Scotus on Hermeneutics

Archa Verbi. Subsidia 3 57–78

A Thomistic Ring to Scotus’s Hermeneutics?The Doctor Communis, John Duns Scotus, and the Will1

ANDREA A. ROBIGLIO

Quaestio supponit illam Scripturam,quam vocamus ‘sacram’, esse sacram […]tota theologia speculativa ab eo dependet.

John Ponce (1639)

Intelligo quia volo.Thomas Aquinas (1272)

By reading a well-known text of John Duns Scotus (namely the second part ofthe Prologue to his Ordinatio2), the aim of the current article is twofold. First,I wish to suggest a revised appreciation of the hermeneutical reflections putforward by Scotus as well as to point out their possible Christological implica-tions. Second, I want to sketch Scotus’s employment of an argument based onthe will, within the context of his Biblical hermeneutics. Those two aspects,which I tend to read in the shadow of Aquinas, reveals a line of questioningthat moves into the realm of “the science of conjecture” and without denyinga fresh conception of theological science inaugurated by Aquinas and basedon Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics, tries to insert it in a larger theological herme-neutics based on Aristotle’s Topics. As Aquinas had already taught, the cer-tainty of knowledge (certitudo scientiae) always entails the “rational will,” whichmakes the human endorsement of divine truth firm and fully reasonable (fir-mitas adhaesionis). Furthermore, in Scotus’s own exploration of the bounda-ries of human will, we find aspects of Aquinas’s concept of voluntas impossibil-ium, as it has been recently researched.3 In this sense I dare to speak of a“Thomistic ring” to it.

1 In capite scripti I would like to thank Graham McAleer, who invited me to be part of hispanel at the 2007 Conference on the Opera philosophica of the Subtle Doctor at St. Bona-venture University, NY. In addition, the Alexander von Humbold Stiftung graciously pro-vided me with all the research opportunities I could wish for.

2 Hereafter P2.3 On the original concept of velleity (voluntas impossibilium, velleitas), distinct from and

defined against the notion of weakness of the will (incontinentia, voluntas infirma), see:Andrea A. Robiglio, L’impossibile volere. Tommaso, i tomisti e la volontà (Milan: Vita e Pen-siero, 2002); briefly recalled in Andrea A. Robiglio, “How is Strength of the Will Possi-

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I. Duns Scotus on the truth of Holy Scripture

§ 1. After having shown that, for man’s salvation, receiving some super-naturally inspired doctrine is in this life “necessary,” Scotus turns himself toScripture. As a matter of fact – as he will shortly explain – theology in thecondition of way (theologia nostra) cannot leave out Scripture: Theologia nostra,de facto, non est nisi de his quae continentur in Scriptura.4 John Duns Scotus’s en-tire question of whether or not the knowledge provided to the wayfarer byHoly Scripture is sufficient for him to be saved (Utrum cognitio supernaturalisnecessaria viatori sit sufficienter tradita in Sacra Scriptura)5 reinforces, as we shall

ble? Concerning Francis of Marchia and the act of will,” Vivarium 44 (2006): 181-83. Fora precocious but then neglected analysis of this concept, see also: James H. Hyslop, TheElements of Ethics (New York: Scribner’s Sons, 1895), further discussed by Westel Wood-bury Willoughby, “The Right of the State to Be,” International Journal of Ethics 9, no. 4(1899): 467-82. The line of inquiry I am going to suggest brings Aquinas and Scotuscloser to each other on the issue of the will, in spite of terminological drifts and partialdiscrepancies in the kinds of questions they addressed. For Scotus, I may recommend:Christophe Cervellon, “L’affection de justice chez Duns Scot. Justice et luxure dans lepéché de l’ange,” in Duns Scot à Paris: 1302–2002 (Actes du Colloque de Paris, 2-4 Septembre2002), ed. Olivier Boulnois, Elizabeth Karger, Jean-Luc Solère, and Gérard Sondag(Turnhout: Brepols, 2004), 425-68. Even though Cervellon, as far as Aquinas is con-cerned, still follows an old-fashioned and hardly plausible account of the will, he is ableto notice the conceptual figure of velleity (e.g. 448) and to develop promising hintstaken from the still useful essay of Fernad Guimet, “Conformité à la droite raison etpossibilité surnaturelle de la charité (attaches traditionelles et structure dialectiques dela doctrine scotiste),” in De Doctrina Ioannis Duns Scoti. Acta Congressus ScotisticiInternationali Oxonii et Edimburgi 11-17 sept. 1966 celebrati, III, Problemata theologica (Rome:Typographia Vaticana, 1968), 539-97.

4 Ioannes Duns Scotus, Ordinatio, Prol., pars III, q. 1-3, n. 204 (ed. Vat. I, 138). Here I do nottrace the relationships between Scotus’s various Prologues to his Commentaries on the Sen-tences, e.g., the Lectura Prologue (before 1300), the Ordinatio Prologue I am dealing with(1300-1304?), and the possibly late Parisian Reportata Prologue. The question I will discuss,namely the truth of Scripture, as such belongs exclusively to the Ordinatio Prologue. On Sco-tus’s Prologues see: Dominique Demange, “La théologie est-elle une science? La réponse deDuns Scot à Godefroid de Fontaines dans le prologue de Reportata Parisiensia,” Documenti estudi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale (forthcoming in 2009); and the fresh Ph.D. Dissertationby Callan Ledsham, The demise of Scotus’s foundational project: from proving the necessity of revela-tion to assuming an absolute divine theology, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Hoger Instituutvoor Wijsbegeerte (Thesis promoter: Russell Friedman; Thesis defense: Leuven, July 1,2008), in particular chapters 2 and 3. Ledsham’s research, independently from its main the-sis, which is disputable, offered me a crucial hint.

5 See Scotus, Ord., P2 (ed. Vat. I, 64 [12]). Scotus’s period as baccalaureus biblicus (1299-1300) has been suggested as a (possible) influential factor explaining the novelty of partII to the Ordinatio, while other scholars have suggested that the second part of the Pro-logue might have been an academic prolusion, a principium, delivered by Scotus at theUniversity, and subsequently added to his writing. On Scotus as a reader of the Bible, inspite of the scant evidence, much research is still outstanding. Being familiar with Sco-tus’s Sermons would be useful, in my opinion, for understanding the philosophical proj-

A Thomistic Ring to Scotus’s Hermeneutics? 59

see, the notion of a clear space of “common doctrine” that relies on the con-sent of the “good community” and is defended against mystification by theuse of responsible free will.

Unity and consensio ground the doctrina canonis in the “common” teaching ofJesus and refer to the Christian community inasmuch as no other rationalground seems to be available. Where there is no rational evidence, indeed, onehas to rely on the community: maximum est credendum communitati. Human tradi-tions and philosophical schools lack such unity and even within the same schoolthere are disagreements, as Aristippus and Anthistenes showed, being dissentientesfrom one other although both disciples of the same master: both socratici.

To illustrate the plausibility of such a reading of Scotus’s Prologue, I willreconsider the second part of the Ordinatio Prologue, which tends to be over-looked in the secondary literature, rather losing out to the first part, on the“necessity” of divine revelation, and the third and fourth parts, on the scienceof theology and on its object. Indeed the problem of the sufficiency of Scrip-ture is the frame rather than the core of the question, which essentially dealswith arguments for the truth of Scripture itself and how man may be reas-sured about it. Before settling the question of whether the supernaturalknowledge one finds in Scripture is sufficient, one must know what Scriptureis and how to access the knowledge contained in its treasury. The first moveof any Biblical hermeneutics, in other words, has to be a deconstructive one:to sweep away the prejudices and false assumptions which would put the pil-grim on the wrong path.6 A preliminary engagement with the “rules” and exi-gencies of textual interpretation is thus required. Bad hermeneutics, at leastin the case of Sacred Scripture, always matches doctrinal error and heresy.

ect undertooken by the Subtle Doctor. Little up-to-date literature exists on the secondpart of Scotus’s Prologue; cf. the Editors’ rich Introductio (ed. Vat. I, 140*-175*); for acomparison between Scotus and Matthew of Aquasparta, see the dated Serafin Bel-mond, “Crédibilité er Révélation d’après Duns Scot,” Études franciscaines 34 (1922): 5-22, 145-57, and especially 289-307. For the path I am going to take here, a distant back-ground might also be found in: Giorgio Pini, “Duns Scotus’s Commentary on the Top-ics: New Light on His Philosophical Teaching,” Archives d’Histoire Doctrinale et Littéraire duMoyen-Âge 66 (1999): 225-43. The only detailed and valuable analysis of P2, to my knowl-edge, is provided by the Supplementum of John Ponce (1588-1657), written, as the authorrecalls, because hanc quaestionem Lychetus explicare omiserit. See Ioannes Duns Scotus,Quaestiones in Librum I Sententiarum, cum commentariis Francisci Lycheti Brixiensis […]et supplemento Ioannis Poncii Hiberni, vol. V, pars I (Lyon, 1639; reprint: Hildesheim:Georg Olms, 1968), 41-65. On Ponce and the context of his scholarship, see GregoryCleary, Father Luke Wadding and St. Isidore’s College, Rome: biographical and historical notesand documents (Rome: Tipografia Giovanni Bardi, 1925), 83-6.

