ROBERTO PULLEYN (Robertus Pullus). – Theologian and cardinal, b. in England in the second half of the 11th century, d. in Rome between September and December 1146. Archdeacon of Rochester, teacher of theology at Oxford (1133), then at Paris (c. 1140; cf. St Bernard, Ep., 205; PL 182, 372). Around 1144 he was created cardinal and chancellor of the Roman Church.
The following are attributed to him: Sermones, Commentaria in Apoc. et in Psalmos, De contemptu mundi; but his theological reputation rests on the Sententiarum libri VIII (PL 186, 639–1010), written before 1142, in which he treats the whole of dogma. Inferior to Abelardo and Pier Lombardo in orderliness and patristic learning, Pullo’s work excels in a certain dialectical vigour, in its respect for the Magisterium of the Church, and in several personal positions, for example concerning the proofs of God’s existence and essence, the nature of original sin—which, contrary to the opinion then commonly held, he maintains does not consist in concupiscence—and the relations between religious and civil power.