BONET, NICOLAS. - Franciscan theologian, b. probably at Tours in the last decades of the 13th century, d. before 27 Oct. 1343. A student at the University of Paris, he obtained his academic degrees there up to the mastership and taught there for several years. He is called "Sacrae Theologiae Magister" in a papal act of 1342, and his admirers called him "Doctor profusus, pacificus, imaginativus." It is not certain that he was a direct disciple of Scotus, yet he followed various of his doctrines and always counted him among his favorite masters.
He must have enjoyed great prestige among the Parisian theologians if, as is believed, Clement V (1304-15) entrusted him with drafting the Tractatus de conceptione B. M. V. and Philip VI of France designated him (1333), together with other masters, to examine the doctrine of John XXII on the beatific vision. Already a royal chaplain, in 1338 Benedict XII sent him as head of a pontifical delegation to the Great Khan of the Tartars. It does not appear that he was able to fulfill his task. On 27 Nov. 1342 he was appointed bishop of Malta, but his episcopate was very brief. He left numerous philosophical and theological writings. Let us recall the Aristotelian commentaries in Metaphysicum, in Philosophiam naturalem, in Praedicamenta (Venice 1505), the Theologia naturalis (ibid. 1505) and other writings attributed to him, such as the Formalitate in via Scoti (ibid. 1489), the Postilla in Genesim (ibid. 1515). The influence exercised by B. on later Scholastics was notable. It does not appear that he is the father of that singular opinion which goes under the name of Bonesism, according to which the words of Christ "Mulier, ecce filius tuus" would have worked a kind of transubstantiation making St. John the natural son of Mary.
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Giovanni Odoardi