6 If everyone concerned with Hermeneutics were to agree on one point, that point wouldbe the impossibility of assuming any answer to any given question requiring interpreta-tion as immediately evident. Cf. James Franklin, “Natural Sciences as Textual Interpre-tation: the Hermeneutics of the Natural Sign,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research44 (1984): 509-20.

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As a matter of fact – Scotus notes – heresies emerge from either total orpartial misunderstanding of the Bible. There are those who refuse the Bibleas a whole. Others, like the Manicheans, split it into two parts and oppose theNew to the Old Testament. The Jews, for their part, accept the Old Testa-ment while neglecting the New. The Muslims have both but by inserting fur-ther additions uphold a corrupt and false canon. That said, the FranciscanScotus is well aware of the ways in which recent heresies are grounded in acrucial misreading of the Gospel text: Puta haeretici diversi, qui sententias diver-sas “Novi Testamenti” Scripturarum habentes pro fundamento, alias neglexerunt.

The Sacred Text is under discussion and, in the process of that discussion,division and doubts can arise. The theologian has to overcome them and finda reasonable foundation for divine Revelation, establishing its value andboundaries. Apart from specific criticism on particular points, Scotus deline-ates through his hermeneutical method eight ways of prevailing against theheretics (contra istas omnes haeresias in communi sunt octo viae eas rationabiliterconvincendi). I will not dwell on the number eight, which might neverthelessbe significant;7 I limit myself here to noting that Scotus puts forward separateyet interconnecting arguments, fairly inviting us to view them as links in achain, tying the errors together (cum-vincere),8 insofar as each link remainsconnected to the whole.

7 The arguments are actually ten, since the list includes the testimony of unbelievers and theefficacy of the promises (cf. P2, nn. 108-09, 83-84), but the first eight steps might constitute adistinct (circular) unity, because of the structural connection of the first (the prophecies)and the eighth (the miracles): see Thomas Aquinas, STh IIa-IIae, q. 171, a. 1: Ad prophetiam per-tinet operatio miraculorum. To complete the picture, what I say here should be taken in thecontext of the “epistemology of prophecy,” its monastic communitarian origins, and its de-velopments throughout the thirteenth century. According to Peter of John Olivi (e.g. Quod.II, q. 7) the authority of Jesus Christ has a threefold dimension: the dignitas pontificalis, thedignitas regalis, and the magistralis seu prophetalis dignitas; the latter presides over theology asscience. On the “normalization” of the medieval doctrine on prophecy at the end of the thir-teenth century, see Jean-Pierre Torrell, Recherches thomasiennes (Paris: J. Vrin, 2000), 177-97.Torrell’s rich commentary on Aquinas’s De veritate deserves mention as well: cf. Thomasd’Aquin, Questions disputées sur la vérité [q. XII]: La prophétie (Paris: J. Vrin, 2006), 14-16 and191-240. Further, see Jean-Pierre Torrell, Recherches sur la théorie de la prophétie au Moyen-Âge:XIIe-XIVe siècles; etudes et texts (Fribourg: Éditions Universitaires, 1992) and Gian Luca Potestà,“Dalla teologia apocalittica di Gioacchino da Fiore al profetismo apocalittico di Arnaldo diVillanova,” I Castelli di Yale 8 (2005/2006): 35-44. On the meaning of the number eight, seeHeinz Meyer, Die Zahlenallegorese im Mittelalter. Methode und Gebrauch (München: Fink, 1975),139-41; at 140: “Als signifikante Zahl für die Auferstehung charakterisiert die Acht zugleichdie Zeit der Gnade, das Neue Testament [...].”

8 On the meaning of the verb ‘convincere’ and its shift during the Late Middle Ages, payattention to René-Antoine Gauthier’s reflections in: Saint Thomas d’Aquin, Somme con-tre les Gentils (Paris: Éditions Universitaires, 1993), 150-55; cf. also Albert Patfoort, “Dequelques emplois médiévaux du verbe ‘convincere’ au sens moderne du mot: une ex-ploration en saint Thomas d’Aquin,” Revue Thomiste 102 (1994): 273-84.


The eight argumentative steps are, according to Scotus’s opening sum-mary, the following:

The prediction of the prophets, the concordance of the Scriptures, the authority of writers,the diligence of those who received them, the reasonableness of the contents and the un-reasonableness of each of their own errors, the stability of the Church, and the limpidity ofmiracles.9

§ 2. The first move concerns prediction. Certain knowledge (praevisio) offuture contingents is per se10 the privilege of the Creator, a privilege that iseither his alone or that of someone directly inspired by him (ab ipso Deo in-structus). As Augustine had already stressed in the twelfth Book of The City ofGod, the prophecies announced in the Old Testament (namely in the Libriprophetales) have, for the most part, already been fulfilled. Consequently thosefew “previsions” which remain open should be realized soon, since there is noroom for reasonable doubt and since ecclesiastical authors like Gregory theGreat attest to it.11 This first step establishes the original authorship of Scrip-ture, as one which goes back, albeit indirectly, to God himself, the uniquecause of the fulfilment of the prophecies.

The second step is more involved and touches on the intrinsic coherenceand concordance (concordia) of Scripture itself.12 The question here chal-lenged by Scotus is nothing less than the status of the Canon itself and hadalready laid claim before the Christian Era, since the Jewish legend in the Let-ter of Aristea purported the story about the miraculous composition of the Sep-tuagint translation of the Bible: seventy translators had been working inde-pendently, each of whom produced the identical version.13 Scotus and hisreaders know that, even though God is the true Author of the Bible, He is notits material writer. Scripture, for Christians, has been transmitted by Godthrough different scriptores over time. It is matter of divine inspiration and notof divine dictation. This assumed, the Subtle Doctor puts forward a funda-mental hermeneutical principle, still employed today by the Catholic Church:that, apart from that concerning mere tautological statements, any historicalor factual unanimity which occurs in human affairs – that is to say the omnium

9 P2, n. 100 (ed. Vat. I, 61 [7-12]): Praenuntiatio prophetica, Scripturarum concordia, auctoritasscribentium, diligentia recipientium, rationabilitas contentorum et irrationabilitas singulorum erro-rum, Ecclesiae stabilitas, miraculorum limpiditas.

10 Scotus employs here the expression naturaliter, defined over and against ab alio, accord-ing to a meaning close to per se, rather than to “in a natural way.”

11 P2, n. 101 (ed. Vat. I, 61-2).12 Concerning some crucial medieval connotations of the expression ‘concordia’, from

Prudentius to Gerson, cf. Andrea A. Robiglio and Zenon Kaluza, “Appunti sulla stradabattuta,” Archivum Latinitatis Medii Aevii 63 (2005): 261-3.

13 On the Letter of Aristea as a source for both Jerome and Augustine, cf. Francesca Calabi,“Introduzione,” in: Lettera di Aristea a Filocrate (Milan: Rizzoli, 20063), 25 n. 28.

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consonantia firmiter in unum – is but the sure mark of divine action. Such anaction, even though it flows from the Trinity, may be attributed to the HolySpirit as His particular footprint: Ubi unanimitas ibi Spiritus.14 While Scotusendorses this hermeneutical principle, he nevertheless does not declare itexplicitly, but rather introduces its necessary counterpart: “Among thosethings not evident from their terms, many are not firmly and infallibly conso-nant, disposed as they are in diverse manners, unless they be inclined to assentby a superior cause to the same understanding.”15 The application of this“rule” to the Biblical canon is easily made: though distinct according to per-son, time, and place, the divinely inspired men who have written the Bibleagree entirely on matters that go far beyond the boundaries of logical or em-pirical16 evidence: Sed scriptores sacri Canonis, varie dispositi, et existentes in diversistemporibus, in talibus inevidentibus consonabant omnino.

The syllogism is valid and could be structured according to the Darii-form,as follows: Every historical and factual unanimous agreement (concordia) de-pends finally only on God (first premise); Holy Scripture, in itself, attests tosuch an agreement (second premise); therefore, Scripture, in the end, de-pends on God (conclusion).

