AUREOLI (Auriole, Oriole, etc.), Pietro. - Franciscan philosopher and theologian, b. in the diocese of Cahors ca. 1280 (?), d. at Avignon or Aix on 10 (?) January 1322.
Nothing is known about the early years of A.'s life; the date and place of his birth are unknown, as is the time of his entry into the Franciscan Order. In the year
1304, as he states in one of his later writings, he was studying in Paris, probably as a disciple of Duns Scotus. In 1311 he emerges for the first time as an author, with a Tractatus de paupertate et de usu paupere rerum (published in Firmamenta trium ordinum beatissimi Patris nostri Francisci, Paris 1511). In 1312 he is lector in the Studium generale of the Franciscans at Bologna; here he elaborates his first philosophical work, the Tractatus de tribus principiis (unpublished). In 1314 he teaches at Toulouse and there composes a Tractatus de conceptione B. Mariae Virginis (1st ed. Mainz 1490, critical ed. v. bibl.), which was to occupy an important place in the history of theology: in it is defended for the first time ex professo the thesis that Mary from the first moment was immune from original sin. At Toulouse A. is also active as a preacher: a sermon on the Immaculate Conception, delivered on 8 Dec. 1314, gives rise to a lively discussion and is the occasion of a second writing on this theme: Repercussorium editum contra adversarium innocentiae Matris Dei (published together with the Tractatus), in which the arguments of the treatise are taken up and further developed. At the general chapter of the year 1316 A. is assigned to Paris as baccalarius sententiarius. In the autumn of 1316 he began his lectures on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, which lasted for two years. He probably commented on the four books in the following order: I, IV, II, III, as others also did at that time. The third book remained unfinished because A. already in the summer of 1318, following the personal intervention of John XXII, became magister theologiae. The literary tradition of his commentary on the Sentences presents various enigmas and gave rise to many discussions. It is preserved in two or three different redactions: 1) a reportatio, that is, notes taken by a disciple, of the Parisian teaching, comprising all four books (l. I only manuscript, ll. II-IV published in the II vol. of the Commentary on the Sentences, v. bibl.); 2) a reportatio of the third book, which perhaps goes back to lectures held by A. at Bologna or Toulouse (manuscripts, a small part published in the cited edition); 3) a very ample redaction of l. I (a so-called ordinatio) elaborated and published by the author himself and dedicated to John XXII (ed. cit., vol. I). For a long time it was supposed that this ordinatio was the last and definitive redaction, compiled after the Paris lectures, and presumably in the years 1318-1319. But recently it was demonstrated that the relations are inverse: the great commentary on l. I of the Sentences was already finished when A. began teaching at Paris, and it was dedicated to the Pope probably on the occasion of his ascent to the throne (Aug. 1316). Perhaps it goes back to the same course of lectures of which we have the third book in a reportatio. From the years of A.'s Parisian magisterium comes his Compendium sensus literalis totius divinae Scripturae which found great diffusion and was subsequently often printed (for the first time in Strasbourg ca. 1475; critical ed. v. bibl.) and a Quodlibet with 16 questions (not 16 Quodlibeta, as is often read; published together with the Commentary on the Sentences). His teaching as magister lasted only for two years; already toward the end of 1320 he was named provincial of the province of Aquitaine, and in Feb. 1321 archbishop of Aix. John XXII himself conferred on him the episcopal ordination. This activity too had only brief duration. A. died in Jan. 1322 in fame of sanctity, probably during a stay at the papal Curia. He was never a cardinal, as a centuries-old tradition would have it.
His doctrinal position is difficult to define precisely and has so far been studied only partially. A. did not side with any school and in all questions went his own ways: he polemicized against everyone and was therefore also attacked by everyone. « Quia manus eius contra omnes... manus omnium contra eum » says St. Antoninus of him in his chronicle. In the history of thought of the 14th century his position is between Durandus of St. Porciano and William Ockham; indeed, contemporaries regarded A. as a continuator of the ideas of Durandus, and posterity as a precursor of Ockham. On the whole his philosophy is characterized by skeptical and empiricist features. Of it up to today only individual chapters are sufficiently known, especially his theory on universals and his epistemological and psychological theories. A. upheld a conceptualism, which attributes to the universal concept a certain psychic reality, but does not make anything outside the intellect correspond to it. It is a doctrine that strongly influenced the genesis of Ockham's nominalism, though without being itself nominalistic. Recent studies have also illustrated individual points of A.'s logic, ontology and metaphysics (theory of the «propositiones neutrae», which are neither true nor false, and its application to the problem of divine foreknowledge of future contingents; the problems of the «intensio et remissio formarum», of the infinite, of the plurality of forms, of motion, etc.). The solutions that A. gives are always original and new, traditional theories are generally rejected by him, sometimes not without irony. Thus, he declares, for example, regarding the doctrine of the Intelligences and their influence on terrestrial physics, a fundamental doctrine for scholastic physics: «hoc est refugium miserorum in philosophia, sicut Deus est refugium miserorum in theologia» (sent. IV, dist. 1, q. 1). However, not always was what he substituted for the rejected theories better than they. In any case, his ideas were accepted by no one and combated by many and ended up subsequently falling quickly into oblivion. Only the studies of the 20th century found for him the interest and esteem that the great and original thinker merits.
Bibliography11 works
Anneliese Maier