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[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Old Testament – III. New Testament – IV. Church History – V. Systematic Theology – VI. Law – VII. Judaism I. Religious Studies 1. The use of the term grace has been influenced strongly by the historically innovative Pauline conception. For Paul, grace is a gift, a unique fruit of God's salvific purpose and redemptive action. After the analogy of other redemptive religions, Paul employed this term to denote a fundamental aspect of the salvific action of the deity. In other religion…

[German Version] The poet and natural philosopher Bernardus was a native of Tours, worked there as a teacher (e.g. of Matthaeus de Vendôme), and died probably after 1159. He presumably wrote a commentary on Aeneis I–VI and on Martianus Capella. His thinking reveals the early influence of the Arab transmission of Aristotelianism (Aristotle, Reception History), but remains determined by the Platonism of Chartres (Thierry). His main opus, the Cosmographia (1145/1153), is based on Plato's Timaios, as well as on Calcidius, Asclepius, Macro…

[German Version] (c. 810, Ireland – c. 880, West Franconia), philosopher. This teacher of the artes liberales taught at the court or cathedral school of Charles the Bald in Laon. He wrote a commentary on Martianus Capella's De nuptiis Mercurii et Philologiae, which he used as a textbook on the artes liberales. For him, logic was the formal foundation of all the six other liberal arts. Eriguena prepared the first useful translation of the Corpus Dionysiacum (Dionysius Areopagita), to which he added a commentary. In his testimonial requested to de…

[German Version] (c. 960/970 – Apr 10, 1028, Chartres), was a student of Gerbert of Aurillac in Reims; he became chancellor in 1004 and bishop of Chartres in 1006, where he built the Romanic Cathedral. Influenced by Neoplatonism and Ps.-Dionysius Areopagita (Pseudo-Dionysius), he valued dialectics as a scientific method, but warned against overvaluing it in theology. Regarding the doctrine of the Eucharist (Communion: II, 2; III), he argued in support of transsubstantiation and real presence (in c…

[German Version] (Albertus Alemanus, Colonien- sis, Teutonicus, de Lauing; c. 1200, Lauingen – Nov 15, 1280, Cologne) was from a knightly family (not from Bollstadt). After studies in Padua, where Jordan of Saxony induced him to enter the Dominican Order in 1223, he spent his novitiate in theological studies in Cologne, took his vows in 1224, and was ordained …

[German Version] (c. 1290, Hartsfield (?), Sussex – Aug 26, 1349, Lambeth) studied and taught at Balliol and Merton Colleges in Oxford from 1321 to 1326. He was ordained priest in 1332 and became chancellor of the university of Oxford. He took his licentiate in theology in 1336 and his Master's degree in 1340. He became chancellor of St Paul's in London in 1337, and …

[German Version] (c. 1010, Pavia – May 28, 1089, Canterbury). After studying the artes liberales in Italy until 1030, Lanfranc taught in Burgundy and Normandy. In 1042 he entered Le Bec, a Benedictine abbey in Normandy, where he served as prior from 1045 to 1063. Anselm of Canterbury began studying at Lanfranc's monastic school in 1059. In 1049/1050, 1067, and 1071, Lanfranc resided at the papal court. In debate with Berengar of Tours over the nature of the Eucharist, he contributed to the …

[German Version] (Jan 6, 1579, Augsburg – May 5, 1628, Tübingen), born to a patrician family, attended the Jesuit college in Augsburg; in Ingolstadt he began studying philosophy in 1594 and theology in 1602. In 1597 he joined the Jesuit order in Landsberg am Lech and was ordained priest in 1604. In 1606 he began lecturing in controversial theology at the Jesuit college in Munich; in 1608 he became professor of philosophy in Ingolstadt. After receiving his doctorate in theology in 1613, he was appo…

[German Version] (c. 1240 – c. 1284, Orvieto), secular canon in Liège, M.A. at the University of Paris. His Aristotelian philosophy was suspected of heresy and was attacked by Bonaventura, Thomas Aquinas, and others. On Dec 10, 1270, the bishop of Paris, Stephan Tempier, condemned his teaching. Summoned before a court of the Inquisition on Nov 23, 1276, he fled from Paris. On Mar 7, 1277, Tempier once more condemned theses imputed to Siger. His rumored teaching concerning double truth in philosoph…

[German Version] In contrast to the artes mechanicae, in the ancient world the artes liberales constituted the subjects in which a free man should be educated. The early attempts of Sophists to define them were elaborated by Plato; they were systematized by Varro in the 1st century bce. In Late Antiquity, the list of seven and its division into the trivium (linguistic disciplines: grammar, rhetoric, dialectic) and quadrivium (mathematical disciplines: arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy) became canonical. While Augustine of Hippo organized the artes liberales …

[German Version] (806/808 – 866/870, Haut-villers, France), entered the monastery in Fulda as the oblate of his noble family, became friends with Walahfrid Strabo in the Reichenau, and was, against his will, inducted as a monk by Rabanus Maurus, from which a synod in Mainz released him in 829. Nevertheless, he permitted himself as a monk from Orbais to be ordained to the priesthood. On his journey to Italy, his ¶ doctrine of double predestination caused a scandal so that Hrabanus had him condemned and expelled in 848 at a synod in Mainz. Following a renewed condemn…