The conclusion aims to reach what was already established by means of adifferent argumentation via the ancient prophecies: that is to say, the divineauthorship of the Bible. The particular (minor) premise is confirmed by anumber of examples17 and, as everyone knows, the exemplum is, in scholasticlogic, an argumentative instance given in particulari.18 The major premise,according to our model of argument, is an assumption. The Subtle Doctor, atany rate, insists on a sort of twofold demonstration based on particular exam-

14 One Biblical text often referred to by medieval authors is, as everyone recalls, Matt18:20: Ubi sunt duo vel tres congregati in nomine meo, ibi sum in medio eorum.

15 P2 (ed. Vat. I, 62 [6-10]): In non evidentibus ex terminis, nec principia sic evidentia ex terminishabentibus, non consonant multi firmiter et infallibiliter, diversimode dispositi, nisi a causa superi-ori ipso intellectu inclinentur ad assensum.

16 The notion of “empirical evidence,” to be fair, is not exploited by Scotus in this sectionof his argument, since – as far as I can see – he seems to assume its validity only as usedin discussions touching on actual states of affairs. In other words, any temporal gapmakes “empirical evidence” useless. Additionally, any historical fact is, as such, bothcontingent and out of sight and, therefore, devoid of evidence. A hint could be takenfrom P2 (ed. Vat. I, 65 [4-5]): Historiae de praeteritis non possunt esse evidentes. On Scotus’snotion of evidence, see Dominique Demange, Jean Duns Scot. La théorie du savoir (Paris:J. Vrin, 2007), Ch. 3.

17 Et hoc Augustinus probat in exemplis, P2 (ed. Vat. I, 63 [4-5]).18 As stated in Peter of Spain’s Summulae logicales (V, 3): Exemplum est quando per unum par-

ticulare probatur aliud particulare propter simile repertum in ipsis. Cf. Petrus Hispanus Por-tugalensis, ‘Tractatus’ called afterwards ‘Summule logicales,’ ed. Lambertus de Rijk (Assen:Van Gorcum, 1972), 58 [4-5]. Strictly speaking, the exemplum cannot be used to prove“positively” universal statements, even though Scotus makes exceptions: Maior [that is auniversal statement]…probatur per exemplum.


ples concerning philosophers on the one hand, and on lack of any rationalfalsification for it, on the other.19 By means of this strategy he aspires to dem-onstrate inductively the “objectivity” of the statement.

As Scotus said previously, the truth of Scripture is not self-evident. How-ever the intellect, by nature, is disposed to assent based on an object evidenteither through itself or through something else: “Since the intellect is bound,regarding assent, to be moved by the object evident in itself and/or in an-other.”20 Now, since its self-evidence is a priori excluded in the case of Scripture,the only evidence will be that which depends on something else. Such depend-ence, furthermore, must be “transcendental,” i.e. inclusive and productive.The object requiring outside evidence, in other words, should become self-evident as soon as the “higher” point of view be adopted. The “otherness” ap-pears at first, but is subsequently overcome and, through “interpretation,” in-tegrated into the unity of the object: Nihil aliud ab obiecto videtur posse talem assen-sum causare nisi virtualiter includat evidentiam obiecti.21 Otherwise, science con-cerning Scripture (i.e. Theology) would be neither true nor false: Nam si nihiltale <i.e. evidentia obiecti> moveat intellectum, remanebit theologia sibi neutra.22

What cannot be established by our intellect could be assured by an intel-lect more noble (superior) than ours. Two possibilities, at this point, remainopen, since both God’s and the angels’ intellects are more perfect and canreach evidence beyond analytical reasoning. To make a decision about thisalternative, a further condition is required. The “evidence” of Scriptureshould be known by wayfarers, although ad modum recipientis. The condition ofpossibility of the objective evidence reveals its connection to the object itselfinsofar as it actualizes “for us” the evidence. For this transcendental argumentto work, the superior intellect that grasps the evidence of the object has to becommitted to revealing it to inferior human intellects; lest the above men-tioned actualization “for us” of virtual evidence remain without any warranty.But such a “commitment” cannot be complete in the relation between angelicand human intellects, in spite of the fact that the former are nobler and“higher” than the latter.23 Angels cannot reveal anything to man if man does

19 P2 (ed. Vat. I, 63 [6-7]): Maior enim assumpta non tantum, probatur per exemplum de philoso-phis, ut videtur probare Augustinus [cf. De civ. Dei, XVIII, 41].

20 P2 (ed. Vat. I, 63[8-9]): Cum intellectus natus sit quantum ad assensum moveri ab obiecto evi-dente in se vel in alio. The act of assent already entails, to some extent, the participationof the will. Here Scotus focuses his attention on its “objective” disposition.

21 On the meaning of ‘virtualiter’ in Scotus, cf. Dominique Demange, “Objet premierd’inclusion virtuelle. Introduction à la théorie de la science de Jean Duns Scot,” inBoulnois, Karger, Solère and Sondag, eds., Duns Scot à Paris, 89-116.

22 P2 (ed. Vat. I, 63 [11-12]). On theologia neutra, see Part One of Scotus’s Prologue.23 As Carlo Balić notes (63 n.), Scotus develops the relationship between men and angels in

Ord., II, d. 11, q. un. nn. 4-8 (ed. Vat., VIII, 207-25), keeping in mind Henry of Ghent’sSumma, a. 1, q. 8. For Scotus, as for Aquinas, angels play no necessary role in the economyof salvation insofar as the personal relation between God and the human creature is con-

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not want to hear them, while God has the power to reveal effective, since theWord of God may not be put in chains: Nihil autem intelligens superius hominepotest homine effective docere nisi Deus.

§ 3. At this point, Scotus faces an objection. The model of the teacher-pupil relation could eventually explain the final agreement among the com-munity of readers. Even though the Bible had been written at different timesby different individuals, it is not necessary to assume the intervention of God.It is clear that those who came after had at their disposal the writings of theirpredecessors, which they accepted and believed: Et acquieverunt credendo, sicutdiscipuli doctrinae magistrorum, et ita nihil scripserunt dissonum a prioribus, licet Deusnon doceret hos et illos.24

At first blush, Augustine’s authority casts doubt on such an objection. Let ustake the example of a school of thought where there is a master who leaves writ-ten dogmata for the instruction of disciples in his way of thought. As a matter offact, the rise of dissent in the school is expected both among the disciples un-der the same teacher and between master and pupil: Patet ibidem de Aristippo etAnthistene, qui ambo socratici fuerunt, tamen in aliquibus sibi contradixerunt; et quan-doque magistro discipuli etiam contradixerunt, ut Aristoteles Platoni.25 If this happens

cerned. The point in question here has been at stake in quodlibetal debates. See, for in-stance, Thomas Aquinas, Quod. XII, q. 16, art. un. The following survey still remains use-ful: Jean Leclercq, “La théologie comme science d’après la literature quodlibétique,” Re-cherches de Théologie Ancienne et Médiévale 11(1939): 351-74. One can find a concise summaryof those discussions in Gerardus of Bologna’s Summa (dating from 1317 ca.), namely at q.6: Queritur de doctore scientiae – the first article handles the question utrum solus deus sit doctorhuius scientiae. Cf. Paul de Vooght, Les sources de la doctrine chrètienne d’après les théologiens duXIVe siècle et du début du XVe, avec le texte intégral des XII premières questions de la ‘Summa’ inéditede Gérard de Bologne (Bruges: Desclée de Brouwer, 1954), 364-81.

