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[German Version] I. Natural Sciences and Psychology – II. Religious Studies – III. Philosophy – IV. Old Testament – V. New Testament – VI. Church History – VII. Dogmatics and Ethics – VIII. Judaism – IX. Islam I. Natural Sciences and Psychology 1. Evolution From the perspective of the natural sciences, the theory of evolution offers the most comprehensive framework for understanding human beings. It views the human species as a late product of a biogenetic process that began with the origin of life (VI) on earth some 3.8 billion …

[German Version] (Abailardus, Baiolardus; “Peripateticus Palatinus”) was born in 1079 in Le Pallet near Nantes, and died on Apr 21, 1142 in St-Marcel near Chalon-sur-Saône. In order to devote himself to scholarship, he renounced his rights as firstborn in his equestrian family. From 1095 to 1102, he studied logic under Roscelin of Compiègne and under …

[German Version] (1351, Compiègne - Aug 9, 1420, Avignon) studied in Paris, took the M.A. in 1368 and the Mag. theol. in 1381; in 1375, he became canon in Soissons, in 1381 in Noyon, later also in Meaux, Amiens, Cambrai, Compiègne, Rouen and Paris; he was rector of the Collège de Navarre from 1384 to 1389 and became father-confessor to Charles VI in 1389. From…

[German Version] (c. 1230, Patcham, Sussex – Dec 8, 1292, Mortlake, Surrey). After joining the Franciscans in 1250, Peckham studied in Paris and Oxford. From 1269 to 1271 he taught as magister regens in Paris, lecturing on the Sentences of Peter Lombard; from 1272 to 1275 he taught at Oxford, where he introduced the disputatio de quolibet (Disputation: II). He defended the Franciscan ideal of poverty (IV) against the Dominican R. Kilwardby. In 1275 he was made provincial of the Franciscan order in England; in 1276 he attended the general chapter in P…

[German Version] (died c. 870), monk at Corbie Abbey. He intervened in the first Eucharistic controversy with his writing De corpore et sanguine Domini (843), directed against Paschasius Radbertus; using dialectical method he opposed a sensory understanding of the Lord’s Supper, showing that the sacrament was always hidden as a mystery beneath a figura, and rejecting identification of the historical with the sacramental body of Christ. In this he influenced Berengar of Tours. In the books De praedestinatione (849/850), also commissioned by Charles the Bald, he opposed Hi…

[German Version] (died c. 1133, abbey of St. Gilles-les-Boucheries) was initially a priest in the French Alps but was removed from office in 1119. As an itinerant preacher in southern France, he criticized the church, rejected infant baptism, rebaptized adults, denied the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and rejected the mass, along with veneration of the cross and building churches. He acknowledged the authority of the Gospels alone, not other biblical books or the church fathers. During…

[German Version] (c. 1275, St. Pourçain-sur-Sioule – Sep 10, 1334, Meaux), Dominican, possibly a student of James of Metz and Hervaeus Natalis c. 1300. In 1307/08 he lectured on the Sentences at St. Jacques, Paris; in 1312 M.Theol. in Paris; in 1313 lector sacri palatii in Avignon; in 1317 bishop of Limoux; in 1318 bishop of Le-Puy-en-Velay; in 1326 bishop of Meaux. His Commentary on the Sentences of 1308 called forth vehement criticism for its anti-Thomist tendencies (condemned several times by his order, esp. i…

[German Version] (Theodoricus Brito; died c. 1156). Thierry taught the artes liberales and theology in Paris c. 1130/1140 and for some time in Chartres. His students included Petrus Helias, Ivo of Chartres, John of Salisbury, and Clarembald of Arras. He wrote primarily commentaries on Cicero’s De inventione, the Rhetorica ad Herennium (c. 1130), and Boethius’s De trinitate (after 1148). His glosses and lectures on the latter have also survived. His doctrine of the Trinity was influenced by the Neoplatonic question of the relationship between one and many. His Tractatus de sex dieru…

[German Version] (1115/1120, Old Sarum – Oct 25, 1180, Salisbury). John studied in Paris (1136–1147) with Abelard, William of Conches, Gilbert of Poitiers, Robert of Melun, Thierry of Chartres, and ¶ Robert Pullus. In 1154, he entered the service of Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury, and in 1162 that of Theobald's successor, Thomas Becket. Because of Becket's conflict with Henry II, John was banished to Reims (1163–1170). In 1176, he became bishop of Chartres. His writings are marked by his classical education. The Entheticus (1155) is a didactic poem on philosophy. The Metalogicon (1…