[German Version] (c. 1120/1130 – 1183, Zwettl [?]). In 1153 Peter, a disciple of Gilbert of Poitiers, engaged in an epistolary dispute with Gerhoch of Reichersberg. From 1158 to 1161 he was active as a magister in Vienna. Probably while still in France, he wrote the Zwettler Summa, the most important work on systematic theology of the Porretan school, in which he defended Gilbert’s distinction between the nature and the person of God. The work comprises four sections on the Trinity, the incarnation of God, and the sacraments. Peter had conta…

[German Version] (Scotus; before 1200, Scotland – c. 1235). Michael was present as a magister at the fourth Lateran Council in 1215. Around 1217 he was in Toledo translating works on natural history and philosophy from Arabic into Latin; he acquainted the West with Averroes. In 1220 he was teaching in Bologna. In 1225 he turned down an appointment as archbishop of Cashel in Ireland. He was active at the court of Frederick the Great as a translator and astrologer. The Latin reception of Aristotle, Avicenna, and Averroes was inspired by him. Besides his translations, he wrote the works: Liber i…

[German Version] (c. 1110 – after 1181). The archdeacon of Segovia was a member of the Toledo School of Translation and translated works by Alkindi (Kindī), Alfarabi (Fārābī), Avicebron (S. Ibn Gabirol), Avicenna, Alghazzali (Ġazzālī), and I. Israeli into Latin. His own writings are, for the most part, compilations of Arabic and Latin works. In his doctrine of the soul, De immortalitate animae, he addresses various proofs of immortality that are based on the inner essence of the soul, such as its activity and…

[German Version] (Petrus Aureoli; c. 1280, Gourdon – Jan 10, 1322, Avignon). After becoming a Franciscan around 1300, Peter studied in Paris, possibly with J. Duns Scotus; in 1312 he was teaching in Paris, in 1314 in Toulouse, and from 1316 to 1318 in Paris. In 1318 he received his master’s degree in theology in Paris. In 1320 he became the Franciscan provincial in Aquitaine, and in 1321 archbishop of Aix. In 1311 his Tractatus de paupertate he dealt with the issue of Franciscan poverty (IV, 2). In 1312 he wrote a metaphysical Tractatus de principiis. In 1314 he defended the Immaculate Co…

[German Version] (c. 1130, Poitiers – Sep 3, 1205, Paris) studied at Paris before 1159 and was a student of Peter Lombard. In 1169 he succeeded Peter Comestor in the chair of theology. In 1193 he succeeded Hilduin as chancellor of Notre Dame. In his magnum opus, Sententiarum libri quinque, published before 1170, he applied the dialectical method to theology. His sermons have also survived. His theological methodology was criticized severely in 1180 by Walter of St. Victor, who attacked him along with Abelard as one the “four labyrinths of France.” Reinhold Rieger Bibliography Eds.: Allego…

[German Version] (c. 790 – c. 859 Corbie), abbot of Corbie from 843/844 to 851 and had a part in the founding of Corvey Abbey; he was a vigorous opponent of Ratramnus. In De partu virginis (c. 845), he defended the virginity of Mary at the birth of Jesus (Virgin birth), but he had reservations concerning liturgical celebration of Mary’s bodily assumption into heaven (Mary, Assumption of). In De corpore et sanguine Domini he supported the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, the identity of the eucharistic body of Christ with his historical body. His methodology…

[German Version] (c. 1150, Auxerre [?] – 1231, Rome), archdeacon of Beauvais. From 1229 to 1231, he was involved in the conflict between the University of Paris and the French king, acting on the bull Parens scientiarum (Apr 13, 1231) of Gregory IX confirming and expanding the rights of the university. The amendment of the Aristotelian natural sciences by a papal commission on which William sat had no effect. His Summa aurea (1215/1229), his major work, became the textbook of the early Dominican school of Paris. He considered theology a science as defined in Aristotle’s Analytica posterio…

[German Version] (Dec 24, 1475, Oberehnheim [Obernai, Alsace] – 1537, Oberehnheim). After attending the Franciscan monastery school in Strasbourg, Murner entered the order in 1490, became a priest in 1494, and studied between 1495 and 1501 at the universities of Freiburg im Breisgau, Paris, Cologne, Rostock, Prague, Krakov, and Vienna. In Freiburg he became in 1506 doctor of theology, and in Basel in 1519 doctor of canon and civil law. He served his order ¶ as lector in Freiburg, Berne, Speyer, and Frankfurt am Main. In Vienna in 1505 he was crowned poeta laureatus. Following S. Brant h…

[German Version] (c. 1100, Brescia – 1155, Rome). Arnold, who may have been a pupil of Abelard in Paris 1115–1120, was an Augustinian Canon and possibly provost of the monastery of San Pietro a Ripa in Brescia. There, in contact with Cathari and Waldensians, he supported the reform program of the Patarines, opposing …