24 P2 (ed. Vat. I, 64 [1-3]).25 P2 (ed. Vat. I, 64 [7-10]). On Anthistenes and Socrates, see also Nicole Bériou,

L’avènement des maîtres de la Parole. La prédication à Paris au XIIIe siècle, II (Paris: Institutd'Études Augustiniennes, 1998), 858, at ‘Exemplum 134.’ On the unexpected corre-spondence of this example with that of the two Apostles Peter and Paul, see FranzOverbeck, Über die Auffassung des Streits des Paulus mit Petrus in Antiochien (‘Gal.’ 2, 11) beiden Kirchenvätern [1877], in idem, Werke und Nachlaß 2, Schriften bis 1880, ed. EkkehardW. Stegemann and Rudolf Brändle (Stuttgart/Weimar: Metzler, 1994), 231-334. Here Imake a digression. In his Epistula ad fratrem R., which might be dated before the Easter1282, Olivi recalled the Apostle Paul exhorting the Corinthians to unity (cf. 1 Cor. 12-13) and, instead of the Pauline words Quod unusquisque vestrum dicit: ‘Ego quidem sumPauli, ego autem Apolli, ego vero Cephae, ego autem Christi’, wittily wrote: “Hoc est enim dictahominum quasi idola venerari, ex quo pericula sectarum est scismata oriuntur, ita ut qui-dam dicant: ‘Ego quidem sum Pauli, ego autem Aristotelis, ego vero Thome’” (my italics).See Sylvain Piron (with the collaboration of Cynthia Kilmer and Elsa Marmursztejn),“Petrus Ioannis Olivi, Epistola ad fratrem R,” Archivum Franciscanum Historicum 91(1998): 33-64 (edition of the Letter at 45-64); the passage which I am referring to isfound at 61 [lines 339-40]. On the crucial role of the unity of the Christian community


in the case of a single school, among like-minded people who live together andshare the same general outlook, how could it not happen in the case of the ma-terial writers of the Bible? How could they arrive at such deep agreement, with-out assuming a unitary inspiration that speaks for a “common doctor,” able todraw different minds toward the very same goal, in spite of the fact that such agoal lies beyond any self-evidence as far as they are concerned? This doctor com-munis, needless to say, must be more than a human teacher.26

The Subtle Doctor merits his epithet. He immediately presents a furthercounter-argument based on the (virtual) distinction between Naturwissenschaf-ten and Geisteswissenschaften or, to put it less anachronistically, between dialec-tica on the one side, and grammatica et rhetorica on the other. In the example,philosophers are accustomed to using only rational arguments, on whose ba-sis agreements or disagreements are justifiable, on the grounds of the distinc-tion between true and false. In the case of the secular composition of HolyScripture, by contrast, there was no further extant evidence on the basis ofwhich a rigorous disagreement could be justifiable. Apart from direct witness,no one has evidence of a fact that occurred in the past, since no analyticalconfutation or proof of it is available and no useful empirical perception isany longer accessible. Unluckily for man, even though past cannot be denied(factum infectum fieri nequit), historical narrative can take up the mantle (factuminfitiari per historias potest).

Since the matter of contention (viz. philosophical issues) admits both con-futation and proof, the school’s younger bachelors could have certain knowl-edge of points on which they must disagree with their master. Philosophi disci-puli – Scotus explains – per rationem potuerunt magistros improbare, quia materiacirca quam altercabantur potuit habere rationes sumptas ex terminis. But in Scotus’sopinion, outside of philosophy departments, in the fields of humanities, lit-erature, and historical studies, things go differently. Newcomers could eitheragree or disagree with the stories they found in their former teachers’ books:either way, they have no solid rational ground for their position.

If they believe, they therefore accept in toto what the predecessors wrote.This is the case of the men who composed the Bible over time: having no evi-dence to contradict the stories they were told, they repeated them. The finalagreement that a reader discovers in the completed Bible, far from being thesign of a divinely inspired truth, might be only the consequence of arbitraryhistorical narrative. Implicit here is the sense that there is no room for either

in order to “permit” the (second and final) coming of Christ, see inter alia Erik Peter-son, Der erste Brief an die Korinther und Paulus-studien aus dem Nachlass, ed. Hans-UlrichWeidemann (Würzburg: Echter, 2006), 50-54 – incidentally: the biblical"ego autemChristi might have been the interpolation of a reader’s gloss.

26 The phrase ‘communis doctor’ is attested by several reliable manuscripts, though not byall. Cf. Ledsham, The Demise of Scotus, 78 n. 141.

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truth or falsity in Hermeneutics, but that it is rather a matter of beliefs andliterary traditions.27

§ 4. Scotus tries to solve the difficulty without contesting the distinctionbetween distinct kinds of knowledge, a distinction he rather accepts. Scrip-ture attests to examples in which two distinct disciples, one having no contactwith the other, were able to develop the doctrine in several ways not found inthe former written teaching of Moses. Their “additions” nevertheless accordwith each other, and, in spite of belonging to a narrative historical genre (cumnon essent evidentia in terminis), present no inconsistency. Once again the no-tion of a common doctor is here evoked: agreement between the Prophets ofIsrael would not have been possible nisi habuissent aliquem doctorem communemsupra intellectum humanum. This Doctor is God himself.28

One could note that the answer provided here by Scotus is scarcely rele-vant: he presents as rigorous an argument that is merely probable.29 Let us seewhy. The fact that Jeremiah and Ezekiel, the two disciples of Moses recalled inthe example, were living and working apart (the first in Judea, the second inBabylon), removes any concrete possibility of empirical disagreement. Giventhat in historical knowledge particular experience per sensus constitutes theonly rational basis for dispute and dissension, neither Jeremiah nor Ezekielhave any serious grounds either for assent or dissent. The fact of their agree-ment, in other words, might be as gratuitous as their possible disagreement.The Subtle Doctor puts forth an argument that has its own strength, but doesnot properly answer the epistemological objection. Such an answer would beas follows: You say that both agreement and disagreement, in historical andfactual matters, are groundless; I should object that the structural absence ofdisagreement, always and in any case, proves that there should be grounds foragreement. But Scotus limits himself to giving examples of agreement: he

27 P2 (ed. Vat. I, p. 65 [2-5]): Non ita contradicit discipulus historiographus magistro historiogra-pho sicut philosophus philosopho, quia historiae de praeteritis non possunt esse evidentes, ut aver-tant discipulum a magistro, sicut possunt esse philosophicae rationes.

28 On ‘doctor communis’ as “Christological title,” which already Peter Damiani (1007 ca. –1072) attested to, see Andrea A. Robiglio, La sopravvivenza e la gloria. Appunti sulla for-mazione della prima scuola tomista – sec. XIV (Bologna: ESD, 2008), Ch. 2, and the bibliog-raphy referred to there. On Jesus as doctor hominum see the interpolated text edited inP2 (ed. Vat. I, 84), ‘a.’ Cf. Gaetano Lettieri, L’altro Agostino (Brescia: Marcelliana, 2001),Ch. 6 and 581.

29 As a matter of fact, the entire question appears to be based on a richly elaborated con-cept of “moral evidence,” defined against “natural evidence” or evidence tout-court. SeeJames Franklin, The Science of Conjecture. Evidence and Probability before Pascal (Balti-more/London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001). Franklin’s masterful workprovides a detailed survey of the medieval conception of probability; cf. 119 (Fig. 5.1),and 206-08 (on Scotus). On the practical bend to the theological “proof” (probatio, andeven persuasio as distinct from demonstratio), see: Antonie Vos, “The Scotian Notion ofNatural Law,” Vivarium, 38 (2000): 197-221, esp. 210 ff.


does not say, in this portion of his argument, that disagreement must be im-possible. So his answer is clearly just an argument based on probability andopen to more radical criticism. This difficulty loses importance as soon as weconsider Scotus’s argument a “topic” passage of a sophisticated argumenta-tive strategy, rather than an isolated demonstration.

Let us recall one of Scotist reasoning’s main aims. Any “atomistic” readingof Scripture, such as those proposed by certain “heretical” circles, must beexcluded. This is because they are not based on the hermeneutical principleof the truth of the whole Scripture, a truth that the heretics would not recog-nize. Further steps are now required for this circular argumentation to bemade persuasive.

II. Paradoxes of authenticity, the social dimensions of interpretation, andhuman freedom

§ 5. The third stage of Scotus’s established Biblical hermeneutics movestowards a sort of performative argument, based – once again – on the divineauthorship of Scripture. The perspective nevertheless is new: it refers to thecommunity in which the Sacred Text was written and transmitted, namely,the Apostles themselves. The paradox of the Lord as liar appears on the frontpage:30 the people who wrote the Bible did so under inspiration and declarerepeatedly that they merely restate the word of God. Either they were right(and thus there is nothing to question) or they were not. If not, they eitherwere deceived by God or themselves deceive the reader for some advantage.The second branch of this alternative is easily contested by events that haveoccurred, since the first Christians endured the greatest tribulations, on be-half of those teachings to which they wanted to induce men to believe.31

More subtle is the issue brought up by the first part of the alternative,which touches upon the topic of the Deus deceptor and will be mentioned againlater. First Scotus defines what kind of lie (mendacium) is here in question.The objection does not deal with the contents and stories of the Bible, butrather with the way in which they are told as inspired by God. Concerning themodum of Scripture, and recalling the authority of Saint Paul, the doctor gen-tium, he says that the total lack of any doubt about the divine inspiration ofScripture, together with the fact that the first Christians adhered firmiter totruths that could not have been evident to them, tells us that only a super-natural agent could have deceived them, not the angels, but only God him-self. This ominous (nefaria et impia) eventuality – that is: God as deceiver as

30 C.S. Lewis made this famous as the “Lord, liar, lunatic argument.” Cf. Clive S. Lewis,Mere Christianity (New York: MacMillan, 1960), 40-41.

