly does reveal what a great leap was made within those next decades with the thought of Aquinas.

78 Ibid.: “Contra Dei ordinationem in parte ista faceret, qui eam ad incomparabiliter majus bonum creavit et ordinavit.”

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Index of Names Abubacer, 103 Albert the Great, 229, 245 Albigensians, 82–83, 85, 98, 218, 225 Alexander of Hales, 11, 17, 29, 35, 45 Alfarabi, 103, 106 Algazali, 103. 106, 125 Anselm, 211 Aristotle, 13, 15, 18, 20, 23–25, 27–30, 32–33, 38, 40–41, 44–45, 47–54, 56, 59, 61–63, 65, 74, 83, 95, 101–103, 106, 108–110, 118, 121–124, 126, 129, 133–134, 137, 139–140, 142, 146–147, 150–151, 155–158, 161–166, 170–171, 175, 184, 186, 195–197, 199, 200, 205–206, 212–213, 218–219, 222, 230, 239–240, 245, 250 Augustine, 14, 28, 35, 70, 84–85, 96, 196–197, 211, 215, 222, 226, 228–229, 234, 241, 243 Averroes, 31, 34, 105-106, 124–125, 196, 229 Avicebron, 21, 23, 176, 204, 229 Avicenna , 14-16, 19-21, 23, 27-28, 33, 36, 38, 45-49, 51, 82-84, 94, 99, 101-106, 108, 112-113, 116, 118-119, 125-129, 140-143, 145146, 155, 159, 161-164, 166, 195197, 199-200, 212-215, 217-225, 227-229, 231-237, 239-240, 242 Baldner, S., 145 Bianchi, L., 145–146, 159 Boethius, 19, 29, 38–39, 51, 55–565, 60–61, 63, 83, 115, 140–141, 143, 196–198, 211, 215, 224 Bonaventure, 10, 22, 28, 145–146, 148, 158–159, 211

Caster, K., 19, 21, 88, 224 Cathars, 14, 22, 82–84, 98, 100, 112–113, 118, 181, 225, 228 Cicero, 14, 28, 41, 49, 56–63, 142, 198–199 Corti, G., 18, 180, 187–190, 192, 217, 246 Dales, R., 31–32, 45, 48, 53, 146, 148, 196–197, 211 Davidson, H., 33–34, 36, 50, 147– 149, 154–155, 159 Davis, D., 32, 119 Dominicus Gundissalinus, 99, 103–104, 234 Dondaine, A., 98–99 Epicurus, 60 Forest, A., 32 Gauthier, R., 212, 244 Giles of Rome, 106 Gilson, E., 31, 81–82, 84, 88, 104– 105, 161, 163, 197. 218, 221, 231 Gregory IX, 9–11, 17, 30, 81, 202, 145, 217 Grosseteste, R., 10, 13, 27, 29–32, 45, 47–48, 52–53, 75, 81, 146, 171, 196, 211 Hamilton, B., 85, 98 Hervaeus Burgidolensis, 211 Heinzmann, R., 30 Italici, 5, 8, 14, 38–39, 41, 49, 53– 63, 65, 79, 141–142, 198, 200 John Peckham, 229 John Philoponus, 15, 33–34, 36, 147–149, 151, 153–155, 157 Jourdain, A., 55, 60

272


Judy, A., 19 Jüssen, G., 28, 123 Kneale, W., 65, 71 Kramp, J., 17, 20, 31, 81–82, 98, 101–102, 122, 161, 180, 187, 218 Longpré, E., 29, 52 Mackie, J. L., 74 Maimonides, 29, 146, 159 Manichees, 5, 8, 14, 22, 81–89, 91– 93, 95, 97, 99, 105, 107, 112–113, 181, 222–228 Marone, S., 31 Masnovo, A., 32, 35–36, 39, 55, 60, 65, 69–70, 79, 82–82, 103, 105, 108, 110, 124, 142, 145. McEvoy, J., 31 McGinnis, J., 215 Miller, M., 22, 213 Moody, E. A., 11, 55–56 Nelli, R., 84–85, 98, 113 O’Donnell, R. J., 18, 30 Padgett, A., 211 Paschasius Radbertus, 211 Peter Abelard, 65, 71 Philip the Chancellor, 211 Plato, 15, 24, 29, 57, 141–142, 161–163, 165–173, 175, 177 Richard of St. Victor, 211 Richard Rufus, 10, 149, 159 Reit, S. Van, 33, 84, 95, 104–105, 127, 212, 214, 223, 236 Rohls, J., 32 Roland-Gosselin, M. D., 228 Roland of Cremona, 11, 17

Salmon, D., 106, 124 Seneca, 60 Simplicius, 147–148, 154 Sorabji, R., 36, 148 Switalski, B., 18, 30, 33–34, 56, 63, 82–84, 89, 94, 99, 114, 121, 132, 147, 166, 183–184, 188–189, 195, 197, 202, 213, 223–224, 232, 236, 245 Thomas Aquinas, 10, 15, 19, 22, 28, 105–106, 146, 168, 211, 244–245 Valois, N., 10–13, 19, 22, 28, 105– 106, 146, 168, 311, 244 Vaux, R. de, 82, 102–103, 106, 124–125, 141–142, 197, 219– 220, 239 Verbeke, G., 33, 239 Weisheipl, J., 22, 228–229 William of Conches, 29, 62, 142, 198–199 William of Durham, 211 Wood, R., 145, 149, 159 Zedler, B.. 106

