AMALRICO (Amalricus, Almaricus, Amauricus), of BENA. — Celebrated French theologian and philosopher of the 12th century, a native of Bène (Bènes, Bennes) near Chartres. He completed his higher studies in Paris and graduated at the Sorbonne, where he later established his reputation as a professor. Through his intellectual acuity and the originality of his method, inclined toward criticism and resistant to traditional opinions, A. won everyone’s admiration. But the University of Paris was hostile to him and accused him of heresy. During his journey to Rome he failed to obtain the protection of Innocent III, by whom he was in fact condemned. Having returned to Paris, he recanted only outwardly and died shortly thereafter (in 1205 or 1207), leaving behind a group of followers called amalricians (= amau-rani +), who disseminated his theories and developed them extensively.
The absolute lack of writings concerning his thought makes it impossible to determine to what extent the errors of the disciples may be ascribed to the master. On the basis of what is reported by the anonymous treatise Contra amauriana (ca. 1207–20), William of Brittany (d. 1227), Caesarius of Heisterbach (d. 1240), Henry of Susa (d. 1271), Martin of Poland (d. 1279), St. Thomas Aquinas, and other authors contemporary with him, modern scholars generally agree in attributing to A. an absolute pantheism, founded on the universality of being and closely recalling Scotus Eriugena, pseudo-Dionysius, and his Neoplatonic sources, especially Proclus and Plotinus. “Just as the nature of Abraham is not different from, but identical with, that of Isaac, so all beings are one being and all beings are God” (Martin of Poland). From this false pantheistic conception of the universe, the Amalricians deduced the most extreme consequences in the dogmatic and moral orders. They added to it the theories of Joachim of Fiore (d. 1202) concerning the three ages of the world, declaring the new age of the Holy Spirit already begun—an age that abolishes the sacraments and becomes incarnate in every follower of A., who thereby becomes Man-God in the same way as Jesus Christ. Just as the Holy Spirit, who works all things in all, is absolutely sinless, so the “spiritual” man is immune from every fault and may licitly permit himself any sinful act. The law of the new age is the law of love, and any act, even the most abominable, performed under the impulse of love, is neither a sin nor liable to punishment in the future life. Hell is ignorance; paradise is knowledge of the truth, possessed only by the Amalricians, for whom neither the Sacraments nor the future resurrection exist.
These errors were condemned for the first time in 1210, together with the writings of Scotus Eriugena and Aristotle’s books on natural philosophy, by the Synod of Paris, which had A.’s body exhumed and removed from the cemetery. The Fourth Lateran Council (1215) proscribed the Amalrician doctrine once again, declaring it “more senseless than heretical.”