31 P2 (ed. Vat. I, 67 [11-12]): Quia, pro illis ad quae voluerunt homines inducere ad credendum,tribulationes maximas sustinerunt.

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pseudo-author of the Bible – is not taken into consideration by Scotus, whosaw the point here resolved.32

A list of rhetorical questions follows. I recount only two of them: If the“authors” of the Bible were not Christians, why had they promoted Christen-dom by writing it? How could they deceive their pious readers and, at thesame time, teach them that deceiving in and of itself is a sin? A quotation thatScotus could have found in the work of Henry of Ghent, taken fromAugustine (De Civ. Dei, XI, 3), cuts short the problem: first through theprophets, then directly from Himself, and eventually through his Apostles,the Word of God spoke and constituted Holy Scripture “which is called ca-nonical, of the most eminent authority.”33

This quotation also provides a frame that allows us better to understandthe first three steps of a complex argument aimed at establishing the divineauthorship of the Bible: the hermeneutical medium is Christ Himself, who lo-cutus <est> et Scripturam condidit, connecting the prophecies of the Old Testa-ment, a parte ante, with the teaching of the Apostles, a parte post.34 The DoctorCommunis, as a consequence, coincides with the Word of God, as evincedfrom the Apostolic doctrine according to the unanimity guaranteed by theHoly Spirit: Christology and Pneumatology meet each other. All this isstrengthened through the next movimento.

§ 6. Concerning the fourth – says Scotus –, namely, the diligence of the re-cipients, it is thus clear: either you believe none of the contingents which youhave not seen, and thus do not believe that the world was made before you,nor that there is a place in the world where you have not been, nor that thisman is your father and that woman is your mother; and this incredulity de-stroys all civil life.35

32 See Tullio Gregory, “La tromperie divine,” in idem, Mundana Sapientia. Forme diconoscenza nella cultura medievale (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e letteratura, 1992), 389-99.Cf. also Olivier Boulnois, “Ego ou cogito? Doute, tromperie divine et certitude de soi,du XIVe au XVIe siècle,” in Généalogies du sujet: de saint Anselme à Malebranche, ed. O.Boulnois (Paris: J. Vrin, 2007), 171-213, on Scotus at 175-80. My sense is that the ques-tion of divine deception acquires new dimensions when it is applied to the divinelyauthored Scripture, apart from the issue of God’s absolute power.

33 P2 (ed. Vat. I, 67 [14]-68 [1]): Quae canonica nominatur, eminentissime auctoritatis. Aqui-nas, by reading the Gospel of John 21 with Gal. 1, 9, had already stressed that sola can-onica scriptura est regula fidei (cf. Super Ev. S. Iohannis lectura, xxi, lectio 6).

34 The Latin expression medium may have a Christological connotation as well, one thatdoes not contradict logical or physical denotations: Bonaventure, Aquinas and Olivi (inthe Prologue to his Quaestiones logicales), attest to this. On Christ as the “middle term” ofa supernatural syllogism, see: Robiglio, La sopravvivenza, 70-72.

35 P2 (ed. Vat. I, 68 [7-11]): De quarto, scilicet diligentia recipientium, patet sic: aut nulli credes de con-tingenti quod non vidisti, et ita non credes mundum esse factum ante te, nec locum esse in mundo ubi nonfueris, nec istum esse patrem tuum et illam matrem; et ista incredulitas destruit omnem vitam politicam.Cf. Frederick E. Van Fleteren, “Authority and Reason, Faith and Understanding in theThought of St. Augustine,” Augustinian Studies 4 (1973): 33-71; Olivier Boulnois, Giovanni


This is a sort of ad absurdum argument already used as an anti-fatalistic ar-gument, widely employed by Augustine and, later, by Aquinas himself. In-deed, if we measured our practices and behavior according to the strict “sci-entific” knowledge we can acquire, that is to say according to logic and (em-pirical) perception, we would not be able to lead a normal, reasonable, com-mon-sense life. If we abolished any degree of belief and accepted evidencealone, we would live a nightmare in which human relations would collapseand social life were impossible. By contrast, since society and its practices doevidently exist, we see that the place of pure evidence in human existencemust be neither exclusive nor hegemonic. Such a remark, so trivial be it, can-not be neglected. The Scotist John Ponce will be well aware as he glosses: “Becareful, reader! To say ‘the mysteries of faith are evident’ is other from saying‘they are evidently true.’”36

Human intercourse, which the medieval authors used to call civilis conversa-tio, requires that men trust and believe each other. The thinker should bring

Duns Scoto: il rigore della carità (Milan: Jaca Book, 1999), 69 n. 6. See Petrus Iohannis Olivi,Quaestiones in Secundum Sententiarum, q. 57, ed. Bernhard Jansen, vol. 2 (Quaracchi: Colle-gium S. Bonaventurae, 1924), 337-38: Firmatur enim societas humana in legalitate et fidelitate ut sithomo fidelis aliis in verbis et promissis. Interesting developments on the concept of inter-subjectivity (conversatio and concordia) is found in Olivi’s Commentary on the Acts of the Apos-tles (esp. Ch. 4); cf. Peter of John Olivi, On the Acts of the Apostles, ed. David Flood (St. Bona-venture: The Franciscan Institute, 2001), 120 [24-29]. Concerned with attributing positivesense to the opposition between Disciple and Master, Olivi elsewhere introduces the discretioinquisitiva et errorum caute evitativa (234 [16-25]).

36 Supplementum Ioannis Poncii, in: Scotus, Questiones in Lib. I Sententiarum, 60a: Adverte non esseidem ‘mysteria fidei esse evidentia’ et ‘esse evidenter vera’; such a distinction allows the authorconsider Aquinas and Scotus as promoters of the same communioris sententia (cf. at 62a; andat 59b: secundum illam sententiam, mysteria nostrae fidei sunt evidenter vera evidenter cognoscen-tibus illa motiva <credibilitatis>). Moreover, such evidentia should be the “moral” one, ratherthan the “physical” or logical. Esse aliquid moraliter evidens – explains Ponce on page 60b –,nihil aliud est quam esse tale, ut intellectus, cui proponitur sufficienter, secundum quod dicitur sic evi-dens, non posit rationabiliter dubitare, quamvis physicam evidentiam non habeat; sed determinari de-beat ad assensum, saltem quoad specificationem (quidquid sit de exercitio). Let us now leave thoseseventeenth-century commentaries alone and come back to medieval arguments. Pre-liminary and most general “understanding” precedes any kind of scientific knowledgeand, both for Aquinas and Scotus, it has to share something of the aforementioned char-acteristics. Pasquale Porro, whom I warmly thank, drew my attention to a passage inHenry of Ghent’s Summa, in which the Doctor solemnis questions whether theologia sit scientiauniversalis […] quae est contentiva cognitionis omnium and, to produce a positive answer, findsevidence in Aristotle’s Topics (viz. I, 6, 102 b). Yet Henry remains cautious concerning us-ing it: Philosophus dicit in primo Topicorum de methodo sive de arte universali, quod difficile est eaminvenire; et inventa, omnino incerta est et raro utilis. Sed haec <i.e. theologia> scientia certissima est[…] et utilissima. Cf. Henricus Gandavensis, Summa, a. 7, q. 3 (Paris: I. Badius Ascensius,1520), f. 49r-50a. Even though Aristotle (and Henry as well) seem to give the cold shoulderto universal science as suggested in his Topics, the very fact of this being mentioned shouldopen a new perspective on the early fourteenth-century debate on “scientific” theologyand to avoid overemphasizing Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics.

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out the conditions under which such belief is conducive to better and surerresults. Here Scotus introduces the notion of “well-known and honest commu-nity” as the only one which may grant anything about contingent and factualrealities and decide what deserves to be taken for granted and what does not.Once again the criterion of unanimity is evoked: one should trust the commu-nity or those whom tota communitas approbat.37 But indistinct unanimity, in fact,risks becoming utopian. The very fact that heresies exist within the Christiansociety casts doubt and even suspicion upon an approval which is total and all-inclusive. Scotus immediately adds a crucial distinction: the unanimity we seekis not everyone’s agreement, but the agreement of the “credited and acclaimedcommunity”: the best ones are not necessarily the most numerous.38

Most of all one is to believe the community, or those of whom the wholecommunity approves, and most of all those whom a famous and honest com-munity, with the greatest diligence, perceives to be credible.39

The criterion for good interpretation is therefore set by a community ofinterpreters, but a very specific community: one that recognizes the biblicalCanon and its divine authorship; the group of people (namely the Apostlesand Patres) who share one common doctor and oversee both the testing anddefence of the authenticity of Scripture.40

§ 7. After the Patres, come the theologians. The next two stages in Scotus’sargumentation concern the contents of Scripture, that is to say the Christiandoctrine in itself. Positively, they relate to the intrinsic reasonableness ofChristianity, as the theologians used to argue. Negatively, they relate to theintrinsic incoherence of alternative views, as the philosophers used to show bypointing out the contradictions inherent to each and every heresy.

