GILES OF ROME. - One of the great masters of Scholasticism, prior general of the Augustinians, archbishop of Bourges, b. in Rome in the Colonna district ca. 1243, d. at Avignon on 22 Dec. 1316. Jordan of Saxony, who between 1320-30 had studied in the Augustinian convent of Bologna, calls him de nobili genere Columnensium; Ambrogio da Cori (v.) in 1481 calls him simply de regione Columnae; but in the oldest documents the appellation Colonna is not found.
I. LIFE
Having entered the convent of S. Maria del Popolo at a young age, around 1260 he was sent to complete his studies in Paris, where around 1263 he was baccalarius artium, around 1266 magister artium, and around 1272 baccalarius biblicus. In 1278, following the condemnation of Aristotelianism by the bishop of Paris Stephen Tempier (7 March 1277), E., who appeared to be the most vigorous defender of Aristotelianism, was ordered to retract certain propositions; he refused and was forced to interrupt his scholastic career. In June 1279 he was appointed definitor of his province at the General Chapter of Padua (1281), where he took part and disputed 20 questions. In 1285, furnished with a letter from Pope Honorius IV, he returned to Paris, made an act of submission, and was declared a doctor. From 1286 to 1292 he held the chair of theology, surrounded by great admiration: qui modo melior de tota villa in omnibus reputatur, says a contemporary. At the General Chapter of Florence in 1287 he was proclaimed official doctor of the Order, and at that of Rome, 6 January 1292, he was elected prior general. In 1295 he left the direction of the Order, having been preconized archbishop of Bourges, where in 1296 he began his pastoral activity, assembling a provincial council, which he convened again in 1312 and 1315. From this moment he played a leading role in the religious and doctrinal struggles of his time. Boniface VIII often wished to have him near himself; indeed he was in Rome in the years 1297-99 and 1302-1303.
In 1305 he was charged with examining certain doctrines of the Dominican John Quidort. In 1311 he took part in the ecumenical Council of Vienne, where he examined the errors of Olivi.
II. WORKS
E.'s literary activity was vast. Of his authentic works, about 70, the principal ones are: a) philosophical: comprising the commentaries on Aristotle, composed from 1263 to 1278, the best of which are In libros physicorum; In libros metaphysicorum; In libros de anima; In de bona fortuna and In libros de generatione; the important Expositio in lib. causis, of 1290; and the original treatises: Quaest. de esse et essentia; Theoremata de esse et essentia; Contra gradus et pluralitatem formarum; De formatione corporis humani; De regimine principum; De erroribus philosophorum, etc., almost all written between 1275-85; b) theological: Commentarium in I-II-III Sententiarum (the commentary on the third book reaches dist. 11, while that on the second is his strongest work and, among those of the scholastics, the most extensive); Theoremata L de corpore Christi; precious for the doctrine on the Eucharist, Quodlibeta sex; Quaest. X de mensura angelorum; Quaest. XIV de cognitione angelorum; Quaest. VI de comparatione angelorum; Quaest. X de motu angelorum and the exegetical works In Hexameron; In epp. Pauli ad Romanos et Corinthios; In canticum canticorum; Postilla super Lucam, etc. c) various: Tractatus contra exemplos; De renuntiatione papae; De ecclesiastica potestate, written in 1302 in defense of the pontificate against Philip the Fair; Expositio in decretalem «Firmiter»; Expositio in decretalem «Cum Marthae»; Capitula fidei christianae; Sermones de tribus vilili mundi; Serm. de tempore; Serm. de corpore Christi, etc. For the complete list, editions and manuscripts, v. G. Bruni, Le opere di E. R., Florence 1936.
III. THOUGHT
Because of the richness and depth of his doctrine, combined with an exposition that is clear and always lively, though not always concise, he was called doctor fundatissimus. Around him gathered numerous disciples who formed the first and most flourishing theological school of the 14th century, which continued through the 15th and 16th centuries, and was brought back into honor by Gavardi in the 17th century, when a more strictly Egidian current arose alongside the Augustinian school.
With regard to St. Thomas, E. may be called a disciple, a critic and a continuator. On many questions he brings about true progress. In philosophy he is the forerunner of the real distinction between essence and existence, which he defends tenaciously against Henry of Ghent. His is the doctrine of the "substantial modes," taken up again by Cajetan. From Augustinianism he retains the primacy of the will, theology as an affective science, the moral efficacy of grace, etc.
