BOVILLUS (BONELLES or BONILLE), CAROLUS. — Theologian, philosopher, and man of letters, born at Saucourt (Picardy) c. 1470–75, died as canon and professor of theology at Noyon in 1553. He studied under the most celebrated masters of his time, such as Trithemius and Lefèvre, and enjoyed great renown among distinguished figures like Cardinal Ximénes and Alanus Varenius. A follower of the philosophy of Cardinal Cusanus and of Neoplatonic tendencies in the spirit of the Renaissance, he was not without a certain rationalism, particularly harmful in his explanation of the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity, which he claimed to demonstrate from natural premises. In general, without any trace of pantheism in his knowledge of God, who is grounded in Himself, he adhered more to a negative than to a positive theology.
Among his philosophical and theological works we recall: *Theologicarum quaestionum II, 10* (Paris 1510); *De mihi* (Paris-Amiens 1510 and Groningen 1661); *De sapiente* (Paris-Amiens 1510–11; ed. Klibansky, Leipzig 1927); *Dominica oratio* (Paris 1511); *Vita Lulli* and *Epistolae* 431 (1511–14); *Quaestiones in utrumque Testamentum* (1513); *Theologicarum quaestionum II, 7* (1513); *Supputatio septem aetatum mundi* (Saucourt 1520); *De voto, de libero arbitrio, de differentia orationis* (1529, 1589); *Dialogi duo de S.ma Trinitate, De divinis praedicationis, De raptu Pauli* (Paris 1531); *De prophetica visione* (1531); *Dialogi de animi immortalitate, De resurrectione, De mundi excidio* (ibid. 1551).