TEMPIER, STEFANO. - Bishop of Paris from 7 Oct. 1268 to 3 Sept. 1279.
A native of Orléans, he had studied theology in Paris. A canon of Notre-Dame and then chancellor, he had raised juridical questions with the University and displayed a marked tendency to impose his own arbitrary will and to curtail its privileges. As bishop, his name is linked with two celebrated condemnations of Averroism: that of 10 Dec. 1270, in which 13 distinctly Averroist propositions were censured; and that of 7 March 1277, directed against no fewer than 219 propositions, some of which were notoriously defended by s. Tommaso. This second condemnation, which did not strike at Averroism alone but at Aristotelianism in general insofar as it diverged from traditional Augustinianism, provoked objections from Egidio Romano, Goffredo di Fontaines, Giovanni da Napoli, and even Occam. But fifty years later it had fallen into disuse insofar as it did not concern openly heterodox articles. In the letter accompanying the condemnation of 1277, the De amore of Andrea Cappellano, a treatise on geomancy, and other books, rolls, and notebooks of necromancy were also prohibited.