Quodlibet IV

QUODLIBET IV: AUTHORSHIP AND DATE

QUODLIBET IV:AUTHORSHIP AND DATE§1. The Authorship of Quodlibet IV No one has ever doubted that Quodlibet IV is a text authored by Henry of Ghent. The manuscript evidence attests to this attribution. For example, at the end of this Quodlibet in the manuscript Biblioteca Vaticana, Borgh. 299, on fol. 137vb the copyist wrote the following explicit “Expliciunt quaestiones de quolibet magistri Henrici de Gandavo, archidiaconi tornacensis, quarto disputatae in scholis suis, et sunt 37 in universo” . And this attribution to Henry is also included in many other extant manuscripts.1 There are references in this Quodlibet to each of the three prior Quodlibeta and there are references to articles in the certainly authentic Quaestiones ordinariae (Summa). There are also references in the Quaestiones ordinariae (Summa) to questions in Quodlibet IV.2§2. The Date of Quodlibet IV Henry’s first Quodlibet is explicitly dated Christmas of 1276 in two manuscripts : Biblioteca Vaticana, Borgh. 299 and Paris, Arsenal 455. Five manuscripts give the date of Christmas 1277 for Quodlibet II. In it Henry refers on more than one occasion to the recent condemnation (March 7, 1277) of 219 theses by Etienne Tempier, then bishop of Paris. And, in question 9 he wrote that he himself was a member of the commission of theologians assembled by Tempier to prepare the condemnation.3 Furthermore in it Henry on three occasions refers to his first Quodlibet as having been disputed the previous year: “Quaestio ista proposita fuit, ut credo, propter determinationem habitam in anno praecedenti…” (q. 2)4 ;“Propter quod ab initio mihi displicuit eam alio anno inchoare, et quasi intactam reliqui” (q. 3)5 ; and “… reducenda sunt ad memoriam quaedam tacta in quadam alia quaestione 1 See the critical text below, q. 37, lin. 149-151, where all the manuscripts (except one) used to establish the critical text attribute the text to Henry. 2 See, for example, the list in J. Gómez-Caffarena, “Cronologia de la Suma de Enrique de Gante por relación a sus Quodlibetos,” in Gregorianum, 38 (1957), pp. 123-128. 3 Henr. de Gand., Quodl. II, q. 8, ed. R. Wielockx, p. 67, 21-24: “In hoc enim concordabant omnes magistri theologiae congregati super hoc, quorum ego eram unus, unanimiter concedentes quod substantia angeli non est ratio angelum esse in loco secundum substantiam.” 4 Ibid., q. 2, ed. R.Wielockx, p. 13, 52-53. 5 Ibid., q. 3, ed. R.Wielockx, p. 24, 88-89. XXII CRITICAL STUDY anni praecedentis…” (q. 15)6 . Quodlibet III was disputed in Lent of 1278 according to six manuscripts. According to the manuscript Biblioteca Vaticana Borgh. 299, Quodlibet IV was disputed in 1279. In this manuscript on folios 275va-277va there is a table of questions for Quodlibets I-VII and each of these seven Quodlibeta is given a date. Concerning Quodlibet IV, one reads “uaestiones de quolibet quarto anno Domini mo cco lxxo ixo ” – 1279.7 The manuscript evidence of the 1279 date for Henry’s Quodlibet IV is further confirmed by references to his contemporaries and a reference to a historical event in this Quodlibet. In the examination of the contemporary sources in Quodlibet IV below,8 it is clear that Henry cites Giles of Lessines’ De unitate formae repeatedly, and this work was completed by July 1279, and Henry was aware of Robert Kilwardby’s letter to Peter Conflans, which was written in July of 1279.9 But there is in Quodlibet IV a reference to a historical event which allows an even more precise dating of the terminus a quo. In Quodlibet IV, q. 15 Henry treats the topic of whether a substance can receive “greater or lesser” [magis vel minus]. One issue which is at stake in this question is whether the soul of Christ in its nature would be nobler and superior than the soul of Judas. In Tempier’s condemnation of 1277, the proposition that Christ’s soul was not nobler than the soul of Judas was condemned . After making reference to the condemned proposition10 Henry claimed: “Et propter illam eandem rationem qua in formis specialissimis substantiae non est secundum eos magis vel minus nisi in forma humana vel anima rationali,iuxta hoc quod determinavit quondam episcopus Parisiensis, cuius sententiae non contradico.” Interesting is Henry’s selection of words. Tempier is described not as the current bishop of Paris, but as “once bishop of Paris.” Because Tempier died on September 3, 1279, one can reasonably conclude that the written text of Henry’s...