The church, the councils, and reform: the legacy of the fifteenth century

10. A Conciliarist’s Opposition to a Popular Marian Devotion

10 A Conciliarist’s Opposition to a Popular Marian Devotion } Jesse D. mann Few ideas are as closely associated with the fourteenth-century English Franciscan William of Ockham (d.1347) as the notion that “the faithdidnotremainsolelywiththeVirgin”(NoninsolaVirginetuncremansit fides) or that the true church could subsist in a single person.1 This view, sometimes referred to as “remnant ecclesiology”2 and occasionally seen as a consequence of Ockham’s nominalism,3 occurs repeatedly in the 212 1. See Jürgen Miethke, “Repräsentation und Delegation in den politischen Schriften Wilhelms von Ockham,”in Der Begriff der Repraesentatio im Mittelalter:Stellvertretung,Symbol,Zeichen,Bild, ed.Albert Zimmermann,Miscellanea mediaevalia 8 (Berlin:De Gruyter,1971),163–85,at 172;Brian Tierney, Origins of Papal Infallibility,1150–1350:A Study of the Concepts of Infallibility,Sovereignty,and Tradition in the Middle Ages (Leiden: Brill, 1972), 232n1 (citing examples from several of Ockham’s works); Arthur S. McGrade, The Political Thought of William of Ockham:Personal and Institutional Principles (London: Cambridge University Press, 1974), 48; and John J. Ryan, The Nature, Structure, and Functionof theChurchinWilliamof Ockham (Missoula,Mont.:Scholars,1979),38. 2.See,for example,Scott H.Hendrix,“In Quest of the Vera Ecclesia: The Crises of Late Medieval Ecclesiology,” Viator 7 (1976): 360–63. Remnant ecclesiology implies that the true church, as opposed to the visible, institutional church, exists in a small, perhaps hidden or even persecuted minority. 3. See Karl Binder, “Thesis in passione Domini fidem ecclesiae in Beatissma Virgina sola remansisse iuxta doctrinam medii aevi et recentioris aetatis,” in Maria et ecclesia: Acta congressus Mariologici-Mariani in civitate Lourdes anno 1958 celebrati, vol.3,De parallelismo Mariam inter et ecclesiam (Rome: Academia Mariana Internazionale, 1959), 389–488, at 434; and Yves Congar, “Incidence ecclésiologique d’un thème de dévotion mariale,” Mélanges de science religieuse 7 (1950): 277–92, at 288.This interpretation has been criticized by Miethke,“Repräsentation und Delegation,”172;and Hendrix,“In Quest,”361.Ernest A.Moody has defined Ockham’s nominalism as consisting “in his refusal to construe abstract terms as names of entities distinct from the individual things signified by absolute terms”; see Encyclopedia of Philosophy, reprint ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1972), s.v. “William of Ockham.” friar’s writings,most notably in his influential Dialogus.4 At least two times in that lengthy work, Ockham linked his “remnant ecclesiology” to a specific instance of popular Marian devotion.For example,in Dialogus 1.2.25,he wrote,“They say that if only one should dissent, then such a truth should not be accepted, because the entire faith of the church can exist in one individual, just as the entire faith of the church remained solely in the Blessed Virgin at the time of Christ’s passion.”5 And, again in Dialogus 1.5.23,“some say that the faith of the church could remain even in the laity;indeed certain ones say that it could even be preserved in women,just as it was preserved solely in Christ’s mother at the time of his passion.”6 Of course, as these examples themselves suggest, the idea that Mary alone preserved the faith during Christ’s Passion clearly antedated Ockham and the fourteenth century. According to Karl Binder, this tradition grew out of the parallel between Mary and Eve drawn by patristic authors such as Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Ambrose, and Augustine.7 For just as Eve was instrumental in humanity’s fall, Mary, the model of faith,8 was instrumental in humanity’s redemption; and just as Eve was the mother of all, Mary was the mother of all Christians. Relatedly, many of these same patristic authors also drew a parallel between Mary and the church.9 Ambrose, for example, not only saw in Mary a “type” of the church (typus ecclesiae), but also identified her faith with that of the church itself.10 Similar notions can be found in Augustine11 and in the Greek fathers ,as well.12 4. For a concise treatment of the dating and genesis of Ockham’s Dialogus, see Dialogus: Auszüge zur politischenTheorie , ed.Jürgen Miethke (Darmstadt:Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft,1992),225–29. 5. Guillelmus de Occam, Opera plurima: Dialogus de imperio et pontificia potestate (Lyon: Johannes Trechsel, 1494; repr., London: Gregg, 1962), fol. 14vb: “Dicunt quod si unus solus dissentiret non esse talis veritas acceptanda quia in uno solo potest stare tota fides ecclesiae quemadmodum tempore mortis Christi tota fides ecclesiae in sola beata Virgine remanebat...