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Responses to Medieval Nominalism in John Wyclifs TRUTH, TIME AND SACRED TEXT: RESPONSES TO MEDIEVAL NOMINALISM IN JOHN WYCLIFS SUMMA DE ENTE AND DE VERITATE SACRAE SCRIPTURAE STEPHEN PENN DPHIL THE UNPVERSITY OF YORK DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH AND RELATED LITERATURE SEPTEMBER 1998 TABLE OF CONTENTS page Acknowledgments v Abstract vi List of Abbreviations viii Note on Translations ix INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER I Nominalism, Realism and Hermeneutics 7 1. 'Textual' Theory, Hermeneutics and the Forms 7 of Theoretical Discourse 2. Nominalism and Realism: Contexts and Definitions 13 2.1. Nominalism in Early Scholastic Philosophy: 15 Vocales and Nonzinales 2.2. Nominalism in Wyclif's Oxford 18 3. Anti-Nominalism and Anti-Modemism in 26 Wyclif's Hermeneutic Writings CHAPTER 2 Philosophy and Scriptural Interpretation 1: Analogy 32 I The Concept of Analogy: Wyclif, Aquinas and the 33 Realist Tradition 2. Analogy and Trinitarian Doctrine: The Argument 45 of the De Trinitale 3. 'Proper' and Metaphorical Analogy 50 4. Sed Contra Mud Sic: Nominalist Objections 57 to Analogical Interpretation 5. From the Book of Nature to the Book of Life: 61 Six Kinds of Knowledge ii CHAPTER 3 Philosophy and Scriptural Interpretation 2: 67 The Truth of Propositions 1. Modes of Predication and the Logic of Holy Scripture 67 2. Time and Temporal Propositions 85 2.1 Time as Accident: The Argument of 86 De Ente Praedicantentali 2.2 The Reality of Time Beyond the 91 Present Instant 2.3 Teinpits and Ditratio: Wyclif's Distinction between 96 Finite and Infinite 2.4 Antpliatio Temporis and the Study of Scripture 99 CHAPTER 4 Contemporary Criticism of Wyclif's Scriptural Logic: 103 John Kenningham, OC I Kenningharn as Anti-Realist 104 2. Being and Truth: Respones to Philosophical 108 Realism in the Detenninationes 2.1 The Problem of Being: Kenningharn's Detenninatio 109 de EsseIntelligibili Creaturae 2.2 Is Truth in Signs or Things? Kenningham's 121 Second Detenninatio 2.3 Literalism and Intention: Some Problems 123 with the Realist Theory 3. Kenningharn's Critique of Ampliatio Temporis 125 4. Antiquity, Eternity and the Foundations of Authority 131 5. Kenningharn, Nominalism and Textual Theory 134 iii CHAPTER 5 From Theory to Exegesis: Signification, Interpretation and 141 Textual Authority in the De Veritate SacraeScripturae Analogy and the Theory of the Text: 143 Liber, Auctor, Auctoritas 1.1 Liber and Codex 144 1.2 Auctoritas and the Auctor 149 1.3 Human Authors and Scriptural Tradition 159 2. From Script to Sense:Intention, Language 164 and Scriptural Logic 3. Exegesisand Realismin the De Veritate SacraeScripturae 171 3.1 Propertiesof Figurae and Figierata:The Realist's 171 Distinction betweenAnalogy andMetaphor 3.2 Literalism and the Four Sensesof Scripture 177 4. Wyclif's Scriptural Defences:A Responseto 183 Kenningham? 4.1 Freeingthe Sword of the Spirit: The Metaphysical 185 Armature 4.2 The HermeneuticArmature and Knowledgeof 197 Scriptural Truth CONCLUSION 207 APPENDIX Glossary of Latin Tenns 213 BIBLIOGRAPHY 225 iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In researchingand writing this thesis,I have benefitedgreatly from the help and advice of other scholarsand friends. My greatestacademic debt is to my supervisor,ProL Alastair Minnis, who first suggestedthat I look at Wyclif's De Veritate SacraeScripturae. His advice, support and (above all) patiencethroughout the courseof my studieshave been greatlyvalued. I must alsoexpress my gratitudeto Mr NicholasHavely, for his remarkson particular sectionsof the thesis,and to Dr Jim Binns, for his adviceon a numberof points relatingto the translationof Wyclif's Latin. Specialthanks must go to to Prof. Anne Hudson for her generousadvice relating to manuscriptsof the Stanniade Ente, and to Dr Vil6m Herold, Presidentof the Czech Academy, for allowing me to consult sections of his forthcoming edition of Wyclif's De Ideis. I must also give thanks to the staff of Trinity CollegeLibrary, Cambridge,for permitting me to consultsections of CodexB. 