Of particular importance are his political works: the De regimine principum, a work much read in the Middle Ages, translated into the principal languages of Europe and even into Hebrew, in which, on the Aristotelian-Thomistic basis, he develops an extensive treatise on ethics, economics and politics; and the De ecclesiastica potestate, which served Boniface VIII for the drafting of the bull Unam sanctam, in which he directly addresses the relations between temporal and religious power, setting out, in accordance with the mentality of the time, a theoretical doctrine and precisely the theory of the direct power of the Church over temporal things (v. CHIESA, v. Chiesa e Stato). But the conception is more theological than juridical. The distinction between the end that the prince must propose to himself in the exercise of his power, a supernatural end and therefore directly subordinate to the Church, and the end proper to his power subject to the Church, ratione animae, will serve to clarify E.'s thought and to show that it is not very far, apart from real excesses of style, from the conception of indirect power.
BIBL. For the life:
A. Gandolfo, Dissertation historico de scriptoribus Augustinianis, Rome 1704, pp. 30-36;
N. Martioli, Studio critico sopra E. R., ibid. 1896; P. Mandonnet, La carrière scolaire de G. de R., in Rev. der scien. phil. et libel., 4 (1910), pp. 481-99;
E. Hocdez, La condamnation de G. de R., in Rech. de libel. anc. et méditer., 4 (1932), pp. 34-58; G. Bruni, Una inedita « Quaestio de natura universalis » di E. R., con un saggio di cronologia egidiana (Collez. di testi filos. ined. e vari. 2), Naples 1935. For the works: G. Boffito, Saggio di bibliografia egidiana, Florence 1911; D. Perini, Bibliographia August., I, ibid. 1929, pp. 237-56; R. Scholz, Agidii R. De potestate ecclesiastica, ed. and intro., Weimar 1920; E. Hocdez, Agidii R. Theoremata de esse et essentia, ed. and intro., Louvain 1930; L. Amorós, Aeg. R. sententia errorum Petri Joa. Oliv. in Arch. franc. hist., 37 (1935), pp. 399-431; J. Koch, Studien zur Hrs. des Trabitates « De erroribus philosophorum », in Missell. Grabmann, II, Münster 1935, pp. 865-78; G. Bruni, Le opere di E. R., Florence 1936. For the doctrine: S. Makary, Der Trakist des Agidius R. über die Einsigkeit der subst. Form., Würzburg 1924; R. Egenter, Die Erhonsteingepäologie des Agidius R., Radishova 1925; E. Hocdez, Gilles de Rome et Henri de Gand, in Gregoriamom, 8 (1927), pp. 358-84; id., Le premier Quodlibet d'Henri de Gand, ibid., 8 (1928), pp. 92-118; id., Gilles de Rome et al Thomas, in Melanges Mandonnet, I, Paris 1930, pp. 378-410; U. Mariani, Scrittori politici agostiniani, Florence 1927; St. Bross, G. de R. et son traité « De ecclesiastica potestate », Paris 1930; P. Wollmer, Die Schöpfungslehre des Agidius R., Würzburg 1931; G. Hieronimi, Die allgemeine Passionlehre bei Aeg. R., ibid. 1934; D. Trapp, Agidii R. de doctrina modorum, in Angelicum, 10 (1935), pp. 449-501; F. Richeldi, La cristologia di E. R., Modena 1938; A. La Valle, La giustizia di Adema e il peccato originale secondo E. R., Palermo 1939; R. Maglione, Il concetto di conversione eucaristica in E. R., Benevento 1941; A. Trapp, Il concorso divino nel pensiero di E. R.,
Tolentino 1942; G. of R., De erroribus philosophorum. Critical text with notes and introduction by T. Koch. Milwaukee 1944; D. Guiderze, La bibliografia de los escolisticos durante el ultimo decenio, in Ciudad de Dios, 156 (1944), pp. 17-48; G. Suárez, El pensamiento de E. R. en torno a la distinción de esencia y existencia, Salamanca 1945; R. Kaiters, De Summi Pontificis potestate secundum E. R. Rome 1940. A comprehensive study of E. R.'s thought is still lacking.
Agostino Trapè