GODESCALCUS OF ORBAIX. - Protagonist of the predestinarian controversy in the 9th century, b. in Saxony around 801, d. between 867 and 870 or perhaps a few years later. As a very young man, he entered the monastery of Fulda as an oblate, where he completed his first studies under the guidance of Rabanus Maurus: studies that he completed at Reichenau, where he formed a friendship with Walafrid Strabo, his fellow pupil. Having returned to Fulda, he sought in vain to obtain from Rabanus, who had meanwhile become abbot, to be dispensed from his religious vows. The Synod of Mainz of 829 recognized his right to this, but that sentence remained without lasting effect: G. had to remain a monk. Having therefore abandoned Germany, he went to France, took part at Corbie in the lectures of Ratramnus, dwelt for a certain period of time in the surroundings of Reims, probably at Hautvillers, and finally entered as a member of the community of Orbais (diocese of Soissons). Between 835 and 840 he was ordained a priest, but under irregular conditions. Shortly afterwards he went to northern Italy, and there he began to teach the people the double predestination. In the year 845-46 he was a guest of Eberhard, count of Friuli, but through the intervention of Rabanus he was driven out of that region.
He then moved to Dalmatia and devoted himself to evangelizing Pannonia and Noricum, pushing as far as Bulgarian territory. In 838 he suddenly returned again to Germany. He sought to clear himself before the Synod of Mainz presided over by Archbishop Rabanus, but he was condemned and sent to his metropolitan, Hincmar of Reims, so that he might decide his fate. Hincmar convoked an assembly of bishops in the royal palace of Quierzy, toward the beginning of 849. Since G. had maintained his ideas with obstinacy, he was declared a heretic and incorrigible, degraded from the priesthood, subjected to flagellation and condemned to perpetual segregation. He was in fact placed under the surveillance of Hucbald, abbot of Hautvillers: and it was precisely in this monastery that he ended his days. This reclusion did not, however, prevent him from taking an active part, albeit clandestinely, in the controversy over predestination that he had stirred up. He also occupied himself with other theological questions, in particular the Trina Deitas and the Eucharist. He hoped to the very last to see his ideas triumph and to this end solicited the attention of Pope Nicholas I: nothing is known about the outcome of these approaches. G. died impenitent.
The literary production of G. was copious: poems, letters, pamphlets, treatises in the form of libelli (schechidae), grammatical pamphlets; of all this production, however, only a very small part remains. The prose works are gathered in the edition edited by C. Lambot, Oeuvres théologiques et grammaticales de Godescalc d'Orbais ([Spicilegium sacrum Lovaniense], Louvain 1945). There are contained, in the first place, 26 fragments of various writings and a pamphlet De Trina Deitate, reported by Hincmar in the confutation that he made of it, plus a letter and two professions of faith (Confessio minor et prolizior); there are, moreover, the theological pamphlets discovered by G. Morin in ms. Bern 584, concerning various subjects: predestination, free will, Trina Deitas, the Eucharist, etc., interspersed with biblical and patristic florilegia; finally two grammatical pamphlets preserved in ms. Bern 83 are reported. The majority of these works was composed by G. during the imprisonment of Hautvillers. The fragments of the verses have been published in a critical edition in MGH, Poetae Latini Medii Aevi, Poetae Latini aevi Carolini; III, ed. L. Traube, Berlin 1896, pp. 724-38; IV, II, ed. K. Strecker, ibid. 1923, pp. 934-36. N. Fickermann is currently preparing supplements that will be inserted into the same edition.
G. maintains that there is a twofold positive predestination, that of the good to Grace and eternal salvation, that of the wicked to the eternal fire, but not to sin. In support of this thesis, he adduces, besides the authority of St. Augustine, the argument of the immutability of God, which must be saved at all costs. As regards the Trinity, he defends against Hincmar the orthodoxy of the formula Trina Deitas, which is, in his view, absolutely necessary to express at the same time the unity of the divine nature and the trinity of persons. Regarding the Eucharist, he affirms the real presence, while denying the total and absolute identity between the Eucharistic Body and the historical body of Jesus Christ.
Bibliography16 works
Cirillo Lambot