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THE WODEHAM EDITION: ADAM WODEHAM'S LECTURA SECUNDA Adam de Wodeham (ca. 1298-1358) has yet to reclaim the stature once accorded him as one of the greatest medieval philosopher-theologians. An eminent Franciscan philosopher in his own right, Wodeham was also a briUiant interpreter of John Duns Scotus and WiUiam of Ockham, whose works he mastered. Wodeham's esteem for Scotus and Ockham helped soUdify their reputations, as his own work advanced the Franciscan theological tradition. Wodeham was at once more subtle than Ockham and more preoccupied with logical and semantic questions than Scotus. To a greater extent than his mentors, Wodeham brought concepts from natural science to bear on his theology. Wodeham's preoccupation with logical, semantic and scientific questions sometimes makes his theology read like the exposition of a series of conundrums. Wodeham did not share the modern predilection for simplicity. He delighted in stating and defending apparently contradictory conclusions, whose defense made the complexity of the problem evident. Reconciling dogmatic theology with Aristotelian logic was Wodeham's fundamental theological project. As H. Gelber has shown, Wodeham "vehemently defended logic against whose who would discard it because they could not see how to reconcile logic with the articles of faith." Wodeham rejected both Scotus's and Ockham's interpretations of the formal distinction. He deprecated theological devices that apphed exclusively to the Trinity. It was his aim to achieve solutions by reexamining the basic principles of Aristotelian logic, whose boundaries he sought to expand. WODEHAM'S LIFE AND WORKS Wodeham died in 1358 at Babwell Convent, near Bury St. Edmunds. The earliest biographical information we have on him dates from 1512. John Major, the eminent Scottish theologian and historian, wrote a brief Vita Adae when he arranged for Wodeham's work to appear in print for the first time. Major praises Wodeham as a solid, accurate and perspicacious phüosopher. Wodeham would 104REGA WOOD be esteemed a greater philosopher than Ockham, were it not for Ockham's political writings according to Major. The first modern historian of Franciscan scholarship, Luke Wadding, shared John Major's assessment of Wodeham's philosophical theology: Wodeham was a man of great acuity and profound judgment. Adam Wodeham lectured on the Sentences of Peter Lombard at London, Norwich and Oxford. His London Lectures were delivered first. Those lectures included a long epistemological prologue quoted by Gregory of Rimini and Henry Totting of Oyta, much of which was incorporated in the Norwich Lectures. The London Lectures, which do not survive, also included a discussion of the composition of continua, cited in his Oxford atures. The Norwich Lectures or Lectura secunda were delivered between 1329 and 1332. We know that the Lectura secunda is based on the lectures given in Norwich, because in his Oxford Lectures, Wodeham refers to a theory expounded in the Lectura secunda (dist. 5), as a view he had expressed earlier in Norwich. Evidence that the Lectura secunda was given after 1329 is Wodeham's reference to Gerald Odonis as minister general of the Franciscan Order. 1332 is the approximate date of Wodeham's third course of theological lectures, delivered at Oxford. Originally, the Norwich Lectures included commentaries on books III and IV of Lombard's Sentences, and possibly book II as well. Only the commentary on book I survives, however. It is preserved in only one manuscript, Cambridge, Gonville and Caius 281/374. The Cambridge manuscript is a circa 1375 English parchment manuscript now bound with Robert Cowton's commentary on book I of the Sentences. The manuscript is decorated with red and blue. Despite the boxed catchwords at the end of the signatures, four pages are misbound. The chief spelling peculiarity of the Cambridge manuscript, is the scribe's predilection for double f's—thus we read "ffaUacia" and "ffides." The manuscript is heavily abbreviated, using medieval shorthand. Some abbreviations are ambiguous; they can be expanded in more than one way. Wodeham's third and final lectures on the Sentences were delivered in Oxford. Unlike his Norwich Lectures they are directed to a larger university audience. Wodeham does not confine his discussion to Franciscan authors, but cites his secular colleagues at Oxford. Huge THE WODEHAM EDHION105 crowds ("infinita...

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