[German Version] (1040, Chartres? – Dec 23, 1115/1116, Chartres). Following studies in Le Bec (near Lanfranc) and in Paris, Ivo became canon in Nesle, then provost of the canons regular of St. Quentin in Beauvais, and finally bishop of Chartres in 1090. He contributed to the resolution of the Investiture Controversy by distinguishing between ecclesial and royal, unalterable and alterable, spiritual and wordly law. He supported the canons regular (Regulated clergy), whom he placed above the monks. …

[German Version] (c. 560 – Apr 4, 636, Seville). From a Hispano-Roman family who migrated from Cartagena to Seville, Isidore succeeded his brother Leander as archbishop of Seville" in 599/601. He was an adviser to King Sisebut, founded episcopal schools with libraries in Seville, Toledo, and Saragossa and chaired the synods of Seville (619) and Toledo (633). In many of his works, he endeavored to communicate, especially to the clergy, comprehensive religious and secular learning nourished by antiquity. The Differentiae contain an alphabetical list of words meant to elucida…

[German Version] ( Honorius Augustodunensis; 1080/1090 – c. 1150, Weih St. Peter). A Benedictine friar, Honorius of Autun was probably a disciple of Anselm of Canterbury. Around the year 1100, he wrote the Elucidarium in Canterbury, a didactic theological dialogue that became widely circulated. His historico-theological exegesis of the Song of Songs was written in Regensburg, as was his world history Summa totius and the Clavis physicae, the latter being dependent on John Scotus Eriugena. Honorius was above all a ¶ compiler, but with popularizing and systematizing aims. Reinhold Ri…

[German Version] I. The first Council of Lyon was the renewed attempt of Pope Gregory IX to oppose Emperor Frederick Hohenstaufen after the emperor had forestalled a council convoked in Rome by Gregory in 1241. His successor ¶ Innocent IV succeeded in evading the power of the emperor and on Jan 3, 1245, convoked a council in Lyon to clarify the relationship between pope and emperor, take measures against the Tartars, and find help for the Byzantine Empire and the Holy Land. The council held three sessions from …

[German Version] (d. 1090/1095 in Aversa) was a monk in La-Croix-St-Leufroy who studied under Lanfranc of Bec. He declined appointments to bishoprics in England and Rouen, but agreed to become bishop in Aversa in 1088. As an opponent of Berengar of Tours, he did preliminary work on the doctrine of transsubstantiation with the concept of the mutatio substantiva. Reinhold Rieger Bibliography PL 149, 1427–1512 G. Macy, The Theologies of the Eucharist in the Early Scholastic Period, 1984 M. Dell'Omo, “Ricerche biografiche su Guitmondo,” Ben. 40, 1993, 9–34.

[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. 1300–1359/1360). As teacher of the artes liberales , Buridan became rector of the University of Paris (II) in 1328 and 1340. Despite his nominalism imbued with Occamism (William of Occam), he partially distanced himself from radical Occamist doctrines, such as the doctrine …

[German Version] (c. 1050 Compiègne – 1120/1125) studied at Soissons and Reims; among the places he taught was Loches, where Abelard studied with him. His application of dialectics and semantics to theology made his teaching regarding the Trinity as a unity of the divine essence in three persons appear as tritheism, although his aim was to avoid Sabellianism and Arianism. He was forced to recant at a synod in Soissons (1090/1093). His critics, including Abelard in his Theologia summi boni, did not understand his concerns but objected that his writings did not use concepts …

[German Version] I. The Philosophical Problem The universals controversy concerns the nature of the general and its relationship to the particular (General/Particular). The fundamental ontological assumption that the world consists of objects with attributes is reflected in the subject-predicate structure of declarative sentences, based on the logical relationship of singular to general terms, elements to sets, individuals to general concepts. Can this logical and ontological dualism, governed by the …

[German Version] (c. 1000, Tours – Jan 6, 1088, St. Côme near Tours) studied with Fulbert in Chartres, and became the head and chancellor of the school of Tours, where he taught the Trivium ( Artes liberales ). He advised the count of Anjou and was archdeacon of Angers. His eucharistic doctrine, over which he became embroiled in a fierce dispute with Lanfranc of Pavia, was condemned in 1050 at synods in Rome and Vercelli…