GODESCALCO d'ORBAIS. — 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. At a very young age, he entered the monastery of Fulda as an oblate, where he completed his first studies under the direction of Rabano Mauro—studies which he completed at Reichenau, where he became friends with Walafrido Strabone, his fellow student. Returning to Fulda, he vainly sought from Rabano, who had meanwhile become abbot, to be dispensed from his religious vows. The Synod of Mainz in 829 recognized his right to this, but the sentence had no lasting effect: G. was obliged to remain a monk. He therefore left Germany and went to France, attended Ratramno’s lectures at Corbia, lived for a certain period in the vicinity of Reims, probably at Hautvillers, and finally joined the community of Orbais (diocese of Soissons). Between 835 and 840 he was ordained a priest, but under irregular conditions. Shortly afterward he went to northern Italy, where he began teaching the people the doctrine of double predestination. In the year 845–46 he was a guest of Eberardo, count of Friuli, but through the intervention of Rabano he was expelled from that region.
He then moved to Dalmatia and devoted himself to evangelizing Pannonia and Noricum, advancing as far as Bulgarian territory. In 838 he suddenly returned once more to Germany. He sought to clear himself before the Synod of Mainz, presided over by the archbishop Rabano, but was condemned and sent to his metropolitan, Incmaro of Reims, so that he might decide his fate. Incmaro convened an assembly of bishops in the Royal Palace of Quierzy, toward the beginning of 849. Since G. defended his ideas obstinately, he was declared a heretic and incorrigible, degraded from the priesthood, subjected to scourging, and condemned to perpetual confinement. He was in fact placed under the supervision of Iduino, abbot of Hautvillers; and it was in this monastery that he ended his days. This imprisonment did not, however, prevent him from taking an active, though clandestine, part in the controversy over predestination that he had provoked. He also concerned himself with other theological questions, especially the Trina Deitas and the Eucharist. Until the end, he hoped to see his ideas triumph and, to this end, brought them to the attention of Pope Niccolò I: nothing is known of the outcome of these efforts. G. died unrepentant.
G.’s literary output was extensive: poems, letters, short works, treatises in the form of libelli (schechidae), and grammatical pamphlets; of this entire production, however, only a very small part remains. The prose works are collected in the edition prepared by C. Lambot, Oeuvres théologiques et grammaticales de Godescalc d'Orbais ([Spicilegium sacrum Lovaniense], Louvain 1945). It contains, first, 26 fragments of various writings and a short work De Trina Deitate, reproduced by Incmaro in the refutation he composed of it, as well as one letter and two professions of faith (Confessio minor et prolizior); it also contains 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 reproduced. Most of these works were composed by G. during his imprisonment at Hautvillers. The fragments of the verses were 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 included in the same edition.
G. maintains that there is a twofold positive predestination: that of the good to Grace and eternal salvation, and that of the wicked to eternal fire, but not to sin. In support of this thesis, he adduces, in addition to the authority of s. Agostino, the argument of God’s immutability, which must be preserved at all costs. Regarding the Trinity, he defends against Incmaro the orthodoxy of the formula Trina Deitas, which, in his view, is absolutely necessary in order to express simultaneously the unity of the divine nature and the Trinity of the persons. With regard to 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.