BOVILLUS (BONELLES OR BONILLÉ), CAROLUS. — Theologian, philosopher, and man of letters, born at Saucourt (Picardy) around 1470–75, died as a 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 was held in the highest esteem by the most distinguished personages, such as Cardinal Ximènes and Alanus Varenius. A follower of the philosophy of Cardinal Cusanus and of neo-Platonic tendencies, in keeping with the spirit of the Renaissance, he is not free from a certain rationalism, particularly pernicious in his explanation of the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity, which he claims to demonstrate by proceeding from natural premises. In general, without any trace of pantheism, as regards the knowledge of God, which he grounds in God himself, he adheres more to a negative than to a positive theology.
Among his philosophical and theological works we recall: Theologicarum quaestionum ll. 10 (Paris 1510); De nihilo (Paris–Amiens 1510 and Groningen 1661); De sapiente (Paris–Amiens 1510–11; edited by Klibansky, Leipzig 1927); Dominica oratio (Paris 1511); Vita Lulli and Epistolae 43, (1511–14); Quaestiones in utrumque Testamentum (there 1513); Theologicarum quaestionum ll. 7 (there 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 praedicamentis, De raptu Pauli (Paris 1531); De prophetica visione (1531); Dialogi de animi immortalitate, De resurrectione, De mundi excidio (there 1551).