The first of these two moves is grounded in an apologetic turn, touchingfirst on practice and customs, and is not all that unlike what will later be metin authors like John Locke. We see – Scotus remarks – the practical goodnessand fruits of our faith in God and the doctrines deriving from it. The Chris-

37 P2 (ed. Vat. I, 68[14] - 69[1]).38 Medieval law knows the tension between quantitative and qualitative communitarian

criteria: the “sanior pars” used to prevail over the “maior pars.” For the background onmedieval limitations on the majority claim, see: Pierre Michaud-Quantin, ‘Universitas’:expressions du mouvement communautaire dans le Moyen-Âge Latin (Paris: Vrin, 1970), esp.the second part; and Léon Moulin, “Sanior et maior pars, Etude sur l'évolution des tech-niques électorales et déliberatoires dans les Ordres religieux du VI° au XIII° siècle,” Re-vue historique du droit français et étranger, Series IV (1958): 368-97 and 491-529.

39 P2 (ed. Vat. I, 68-9): Credendum est communitati, sive illis quae tota communitas approbat, etmaxime quae communitas famosa et honesta cum maxima diligentia praecepit approbanda.

40 P2 (ed. Vat. I, 69 [2-8]): Talis <communitas honesta> est Canon Scripturae. […] Tanta apud chris-tianos de libris recipiendis tanquam authenticis, quod de nulla scriptura habenda authentica sollicitudofuit inventa, praecipue cum tam sollemnes communitates [i.e. the Jews, before, and then the Chris-tians] de Scripturis illis curaverunt tanquam de continentibus necessaria ad salutem.


tian life according to authentic tradition is, in practice, honesta et rationi con-sona; precepts, evangelical counsel (i.e. poverty, chastity and obedience), andsacraments are derived from a few, basic, practical principles and only extendand fulfill what man finds in the laws of nature.41 Dogma concerning theTrinity, writes Scotus in a way that is reminiscent of Augustine, like that con-cerning the Incarnation, is not unbelievable (incredibile), since quoad se it doesnot contrast with the perfection of God and, quoad nos, it is actually believed:Quia tunc incredibile esset mundum ea credere.

Christian doctrine is, in point of fact, believed by some people; it is there-fore “able” to be believed and cannot be, ipso facto, “unbelievable.” As the me-dieval schoolmen said ab actu ad posse valet illatio. Carefully considered, oneshould notice how the strength of such an argument relies upon the subse-quent philosophical remark on the absurdity of “heretical” errors: De sexto,scilicet de irrationabilitate singulorum errorum.42

§ 8. The opinion according to which the pursuit of happiness correspondswith the enjoyment of animal pleasures (e.g., that of the Muslims); the pre-tension of asserting the prophecies, then refusing their fulfilment (e.g., thatof the Jews); the notion that the first principle is also a bad one (e.g., the pri-mum malum of the Manicheans); overlooking the intrinsic link between whatcomes first and what follows (e.g., the heretical atomistic or “de-contextualized” reading of the Gospels): philosophy can shed light upon allof the above-mentioned points and show that they are based on errors. Phi-losophers like Avicenna have, for instance, argued for a higher kind of “hap-piness”: not secundum corpus, but rather coniuncta primae veritati.43 The inco-herence of the Jews, who accept the Old Testament as true, but not theprophecies that can be found within it, is immediately evident.44 The inaneconception of the Manicheans ignores the evidence of the transcendentals:

41 P2 (ed. Vat. I, 70 [10-15]): Ex istis [i.e. from the two basic commandments of love: Matt22:37-39 and Matt 7:12] quasi ex principiis practicis alia practica in Scripturis sequuntur tra-dita, honesta et rationi consona, sicut de eorum rationabilitate patere potest singulatim cuilibet per-tractanti de praeceptis, consiliis et sacramentis, quia in omnibus videtur esse quasi quaedam expli-catio legis naturae, quae “scripta est in cordibus nostris.” Cf. Vos, “The Scotian Notion ofNatural Law,” quoted above.

42 Cf. P2, n. 109 (ed. Vat. I, 71-73).43 P2 (ed. Vat. I, 72 [3-12]): Quam promissionem despiciens – qui fuit quasi illius <Mahometi>

sectae – Avicenna, IX Metaphysica, alium finem quasi perfectiorem et homini magis convenientemponens inquit: “Lex nostra, quam dedit Mahometus, ostendit dispositionem felicitatis et miseriaequae sunt secundum corpus, et est alia promissio quae apprehenditur intellectu.” Et sequitur ibi:“Sapientibus multo magis cupiditas fuit ad consequendum hanc felicitatem quam corporum, quaequamvis daretur eis, tamen non attenderunt, nec appretiati sunt eam comparatione felicitatis quaeest coniuncta primae veritati” [Avicenna, Meth., IX, 7].

44 P2 (ed. Vat. I, 71 [12]-73 [4]); and also 73 [7-9]: Nonne etiam in Novo Testamento potueruntvidere Vetus Testamentum esse authenticum, et approbatum?

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ens et bonum convertuntur, such that a “bad principle” is bare nonsense.45 Andlastly, concerning the heretics, human reason teaches one how to regard con-sequences, maintaining the link between antecedentia and consequentia.

The heresies, Scotus insists, arose from the arbitrary and individual read-ing of Scripture: those who attended heretical gatherings paid attention to ahandful of opinions, taken out of context. Indeed only a comprehensive read-ing enables readers to understand the true meaning of Scripture:46 Either thebiblical Canon is taken as a whole or it is misunderstood, as Henry of Ghenthad already established. This is the only rational consequence to be drawnfrom the very idea of a “Canon of Scripture” and tertium non datur.47

We see that here Scotus refers to the use of philosophical or human reasonnot, so to speak, originally and autonomously, but as the final links to his ar-gumentative chain. Human reason is a criterion for truth when, and onlywhen, its thinking is performed in the space opened by divine teaching andauthority. Philosophy has a critical, rather than systematic task. The unity oftruth is like a large room, which human reasoning can clean and keep brightand orderly, yet the walls and boundaries of which are not established, butrather found by reason. This last point, by the way, is not something whichcontrasts with reason’s nature, since the human mind can see its own limitsand, on its own, seek a “common doctor” to guide it.

Henry of Ghent had said that, although valuable on several issues, theopinion of the Philosopher cannot be the last word on human reason for mul-tum restat inter opinionem Aristotelis philosophi de primo principio et fidem catholi-cam.48 And Augustine before him had been aware of the fact that, if philoso-phers had been able to discover several truths, they did so by blending truthand falsehood (falsa miscendo <veri>).49 The doctrines of the philosophers ali-quid irrationale continent, as Aristotle himself was able to show concerning ear-lier doctrines in the second book of his Politics. The Stagirite, furthermore, isno exception to this rule, since in his own writings one can find inconsisten-cies and absurdities, such as his polytheism or reprehensible eugenic the-ory.50 The human status iste, without the guidance of divine reason, cannotensure itself against error.

