EGIDIO ROMANO

**EGIDIO** of Rome. — One of the great masters of Scholasticism, General of the Augustinians, and Archbishop of Bourges, born in the Roman district of Colonna around 1243, died at Avignon on 22 December 1316. Jordan of Saxony, who had studied at the Augustinian convent in Bologna between 1320 and 1330, calls him *de nobili genere Columnensium*; Ambrose of Cori (q.v.) in 1481 simply refers to him as *de regione Columnae*; yet in the oldest documents the surname Colombo is not found.

**I. Life.** — Having entered the convent of Santa Maria del Popolo at a young age, around 1260 he was sent to complete his studies in Paris, where by about 1263 he was *baccalaureus artium*, by about 1266 *magister artium*, and by about 1272 *baccalaureus biblicus*. In 1278, following the condemnation of Aristotelianism by the Bishop of Paris, Stephen Tempier (7 March 1277), Egidio, who appeared as its most able defender, was ordered to retract certain propositions; he refused and was compelled to abandon his academic career. In June 1279 he was appointed definitor of his province to the General Chapter held in Padua (1281), where he intervened and disputed twenty 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 in Florence in 1287 he was proclaimed the Order’s official doctor, and at that in Rome on 6 January 1292 he was elected Prior General. In 1295 he resigned the direction of the Order, having been preconized Archbishop of Bourges, where in 1296 he began his pastoral activity by convening a provincial council, which he reconvened in 1312 and 1315. From this point onward he played a leading role in the doctrinal religious disputes of his time. Boniface VIII frequently summoned him to his side; indeed, he was in Rome in the years 1297–99 and 1302–1303.

In 1305 he was tasked 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 Peter Olivi.

**II. Works.** — Egidio’s literary output was vast, comprising about seventy authentic works. The principal ones are: a) Philosophical: including commentaries on Aristotle composed between 1263 and 1278, the best of which are *In libros physici*, *In libros metaphysicorum*, *In libros de anima*, *In de bono fortuna*, and *In libro de generatione*; the important *Expositio in librum causis* of 1290; and the original treatises *Quaestiones de esse et essentia*, *Theoremata de esse et essentia*, *Contra gradus et pluralitatem formarum*, *De formatione corporis humani*, *De regimine principum*, *De erroribus philosophorum*, and others, almost all written between 1275 and 1285. b) Theological: *Commentarium in I–III Sententiarum* (the commentary on the third book extends only to distinction 11, while that on the second is his most substantial work and, among Scholastic writings, the most extensive); *Theoretica de corpore Christi*, valuable for its doctrine on the Eucharist; *Quodlibeta* six in number; *Quaestiones X de mensura angelorum*, *Quaestiones XIV de cognitione angelorum*, *Quaestiones VI de comparatione angelorum*, *Quaestiones X de moni angelorum*; and exegetical works such as *In Hexaemeron*, *In epistolas Pauli ad Romanos et Corinthios*, *In Canticum canticorum*, *Postilla super Cantica canticorum*, *De potestate*, written in 1302 in defence of the papacy against Philip the Fair; *Expositio in decretalem “Cum Marthae”*; *Capitula fidei christianae*; *Sermones de tribus vitiis mundi*, *Sermones de tempore*, *Sermones de corpore Christi*, etc. For a complete list, editions, and manuscripts, see G. Bruni, *Le opere di E. R.*, Florence 1936.

**III. Thought.** — On account of the richness and depth of his doctrine, combined with a consistently lively and clear exposition (though not always concise), he was called the *doctor fundamentissimus*. Around him gathered numerous disciples who formed the first and most flourishing theological school of the fourteenth century, which continued into the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and was revived in honour by Gavantus in the seventeenth, when a more narrowly Egidian current arose alongside the Augustinian school.

With regard to St Thomas Aquinas, Egidio may be described as a disciple, critic, and continuator. On many questions he effected genuine progress. In philosophy he is the foremost advocate of the real distinction between essence and existence, which he defended tenaciously against Henry of Ghent. The doctrine of the angelic worlds is his, later taken up by Cajetan. From Augustinianism he retains the primacy of the will, the conception of theology as an affective science, and the moral efficacy of grace, among other tenets.

Of particular importance are his political works: *De regimine principum*, a work widely read in the Middle Ages, translated into the principal European languages and even into Hebrew, in which, on an Aristotelian-Thomist basis, he develops an extensive treatise on ethics, economics, and politics; and *De ecclesiastica potestate*, which served Boniface VIII in drafting the bull *Unam sanctam*, where he directly addresses the relationship between temporal and spiritual power, expounding—consistent with the mentality of the time—a theocratic doctrine, namely the theology of the Church’s direct power over temporal affairs (q.V. CIMÉA, q.V. Church and State). Yet his conception is more theological than juridical. The distinction between the end that a prince must propose in the exercise of his power—an end that is supernatural and therefore directly subordinate to the Church—and the proper end of his power, subject to the Church *ratione peccati*, serves to clarify Egidio’s thought and shows that, apart from certain stylistic excesses, he is not far removed from the conception of indirect power.

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E. Giordano Romano – Incipit of the *Commentarium in librum sententiarum* (14th c.). Vatican Library, cod. Vat. lat. 838, f. 17.

**EGIDIO ROMANO – EGIDIO DA VITERBO**

Todi 1942; G. of R., *De erroribus philosophorum*. Critical text with notes and introduction by J. Koch, Milwaukee 1944; D. Gutierrez, *La bibliografía de los escolásticos durante el último decenio*, in *Ciudad de Dios*, 156 (1944), pp. 17–46; G. Suárez, *El pensamiento de E. R. en torno a la distinción de esencia y existencia*, Salamanca 1948; R. Kuipers, *De Summi Pontificis potestate secundum E. R.*, Rome 1949. Awaiting a comprehensive study of the thought of E. R. is Agostino Trapè.