Aufredo Gonteri, the Book of the Beadle and the Formal Distinction

I had meant to post this ages ago. Aufredo Gonteri, a Scotist who knew Scotus personally (he is on the Adhesion list of 1303), attests to a debate over the formal distinction at Paris in the 1320's. First I list the literature below, then the quote. Apparently, the result of the debate was that all the masters of Paris declared that the Scotist formal distinction is fully catholic and sound. This was written in the "book of the beadle". A beadle was an office pertaining to management in the university, apparently they also kept records of official decisions as well. Anyway, the quote is below, the debate was with a Dominican who claimed the formal distinction was heretical (time travelling Garrigou-Lagrange perhaps). All knowledge of this debate has perished, save for Gonteri's reference, nor does the book of the beadle survive either.

Note that Gonteri's discussion of the univocity of being was recently published in Mediaeval Studies.



William Duba, Russell Friedman, Chris Schabel, “Henry of Harclay and Aufredo Gonteri Brito,” in Mediaeval Commentaries on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, vol. 2, ed. P.W. Rosemann, Brill 2010, pp. 263-368, at 291.


Doucet, “Der unbekannte Skotist des Vaticanus Lat. 1113, Fr. Anfredus Gonteri OFM (1325),” Franziskanische Studien 25 (1938), 201-40, at 206

Aufredo Gonteri Sent. I d. 34 q. 3. “But on account of a controversy of Master Benedict of the Preachers, this truth was determined for me in Paris by all the masters regent and non-regent in the theological faculty, and it was promulgated publicly by the beadle and recorded in the common book of the masters, although the aforesaid Master publicly dogmatized otherwise in the schools that this determined truth is heretical. All the aforesaid masters determined that the contrary is true, Catholic, and sound.”

Aufredo Gonteri Brito on the Analogy of Being

Aufredo Gonteri Brito was a Franciscan who taught at the Barcelona convent in the early 1320's. He wrote a commentary on the Sentences at Barcelona and one at Paris, the latter around 1322. In many texts, Gonteri copies Henry of Harclay into his own commentary (see the article by Friedman-Schabel-Duba), and the work as a whole is described as a "compilatio" The following text, however, is not from Harclay. It is a discussion of analogy, in which Aufredo offers a definition of analogy. There are resonances here with Scotus' discussion of analogy of attribution in Ord. I d. 8 q. 3.

Gonteri is a Scotist, who helds the common opinion of the Scotists, running from Scotus to the 20th century, that being is both analogical and univocal.

I offer here a translation of the text, which I have cobbled together from two manuscripts. For reference sake, see Vat. lat. 1113, f. 54vb-55ra. Happily, the Vatican library has digitized the manuscript.

Gonteri, Ord. I d. 3 q. 2 a. 1.

Furthermore, it must be known that an analogus concept is a medium between a univocal and equivocal [concept]. And an analogous concept is that by which some things are conceived by one name at once according to a certain relation of one to another or of both to some third. 

Nevertheless, it should be known that analogy is twofold. A certain one is properly said which is between some many things agreeing in one name which are of diverse rationes having a relation of one to another or of others to a third, just as this name 'healthy' is said of health in the animal and in bread and in urine analogically, as is said in IV Metaphysics, because health is formally in the animal, in urine significatively, in bread in virtue of the supposite, in medicine [i. m. = lec. inc.] effectively, and so not according to the same notion [ratio]. The other analogy is between some things in one name which agree in one formal univocal notion [ratio] found in them, nevertheless they participate in that notion according to more and less, prior and posterior, and in that way there is equivocation [and analogy adds. one MS]; in species of the same genus is there equivocation and analogy according to the Philosopher in VII Physics, because, as he says there, many equivocations lie hid in the genera, and such an analogy is always between equivocal causes and their effects. 