45 P2 (ed. Vat. I, 73 [6-7]): Nonne viderunt omne ens in quantum ens bonum esse?46 P2 (ed. Vat. I, 74 [5-7]): Quia conferentes diversas sententias adduxerunt, quae ex se invicem

mutuo inveniri potuerunt qualiter essent intelligendae.47 P2 (ed. Vat. I, 74 [10-12]): Ergo irrationale est aliquid Canonis recidere et aliquid non, cum Ecclesia

catholica, cui credendo Canonem recipio, recipiat totum “aequaliter ut certum” (my emphasis).48 Henricus Gandavensis, Summa, a. 25, q. 3 ad 1um.49 The reference is to Augustine, De civ. Dei XVIII, 11, as quoted in the first part of Sco-

tus’s Prologus (ed. Vat. I, 41 [6] -42 [3]), secunda rationum principalium contra philosophos.50 P2 (ed. Vat. I, 74 [15-16]): Sed <Aristoteles> etiam in politia sua in quibusdam est irrationabilis,

sicut patet ex solutione quaestionis praecedentis. Cf. P1 (ed. Vat. I, 41–2 [3]): Sed nec ipsa poli-tia Aristotelis est irreprehesibilis: VII enim Politice cap. 7 docet deos esse honorandos (Decet enim –inquit – honorem exhibere diis), et ibidem cap. 5 ‘lex nullum orbatum’ tradit ‘nutrire.’ Cf. Libellus


III. The sin of the Angel and the demystification of Antichrist:how willing the impossible produces (possible) effects.

§ 9. The human will comes on stage in Scotus’s reasoning, as the figure ofthe Antichrist enters his argument. Considerations taken from ecclesiastichistory combine to ensure the stability of the church as a community of inter-pretation throughout the ages. Scotus borrows from previous scholastic ar-guments that one could easily find in both quodlibeta and sermons,51 in whichhistorical evidence is mounted in support of the authenticity, success, andstrength of Christian religion. One such apologetic claim is the fact that theaccelerated diffusion and rising number of proselytes attest to the interven-tion of divine Providence. On its own, human nature is inclined to follow ma-terial and bodily values. Christian doctrine, by contrast, pulls in the oppositeand “unnatural” direction: ad legem contrariam carni et sanguinis servandam.52

In the last stage of his argumentation, Scotus writes at length concerningmiracles.53 These pages pull together and synthesize many of the elements wehave seen so far. Once again a dialectical approach governs the reasoning:miracles should first be established as “good miracles,” excluding any diabolicenchantment. For such a crucial and preliminary discrimination, the theolo-gian argues on the basis of the vision of divine essence54 and the principle ofnon-contradiction55 and introduces a sort of litmus test: viz. how man candemystify the Antichrist and thereby assure the “evidence” of (good) miracles.

de ingenio bonae nativitatis (ca. 1314), ed. Gianfranco Fioravanti, Documenti e studi sullatradizione filosofica medievale XVII (2006): 357. On the relevance of the controversia intertheologos et philosophos, see Boulnois, Duns Scoto, 27-66.

51 Henry of Ghent offers plenty of examples of this in his own writings as Aquinas haddone before him (esp. in his Quaestiones de quolibet). On more remote sources, cf. Fre-derick Van Fleteren and Edward D. English, eds., Reading and Wisdom: The ‘De doctrinachristiana’ of Augustine in the Middle Ages (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press,1995), esp. the contribution of Joseph Wawrykow (at page 109).

52 P2 (ed. Vat. I, 76 [11-12]). Such an acceptance of “human nature,” as defined by bodilydimensions in opposition to the law of God, does not correspond with what Scotus haspreviously claimed: namely that the law of Scripture does not go against nature, but israther humanity’s intrinsic perfection.

53 Cf. P2 (ed. Vat. I, 77 [10]-85 [4]). On this, see Gilles Bierceville, “Du miracle au sur-naturel. De Thomas d’Aquin à Duns Scot: un changement de problématique,” in DunsScot à Paris, 563-79. On the not only historical, but also “contemporaneous” nature ofmiracles, see Paul De Vooght, “La Théologie du miracle selon saint Augustin,” Recher-ches de Théologie Ancienne et Médiévale 11 (1939): 197-222, esp. 221.

54 Cf. P2 (ed. Vat. I, 81 [10ss.]), concerning the testimonies of truth constituted by therapture of Saint Paul and the revelation of future contingents, both of which call uponthe direct intervention of God.

55 Cf. P2 (ed. Vat. I, 82 [1-5]): Quia nullus potest decipi circa primum principium aliquod – cre-dendo se intelligere cum non intelligat talem principium – quod non constaret ex terminis appre-hensis quod esset principium et quod non.

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Whence against the false miracles of the Antichrist one might object, atleast concerning these two points,56 in this way: if you are God, make me seethe divine essence unobstructed, and after the vision have a certain memoryof the vision, and the certitude that ‘that’ was the vision of the divine essenceunobstructed, and then I shall believe you; likewise, if you are God, tell mewhat I shall do and/or what I shall be thinking and/or shall desire on suchand such a day and hour.57

Here the human will makes its crucial appearance: it is the negative thatreveals the positive, the Antichrist who speaks the truth about God. Ex falsosequitur quodlibet, the logicians say, and the theologian here is trying to turn itinto: ex quolibet verum per negationem sequitur. The will vouches for the truthful-ness of the Sacred Scripture so long as man experiences the impossibility towill otherwise.

Here Scotus refers to the freedom of exercise (Aquinas had said quoad exer-citium actus), an act of the will that encompasses the manifold experience ofman: quid faciam, quid cogitabo vel appetam.

§ 10. Scotus final point in Part 2, therefore, requires the concept of will.Leaving the question of divine essence and (beatific) vision aside, which rep-resents the other branch of Scotus’s demystification test, I will briefly focus onhuman freedom and the will.58

For this argument to work, the human will has to be able to will everythingbut a contradiction. In other words, the will acts upon the entire realm of“possibility” and any natural impossibility (impossibilitas secundum naturam)may not coerce it. The boundaries of possibility are formally established bythe principle of non-contradiction. Nevertheless, the contents of any set of

56 Namely the two testimonies of the vision of divine essence: the rapture of Saint Pauland the revelation of future contingents.

57 P2 (ed. Vat. I, p. 83 [5-10]): Unde contra falsa miracula Antichristi posset sibi obici, saltem deistis duobus, hoc modo: si tu es Deus, fac me videre nude divinam essentiam, et post visionem mem-oriam certam habere visionis, et certitudinem quia illa fuit visio divinae essentiae nude, et tunccredam tibi; item, si tu es Deus, dic mihi quid faciam vel quid cogitabo vel appetam tali die vel hora.Unfortunately I cannot examine here the intimate connection between the theme ofthe Antichrist, on the one side, and the debates on theologia ut scientia, on the other. Seealso Gian Luca Potestà, Il tempo dell’Apocalisse. Vita di Giacchino da Fiore (Rome-Bari:Laterza, 2004), Ch. 10.

58 On the debates on the beatific vision in the early fourteenth century, check ChristianTrottmann, La vision béatifique: des disputes scolastiques à sa définition par Benoît XII (Rome:École Française, 1995). Interesting, though far-fetched, is Fiona Robb, “The function ofRepetition in Scholastic Theology on the Trinity,” Vivarium 34 (1996): 41-75. From theboundless literature on Scotus’s conception of the will, I am considering here for mypurpose: Joachim Roland Söder, Kontingenz und Wissen, Die Lehre von den ‘futura contin-gentia’ bei Johannes Duns Scotus (Münster: Aschendorff, 1999), in particular its third part,and Jörn Müller, “Fraqueza da vontade no voluntarismo? Investigações sobre JoãoDuns Scotus,” trans. Roberto Hofmeister Pich, Veritas [Porto Alegre] 50 (2005): 117-38.


possibles can be encompassed only by the will. This had already been the casewith Aquinas. For him, the human will expresses itself as voluntas impossibil-ium. But this traditional phrase does not mean for Aquinas “to will what is(logically) impossible,” that is, to will the contradictory. Aquinas’s willing ofthe impossible is indeed a volition independent from any state of affairs, be-cause its sole boundaries lay in the principle of non-contradiction.59 Such avoluntas impossibilium or velleity (velleitas)60 expresses the dignity of humanfreedom, as it does at its best in the case of Christ’s prayer in Gethsemani61

and at its worst in the case of angelic sin.62

Velleity, both for Aquinas and Scotus, requires a dialectical interpretationof the will, one which dis-conceals (as it were), in the human will itself, theparadoxical relation (commisuratio) between human and divine wills.63 Such arelation, in some instances, may take the form of an obligation.64 It is thanksto such a voluntas impossibilium, that man is able to protect himself from anynon-divine influence. In the face of the demons genies malins or even of theAntichrist, man can just will something that falls outside of the actual presentsituation. Such a “something else,” therefore, may well be “impossible” ac-cording to actual physical standards. Man’s rational will may not have positiveeffects, but it has at least an indirect negative one: it prevents the wayfarerfrom falling victim to any suggestion that, since it does not come from God,held no obligation for him.

59 See, for instance, Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones disputatae de malo, q. 16 <de demoni-bus>, a. 3: Utrum diabolus peccando appetierit equalitatem divinam. Cf. Robiglio, L’impossibilevolere, 96-105.

