The Scotist Background in Hervaeus Natalis’s Interpretation of Thomism

The Thomist 66 (2002): 607-27 THE SCOTIST BACKGROUND IN HERVAEUS NATALIS'S INTERPRETATION OF THOMISM ISABEL IRIBARREN Linacre College, Oxford University Oxford, United Kingdom UNDERLYING HERVAEUS NATALIS'S work is an intelligent development of Thomistic theses that, while not altogether deviating from Thomas Aquinas, prepares the ground for an elaboration of Thomism along the lines ofJohn Duns Scotus's theological insights.1 This is already apparent in Hervaeus's Sentences commentary, and becomes explicit in his quodlibetal questions. Thus, as Thomistic enthusiasm develops within the Dominican order, Hervaeusgraduallyincorporates (and endorses) elements alien to Aquinas's theology-an aspect of Hervaeus's thought worth remarking as it stands in contrast to a meeker image of the Dominican as the "champion of Thomism." As a leading Dominican, Hervaeus2 serves as a good example of the type ofinterpretation ofAquinas's thought undertaken by secondgeneration Thomists. An examination of Hervaeus's work will therefore shed some light on our understanding of the evolution 1 Hester G. Gelber is, to my knowledge, the first to point out this development in Hervaeus's interpretation of Thomism. See her Logic and the Trinity: A Clash ofValues in Scholastic Thought, 1300-1335 (Ph.D. diss., University ofWisconsin, 1974), especially 11026 . 2 Hervaeus Natalis (d. 1323) became provincial of France in 1309 and General Master in 1318. For a biographical study of Hervaeus, see B. Haureau, "Herve Nedelec, general des Frl!res Prl!cheurs," in Histoire litteraire de la France 34 (1915): 308-51; A. De Guimares, "Herve Noel (m.1323): Etude biographique," inArchivum Fratrum Praedicatornm 8 (1938): see esp. 5-77 607 608 ISABEL IRIBARREN of Thomism as a theological authority within the Dominican order.3 Hervaeus's view of relations in Trinitarian theology proves to be a good vantage point from which to appreciate his elaboration of Aquinas's teaching, since it reveals his willingness to borrow from sources alien to Thomism if only to update the material according to the subtleties of the day. In what follows, I shall first give a brief account of Aquinas's view of relations as the main sounding board for Hervaeus's own elaboration of this view; second, I shall present Scotus's notion of 'formality' and the connected notion of 'formal distinction'; third, I shall give an account of Hervaeus's Scotist development of the Thomistic theses in his Sentences commentary and, fourth and finally, in his quodlibetal questions. The question at hand concerns the type of distinction between relation and its foundation, especially in its repercussions on the issue of the distinction between the divine processions. L THOMAS AQUINAS ON RELATIONS With respect to categorical relations,4 Aquinas holds that for each of the nine accidental categories there is a distinction between the accidental being common to all categories and the 3 By 1286 there was already clear evidence that the Dominican order had begun to recognize itself in the figure and teaching of Thomas Aquinas. In that year, the General . Chapter in Paris commanded its friars to teach and defend according to Aquinas, thus actively promoting the Thomistic doctrine within the order. The doctrinal allegiance to Aquinas was repeatedly emphasizedin subsequentDominican legislations, notably in Saragossa in 1309 and in Metz in 1313. See B. M. Reichert, Acta Capitulorum Generalium Ordinis Fratrum Praedicatorum I (Rome, 1889), 235. For a standard history of the order and the significance of Thomism for the shaping of the order's identity, see W. A. Hinnebusch, The History ofthe Dominican Order in the Middle Ages, vol. 2 (NewYork: Alba House, 1966), especially 154ff. See also M. Mulchahey, "First the Bow Is Bent in Study ...": Do-minican E.ducation before 1350, Studies and Texts 132 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1998); M. Grabmann, "Die Kanonisation des hi. Thomas von Aquin in ihrer Bedeutung for die Ausbreitung und Verteidigung seiner Lehre im 14. Jahrhundert," in Divus Thomas, 1 (Freiburg, 1923), 233-49. 4 For a comprehensive study of Aquinas's theory of relations, see A. Krempel, La doctrine de la relation chez saint Thomas (Paris, 1952). See also M. Henninger, Relations: Medieval Theories 1250-1325 (Oxford, 1989), 13-39. HERVAEUS'S INTERPRETATION OF THOMISM 609 ratio that defines each particular category.5 The...