Now the first unity of the analogical concept excludes the unity of univocity from those between which it is, but the second unity of the analogous concept, although it is formally other than the unity of univocity, and distinct from it and lesser than it, nevertheless it does not exclude it, indeed it is compatible with it, nor does it restrict it. For although the unity of analogy alone does not posit the unity of univocity properly said, just as neither does the unity of a genus alone posit the specific unity among some things, because a minor unity does not posit a greater, as was said, nevertheless the unity of analogy does not necessarily exclude the unity of univocity properly called from those between which it is, indeed it is compatible with it, just as also the unity of the genus is compatible with the specific unity by which some things are one in genus and one in species concretely, although this unity of the genus is formally other than the specific unity abstractively, as was said.

So. Two kinds of analogy. The first is of many to one or one to another, in which the ratio (definition, meaning, formal character, etc.) is diverse in the analogates, but focused on one central notion. The second is in which there is only one ratio, that itself is said univocally, but it is found in its univocates in relations of prior-posterior, more-less. This latter kind of analogy is that which obtains between God and creatures. So God is prior, creatures posterior; creatures participate in God, and such is seen by Gonteri (and indeed by Scotists) to be compatible with univocity, even in the same concept. The description of analogy as predication of the prior and posterior goes back to the Arabs, and the combination with univocity perhaps is a result of the ambiguity in Avicenna. Avicenna describes being as being said in the prior and posterior way, and yet scholars of the latin and arabic texts have never managed to agree wither or not he holds to univocity as well.

Aufredus Gonteri on the Modes of Creaturely Being

The following is a snippet from Gonteri's commentary on the Lombard. Gonteri was a Franciscan from Brittany, and lectured on the Sentences at Barcelona and Paris in the 1320's. His commentary is a good example of the practice of reading the Sentences 'secundum alium', that is copying other scholars' commentaries into one's own.  Gonteri takes material from thinkers such as Henry of Harclay, Francis of Marchia, and Gerard Odonis.  This is illustrated by the question on modes of creaturely being; see Duba-Friedman-Schabel, "Henry of Harclay and Aufredo Gonteri Brito,"  in Medieval Comm. on the Sent. of Peter Lombard, p. 304

Gonteri includes (at least) 15 questions from Gerard of Odonis's commentary on Book II. We have edited Odonis's Book II, dist. 1, part 1, qu. 2, which corresponds to Gonteri's Book II, dist. I, qu. 22. Again, Gonteri's choice is impressive, since this question asks "whether before its creation a creature has any being distinct from the being of its cause," and Odonis outlines nine sorts of being that a creature has before creation, in addition to the one being it receives at creation itself. Of the over 300 lines of text in this realist question, Gonteri copies verbatim about 35%, except for transitional statements where he abbreviates, saying for example, et sic de aliis. These ten modes of being are explained in the first 35% of the question, of which Gonteri copies a full 70%. In the second 35% of the question Odonis presents and responds to some objections; Gonteri omits this section entirely. Gonteri then abbreviates heavily in the last 30% of the question, incorporating only about 30% of that section.

Here are the ten modes:

Aufredus Gonteri, Ordinatio/Compilatio super II Sententiarum d. 1 q. 22 (Pamplona, Archivo de la Catedral, Ms. 5, f. 18vb):

Circa solutionem questionis est primo videndum de modis essendi creature ante sui creationem, circa quod sciendum quod creatura habet ante sui creationem 9 modos, et accipit unum per creationem et tunc* sunt X. Primus est esse producibile et potentiale, secundus esse ydeale, tertius esse intelligibile, quartus esse intellectum, quintus esse voluntabile, sextus esse volutum, septimus esse possibile, octavus esse positivum, nonus esse quidditativum, decimus quem per creationem accipit esse positum.

Concerning the solution of the question, first we must treat of the modes of being of a creature before its creation; concerning which it should be known that a creature has nine modes of being before its creation, and it receives one through creation and then there are ten. The first is producible and potential being, the second ideal being, the third intelligible being, the fourth understood being, the fifth willable being, the sixth willed being, the seventh possible being, the eighth positive being, the ninth quidditative being, the tenth which it receives through creation is posited(?) being