60 Scotus employs the expression velleitas only in his Reportata (viz. II, d. 6, q. 1) – as bothCervellon and Müller noticed –, defining it against the ‘voluntas efficax.’ In both Lecturaand Ordinatio the Subtle Doctor prefers the range of meanings of ‘acceptatio.’

61 Cf. Matt 26:39. Scotus develops this already in his Lect. III, d. 17, qq. 1-2, employing suchsubtle semantic tool as the ‘conditio distrahens’ (on which cf. Walter Burley, De puritate artislogicae tract. brevior, pars I, partic. 1; and Söder, Kontingenz und Wissen, 195). Cf. IoannesDuns Scotus, Lect. III (ed. Vat. XX, 424 ff.). Scotus’s Ord. III, d. 17, where the question Ut-rum Christus aliquid voluit quod non evenit is missing, is of less interest to us here.

62 See Scotus’s Lect. II, d. 6, qq. 1-2 (cf. ed. Vat. XVIII, 371-87), and Ord. III, d. 6, qq. 1-2(cf. ed. Vat. VIII, 25-67).

63 As Christophe Cervellon has judiciously pointed out: “C’est ce rapport à une règlesupérieure qui joue, chez Thomas comme chez Scot, un rôle central dans la com-préhension de l’action mauvaise aussi bien chez les hommes que chez les démons”(Cervellon, “L’affection de justice,” 450).

64 See, for instance, Lect. II, d. 6, q. 2: affectio iustitiae […] inclinat voluntatem ad volendumsicut ipsa debet velle. On the notion of obligation, see Hester Goodenough Gelber, It couldhave been otherwise. Contingency and Necessity in Dominican Theology at Oxford, 1300-1350(Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2004), Ch. 4, especially at 156-58, and Robiglio, “How isStrength of the Will possible?”, 169-70.

Andrea Robiglio76

IV. Aspects of Scotus’s Hermeneutics

§ 11. By means of this re-reading of a well-known text of Scotus, I stress itsimportance for his whole theological project; but I also wish to recall the at-tention of the reader to the hermeneutical dimensions of Scotus’s thought.First, we have noticed the employment of a Christological reference (viz.“common doctor”), which, despite having been generally neglected in secon-dary literature, seems crucial for grounding the Scotist Biblical hermeneutics.Scripture is the original source of the human “regulative idea” of divine rea-son as well as the source of obligation for the will.

From the heights of the Biblical Canon a sort of principle of understand-ing flows down supra mentem nostram commutabilem.65 This principle brings us astronger rational element that is introduced into the human mind via a hypo-thetical obligation; such an obligation enables human reason to act not onlyas ratio, but as recta ratio. For such a hypothesis to become a principle, theSubtle Doctor has to fix the divine authorship of the Biblical Canon, the“normativity” of which establishes what I called obligation above.66

The God that man can both interpret and understand is Christ.67 The Christthat man can interpret and understand is the Christ of Scripture; and the Scrip-ture that man can interpret and understand is the canonical and establishedone, as read in the community of Christ’s followers. The self-interpretation ofthe Christian community thus requires a comprehensive theological herme-neutics, and vice versa: a comprehensive theological hermeneutics requires aninterpretation (and definition) of the “Community of Christian readers,” onewhich connects itself, via the Apostles, to the Word of God.

Divine authorship and thus, hermeneutical norms, emerge from the correctinterpretation of Scripture. The argument, in sum, is as follows: biblical writingwas inspired by God, since only God could inspire it. Without the mediation of anumber of argumentative stages (namely, eight), the argument would reduce to

65 One could also recall the equivalence, according to Scotus, of prophetia vera and gratiainterpretandi, defined against false prophecy and heresy. Cf. Jean-Pierre Torrell, “Laconception de la prophétie chez Jean de Roquetaillade,” in idem, Recherches sur la théoriede la prophétie, 243-44.

66 Moreover, it provides a rational ground for Scotus’s crucial distinction between thestatus iste and humanity as a whole: a topic with which the Subtle doctor deals in his Or-dinatio Prologue, Part One.

67 This depends on the Christian idea of Revelation itself, and explains those reductiones adChristum we also meet in other writings of Scotus (e.g. Ord. II, d. 6, q. 1, n. 18: Aequalitas au-tem Dei potest apprehendi sine errore, quia in aliquo est sine errore: nam Filius Dei est aequalis Patri,et Ille potest apprehendi). These last reflections of mine have been presented in Andrea A.Robiglio, “Christ as the Common Doctor and John Duns Scotus’s Place in the History ofHermeneutics,” in ‘Vera doctrina.’ Zur Begriffsgeschichte der Lehre von Augustinus bis Descartes.L'idée de doctrine de saint Augustin à Descartes, ed. Philippe Büttgen, Ruedi Imbach, Ulrich J.Schneider and Herman J. Selderhuis (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, in print).


a gratuitous tautology. Middle terms are required to avoid circularity and petitioprincipii. Scotus cannot use points taken from the Scripture itself; he tries to usecommon reasons, voluit uti – said Ponce – mediis generalibus.68

As a consequence, correct interpretation cannot be derived from anymethod or any technique of reading applied to the text ab exstrinseco. The artof interpreting Scripture, on the one hand, and the divine authorship of theBible, on the other, are two foci of the same ellipsis; each of them calls for theother in a circular movement which never rests and, to function effectively,may not cease.

To distinguish one light – Kierkegaard once wrote – one needs two lights.This paradox might similarly be applied to any experience of self-inter-pretation, which always requires an “otherness.” The Prologue to Scotus’sOrdinatio constitutes precisely, in my opinion, an essay on self-interpretation.It concerns the Christian community of the followers of Christ, which be-comes the way for the Word of God to reveal himself. For, to be Christian,men must be integrally rational; yet human reason and discretio also requireanother light to ensure their power and autonomy. Knowledge per se can bereasonably established due to its being already (pro statu isto) somehow actual.I in fact understand the Bible, therefore I am Christian; but I am in factChristian and, therefore, God exists and authored the Bible. These state-ments entail a more general one: I want to interpret, therefore understandingexists. To put this in Aquinas’s words: I understand to the degree that I will[to understand] (intelligo quia volo). As a consequence, understanding is pos-sible, as is science.

The evidence of the conclusions lays on a second degree: it is taken from thecombination of two other evidences – one that concerns the motiva credibilitatisfound in the Scripture (which, as such, remain contingent), and another thatdemonstrates per absurdum the divine authorship of the Scripture.69 Scotus’s

68 Supplementum Poncii, 41a-43a: Hoc autem per octo vias et rationes valde urgentes a Patribus de-promptas, quibus posteriores Scholastici omnes fere utuntur, probato, resolvit quaestionem princi-paliter breviter. [...] Octo viis seu rationibus communibus, et generalibus, aequaliter contra omnesdeservientibus, impugnari rationabiliter posse; ita ut ipsi, si rationi locum velint dare (ut debent, sihumano more, et non ferino procedant) fateri debeant illam Scripturam esse sacram.

69 My reading, though distinct in approach, matches the picture sketched by Stephen F.Brown, “Scotus’s Method in Theology,” in Via Scoti. Methodologica ad mentem Joannis DunsScoti. Atti del Congresso Scotistico Internazionale [Roma 9-11 marzo 1993], ed. Leonardo Sileo,vol. 1 (Rome: Antonianum, 1995), 229-43, and could offer a fresh perspective on thedebates postdating those studied by Joachim D’Souza, “William of Alnwick and theProblem of Faith and Reason,” Salesianum 35 (1973), 425-88. On the role played by perabsurdum arguments in Scotus’s thought, see: Antonino Poppi, “Classicità nel pensierofilosofico di Duns Scoto,” in idem, Classicità del pensiero medievale. Anselmo, Bonaventura,Tommaso, Duns Scoto alla prova dell’ ‘élenchos’ (Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 1988), 83-120.

Andrea Robiglio78

hermeneutics, insofar as it is based on such a performative70 act of interpreta-tion and entails an elaborated concept of the rational will, is very different fromthe Cartesian cogito. Yet it might bear some intriguing resemblances.

70 Any analogies with “performative acts” introduced by linguistic Pragmatics go beyondthe scope of this article. Still, this mode of inquiry could benefit from the case of P2.According to such a model of thought, the divine authorship of Scripture were assuredby a sort of relevance-principle. Indeed, if the Author explicitly gave the reader relevant“motives for credibility” without guaranteeing the “referent” of such motives, he wouldhave denied the implicit expectation of interlocution (in this case: that between theauthor and the reader). “Deception,” in other words, can be neither total nor “origi-nal”; rather it has to presuppose “valid communication,” as counterfeit money presup-poses valid currency.

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Scotus on Hermeneutics