Subject Index actuality, 21, 33, 35, 113, 119, 136, 210, 246 agent intelligence, 27, 114, 162-166, 219-220, 229, 240, 247 angels, 12, 23, 84, 96, 226, 228-231 being necessary through itself, 19, 22, 85-91, 93, 98, 222-227 causality, 22, 48, 93-94, 116-118, 190 creation, 14, 20, 23, 29, 33-35, 4647, 50-51, 97, 106, 111, 114, 116, 118-119, 127, 145, 147-149, 157159, 224, 243 duration, 13, 15, 30, 35, 41, 52-53, 61, 63, 146, 159, 196, 199-201, 211, 213-215, 222

faith, 15, 18-19, 22, 29, 34, 53, 83, 96, 99, 122, 174, 179, 181, 183187, 189-196, 245-246, 254-256 finite, 35, 49, 54, 145-146, 150-151, 156-158, 196, 204, 206 first principle, 18-19, 32, 82, 93, 101, 106, 110, 112, 121, 145, 181, 222, 228 freedom, 26, 111, 114, 130-133, 213, 241-245, 253-254 heaven, 12, 42, 97, 107, 109-110, 151-154, 207, 230, 232, 253 human souls, 14, 20-21, 23, 26, 113114, 122-123, 125-135, 137-143, 180, 182, 228-229, 231, 244, 247248, 254, 257

illumination, 20, 22, 27, 192 immortality, 18, 26, 81, 99, 103, 121, essence, 19-20, 24, 36, 53, 87-88, 221, 240-241, 254 105, 117, 127-128, 138, 141, 171, individuation, 14, 26, 122-123, 125, 173, 197-198, 223, 225, 227, 233, 127, 129, 131, 133-135, 137, 139236, 240, 253, 259 143 and truth, 113-114, 122, 125, 139 indivisibility, 27, 41, 52, 202, 205, divine, 12, 115-116, 118, 174, 190 211, 240-241 infinite, 33, 35-36. 39, 41, 52, 61, 63, eternity, 12-15, 21-23, 29-35, 37-55, 93-95, 112, 146-159, 165, 19857, 59, 61-63, 65, 72, 77-79, 84, 201, 204, 206, 211, 213, 251 142, 145-148, 159, 196-215, 236, intellective power, 25-28, 134, 164262-263 165, 170, 174, 183, 254, 257-259 exemplar, 44, 165, 171-175, 257 intelligence, 14, 20-21, 23, 27, 102, existence, 19-20, 24, 27, 35, 37, 41, 105-110, 112-114, 118-119, 122, 43, 51, 73, 81, 88, 121, 127, 129, 125, 132, 134-136, 162-166, 219134, 146, 148-149, 158, 162, 167, 220, 229-230, 240, 247 174, 182, 192, 196, 200, 224-225, intention, 41, 44, 69, 89, 98, 176, 230 186

274


matter, 23-24, 29, 32-34, 105, 108time, 13-15, 21-22, 26, 32-36, 38109, 126, 128-129, 133-134, 219, 50, 52-54, 60-63, 65-66, 76, 84, 223, 229, 231 88, 103-104, 112, 127, 135, 142motion, 33, 39-40, 43, 45-47, 107, 143, 145, 147-152, 154-159, 181, 149, 151-153, 208, 213 190, 195-203, 205-215, 223, 241, multiplicity, 106, 109, 116, 118, 133, 251 135-137 universe, 18, 21-23, 33, 36, 38, 58, nature, 16, 22, 24, 33-34, 37-38, 48, 81, 84, 86, 96-97, 106-107, 118, 50-51, 59-60, 76, 111, 131, 136, 132, 135, 161, 166, 174-176, 180170, 196, 211, 213, 236, 239-245, 182, 196, 225, 229-230, 249 247-251, 253, 255, 257-259 necessary being, 19, 45, 89, 98, 106, world, 14, 21-23, 29-39, 41, 43, 45202, 224 57, 59, 61-63, 65, 81-82, 95, 98, necessity, 14, 22, 65-76, 78, 86-88, 122, 132, 141-142, 145-149, 151, 137, 157, 188, 198, 223-224, 226153, 155, 157-159, 182, 193, 196227, 249 198, 20, 207, 211-214, 224, 229, 236, 251, 256-258 perpetuity, 29, 38, 41, 44, 61, 84, archetypal 15-16, 162-165, 167, 199-200, 210, 250 169-175, 177-178, 208-209 possibility, 21, 32-35, 38, 51, 81, 87, sensible, 15, 27, 166, 168, 17090, 111, 131, 155, 200 171, 173, 177-178, 204, 259 power, 21-23, 25, 32, 34, 36-38, 48, sublunar, 20, 138, 148 51, 96, 110, 130, 132, 135-136, 168, 170, 174, 176-177, 219, 243, 249-251, 253 proposition, 65, 69-71, 73-76 providence, 23, 26, 58, 66, 74-78, 176, 181, 249, 259 reason, 15, 19, 32-33, 38, 42, 49-50, 52, 69-70, 72, 76-78, 85-88, 9596, 111-112, 117, 125, 132, 134, 151-152, 156, 177, 179, 181, 183, 185, 187, 189-191, 193, 198-199, 201, 204-209, 212, 215, 225, 227, 230, 234, 244, 246, 254, 259 separate substances, 23, 161, 228231, 257 servant, 48, 212-213, 236

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