ULRICO di STRASBURGO. — Dominican theologian and philosopher, born in Strasbourg at the beginning of the 13th century, died in Paris in 1278.
A pupil of s. Alberto Magno in Cologne, he taught philosophy and theology in Strasbourg, was provincial of Teutonia (1272–77), and subsequently a professor in Paris.
He wrote a commentary on the Librum metheorum and on Aristotle’s De anima. He also commented in part on the Sentences. But of these and other works, which are attributed to him with less probability, no trace remains. There are, however, preserved from him 25 letters from the period of his provincialate (ed. by H. Finke, Ungedruckte Dominikanerbriefe des 13. Jahrhunderts, Paderborn 1891, nos. 47–59, 66–78, 81), a sermon written in Old German (ed. by J. Daguillon, U. de S. prédicateur, in La vie spirituelle, suppl., 17 [1927], pp. 90–94), and the Liber de Summo Bono. Written contemporaneously with s. Tommaso’s Sum. Theol., the Liber does not possess the unity and systematic character of the works of the Aquinate; nevertheless, it represents a notable advance over earlier Summas in the organization of the subject matter treated and the originality of its compositional plan. U.’s Neoplatonic orientation, inherited from s. Alberto Magno, is evident; he makes particular use of his commentary on the De Divinis nominibus. U. also depends on other Neoplatonic works, such as the Liber de Causis and Avicenna’s Metaphysica. According to U., God is the formal esse of all beings, not in a pantheistic sense, but because
who was already wearing the episcopal insignia without having been consecrated, were violently attacked at the Synod of Ingelheim (20 September 972). Prevented by death, Adalberone could not succeed his uncle, who followed him to the grave a short time later. He was buried in the collegiate church of S. Afra, later a Benedictine church under the title of SS. Ulrico e Afra. He was solemnly entered into the catalogue of the saints by Giovanni XV (31 January 993); the bull of canonization of 3 February of that same year is the first to have been issued on such an occasion (Jaffé-Wattenbach, 3848). He is the principal patron of the city and diocese of Augusta, and his feast is celebrated on 4 July.
A Sermo synodalis (PL 135, 1071–74) and an Epi-
it is the efficient and exemplary cause and because it is the light of all intellects. Divine action reaches inferior beings through the concurrence of the intellects, informed by uncreated light, which regulate the movement of the celestial bodies. The possible intellect naturally possesses an habitual and confused knowledge of God, which, upon contact with things, immediately becomes actual and determinate sine probatione. Esse is the first emanatio of the First Being. The communication of this esse, which God bestows upon all creatures, is a diffusion of light: God is pure formal and intellectual light and, since he causes per suam essentiam, the effects are necessarily a diffusion of that light. U. is the link between the Neoplatonism of s. Alberto Magno and the theologians, especially the German Dominican mystics, of the following centuries, from Taulero to Giovanni Nider.