William of Champeaux

WILLIAM OF CHAMPEAUX. - Philosopher, b. c. 1070, d. Bishop of Châlons sur Marne in 1121. His teachers were Manegold of Lautenbach in Paris, then Anselm of Laon, and finally Roscelin at Compiègne. He first taught at the school of the cathedral of Paris and then at St. Victor.

By Roscelin, G. di C. was brought into contact with the question of universals. Roscelin was a nominalist; John of Salisbury writes of him in particular in the Polycraticus, VII, 12 (ed. C. I. Webb, II, p. 142): «Fuerunt et qui voces ipsas genera dicerent esse et species, sed eorum iam explosa sententia est et fere cum auctore suo evanuit». Nominalism had led Roscelin to think of the Most Holy Trinity as three gods. G. di C. opposed his realism to this, and he too found himself under the necessity of reconciling his own philosophical theory with the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity, as appears from a significant passage of the Sentences: «Vides has duas voces unum scilicet et idem duobus accipi modis, secundum indifferentiam et secundum identitatem eiusdem prorsus essentiae: secundum indifferentiam, ut Petrum et Paulum idem dicimus esse in hoc quod sunt homines: quantum enim ad humanitatem pertinet sicut iste est rationalis et ille, et sicut iste mortalis et ille. Sed si veritatem confiteri volumus, non est eadem ustriusque humanitas sed similis quum sint duo homines. Sed hic modus unius ad naturam divinitatis non est referendus» (Guillelmi Campellensis Sententiae vel Quaestiones XLVII, in G. Lefèvre, Les variations de G. et de la question des universaux, Lille 1898, pp. 14 and 25). In this text two moments of the thought, or rather of the expression of the thought, of G. di C. are hinted at. The first moment, that of essential identity, was abandoned by G. di C. under the pressure of his pupil Abelard, who claimed to see in it also a profession of pantheism: «Erat autem (G. di C.) in ea sententia de communitate universalium, ut eamdem essentialiter rem totam simul singulis suis inesse adarrueret individuis, quorum quidem nulla esset in essentia diversitas sed sola multitudine accidentium varietas» (Historia calamitatum, ch. 2: PL 178, 119). The last words of the passage cited make it clear that the realism of G. di C. originated from the Boethian words of the De Trinitate «Sed numero differentiam accidentium varietas facit», and if it could merit the accusation of reducing individuation to accidents, by placing in reality (and in the first and also in the second manner) the extrinsically individuated essence, it nevertheless excluded any profession of pantheism. Precisely in order to remove this ambiguity concerning pantheism, G. di C. spoke, of the second manner, of essential indifference rather than of essential identity: with the caveat mentioned above concerning God one and three: where, conceiving the divine essence almost as a universal of the three divine persons, one must beware of thinking of it as multiplied in those persons. Here one is in identity, not merely in indifference. The second moment of the thought of G. di C. develops from St. Victor. Of this school and of its mystical character G. di C. may be called an initiator.

Principal works, besides the already cited Sententiae: De Sacramento altaris (frag. in PL 163, 1039-40); De origine animae (doubtful; frag., ibid. 1043-44); Dialogus seu altercatio cuiusdam christiani et iudaei de fide catholica (ibid. 1046-72); De essentia et substantia Dei et de tribus eius personis (frag. in V. Cousin, Fragments philosophiques, II, Paris 1865, pp. 328-35).

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