AUREOLI (AURIOLE, ORIOLE, etc.), PIETRO. — Franciscan philosopher and theologian, born in the diocese of Cahors ca. 1280 (?), died at Avignon or Aix on 10 (?) January 1322.
Nothing is known about the early years of A.’s life; the date and place of his birth are unknown, as is the time of his entry into the Franciscan Order. In 1304, as he states in one of his later writings, he was studying in Paris, probably as a disciple of Duns Scotus. In 1311 he first emerges as an author, with a Tractatus de paupertate et de usu paupere rerum (published in Firmamenta trium ordinum beatissimi Patris nostri Francisci, Paris 1511). In 1312 he was lector at the Franciscan Studium generale in Bologna; there he composed his first philosophical work, the Tractatus de tribus principiis (unpublished). In 1314 he taught at Toulouse and there composed a Tractatus de conceptione B. Mariae Virginis (1st ed. Mainz 1490, critical ed. V. BIBLICA.), which was to occupy an important place in the history of theology: in it, for the first time ex professo, the thesis is defended that Mary was free from original sin from the first moment. At Toulouse A. was also active as a preacher: a sermon on the Immaculate Conception, delivered on 8 December 1314, gave rise to a lively discussion and occasioned a second writing on this subject: Repercussorium editum contra adversarium innocentiae Maris Dei (published together with the Tractatus), in which the arguments of the treatise are taken up and further developed. At the general chapter of 1316 A. was assigned to Paris as a baccalarius sententiarius. In the autumn of 1316 he began his lectures on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, which lasted for two years. He probably commented on the four books in the following order: I, IV, II, III, as others also did at that time. The third book remained unfinished because, already in the summer of 1318, following the personal intervention of John XXII, A. became magister theologiae. The literary tradition of his commentary on the Sentences presents various enigmas and has given rise to much discussion. It is preserved in two or three different versions: 1) a reportatio, that is, notes taken by a disciple, of the Parisian teaching, comprising all four books (book I in manuscript only, books II–IV published in vol. II of the Commentary on the Sentences, V. BIBLICA.); 2) a reportatio of the third book, perhaps deriving from lectures given by A. at Bologna or Toulouse (manuscripts, with a small part published in the edition cited); 3) a very extensive version of book I (a so-called ordinatio), prepared and published by the author himself and dedicated to John XXII (cited ed., vol. I). For a long time it was assumed that this ordinatio was the final and definitive version, compiled after the Paris lectures, presumably in the years 1318–1319. Recently, however, it has been demonstrated that the relationship is the reverse: the great commentary on book I of the Sentences had already been completed when A. began teaching in Paris, and was probably dedicated to the Pope on the occasion of his accession to the throne (August 1316). It may derive from the same course of lectures of which we possess the third book in a reportatio. From the years of A.’s Parisian mastership comes his Compendium sensus literalis totius divinae Scripturae, which achieved wide circulation and was subsequently often printed (for the first time in Strasbourg ca. 1475; critical ed. V. BIBLICA.), as well as a Quodlibet containing 16 questions (not 16 Quodlibeta, as is often stated; published together with the Commentary on the Sentences). His teaching as magister lasted only two years; by the end of 1320 he had already been appointed provincial of the province of Aquitaine, and in February 1321 archbishop of Aix. John XXII himself conferred episcopal ordination upon him. This activity, too, lasted only briefly. A. died in January 1322 in a reputation for sanctity, probably during a stay at the papal Curia. Contrary to what a long-standing tradition would have it, he was never a cardinal.
His doctrinal position is difficult to define and has so far been studied only in part. A. did not align himself with any school and pursued his own path in every question: he polemicized against everyone and was consequently attacked by everyone. « Quia manus eius contra omnes... manus omnium contra eum » says St. Antoninus of him in his chronicle. In the history of fourteenth-century thought, his position lies between Durandus of Saint-Pourçain and William of Ockham; indeed, his contemporaries regarded A. as a continuator of Durandus’s ideas, while posterity saw him as a precursor of Ockham. On the whole, his philosophy is characterized by skeptical and empiricist features. To this day, only individual chapters of it have been sufficiently studied, especially his theory of universals and his epistemological and psychological theories. A. defended a conceptualism that attributes a certain psychic reality to the universal concept, but does not make anything outside the intellect correspond to II. This doctrine strongly influenced the genesis of Ockham’s nominalism, although it was not itself nominalist. Recent studies have also elucidated individual points in A.’s logic, ontology, and metaphysics (the theory of the «propositiones neutrae», which are neither true nor false, and its application to the problem of divine foreknowledge of contingent future events; the problems of the «intensio et remissio formarum», of the infinite, of the plurality of forms, of motion, etc.). The solutions A. offers are always original and new; he generally rejects traditional theories, sometimes not without irony. Thus, for example, with regard to the doctrine of the Intelligences and their influence on terrestrial physics, a doctrine fundamental to scholastic physics, he declares: «hoc est refugium miserorum in philosophia, sicut Deus est refugium miserorum in theologia» (Sent. IV, dist. 1, q. 1). Yet what he substituted for the theories he rejected was not always better than they were. In any event, his ideas were accepted by no one and opposed by many, and subsequently soon fell into oblivion. Only twentieth-century scholarship found in him the interest and esteem that the great and original thinker deserves.