16.2,and for supplyingme with microfilm prints of the De Ideis and De Tempore. The progress of my work has been greatly eased by the friendship and support of students and staff at the University of York. To all of my friends in the Centre for Medieval Studies and the Department of English and Related Literature, I must therefore say a special thank you. Particular thanks must go to Christian Turner and Eric Johnson, two friends who share my interest in medieval literary theory, and with whom I have been fortunate in being able to discuss thoughts and ideas. I must also record my gratitude to one of my first friends in York, Fred Manby. Lastly, and most of all, I would like to thank my parents. Without their constant encouragementand support, not even the smallest part of my academicwork would have been possible. V ABSTRACT This study exanunes responsesto medieval nominalist philosophy in the Latin hermeneutic in writings of the Oxford theologian John Wyclif (d. 1384). It has long been the tendency intellectual histories of the later Middle Ages to portray Wyclif as a staunch defender of Though philosophical realism, and as a tireless critic of contemporary nominalist methods. recent research has done much to clarify our understanding of the relationship between norninalists and realists in the medieval period, no comprehensive account of Wyclif's is responseto nominalist teaching has yet been produced. The objective of the present study to trace the development of Wyclif's anti-nornýinalismfrom his early philosophical writings (the Stunina de Ente and the logical works) to his principal work on exegetical theory, the De Veritate Sacrae Scripturae. The focal points of enquiry are the broad hermeneutic problems of truth, time and textuality, each of which conspicuously divided Wyclif from his anti-realist opponents. Chapter I examines Wyclif's place in the history of the hermeneutic sciences, and his status as an opponent of medieval norrýinalistteaching. It traces the development of medieval norninalism from its origins in the twelfth century to the debatesof fourteenth-century Oxford and Europe. Recent revisions to contemporary understanding of nominalism and realism are considered, and related to the debate between Wyclif and his hermeneutic opponents. The case is made, in the concluding section, for a broader, more inclusive conception of in Suninza 'nominalist' thought. In Chapter 2, the concept of analogy - as it is presented the de Ente, De Logica and Logicae Continuatio - is introduced. Analogy served as the guiding principle in Wyclif's hermeneutic project, both at a practical (exegetical) level, and (in the De Veritate Sacrae Scriptitrae) at the level of textual theory. Wyclif believed that both exegetical and theological errors would arise out of a failure to apply the principles of analogy. Chapter 3 surveys Wyclif's theories of predication and time, again within the context of the for philosophical and logical writings. These together provided the theoretical framework Wyclif's controversial claim that all parts of Scripture were literally true. The fourth chapter analyses the objections to Wyclif's philosophical and hermeneutic teaching raised by John Kenningham, who opposed Wyclif in a series of academic detenninationes. Kenningham's philosophy, which was broadly consistent with the basic metaphysical assumptions of vi Ockharn's system, posed a serious challenge to Wyclif's conception of the sacred text. Kenningham was particularly critical of Wyclif's literalism, and of the theories of truth and time on which it depended. In Chapter 5, the exegetical theory of the De Veritate Sacrae Scripturae is analysed in detail, in relation both to the hermeneutic concepts introduced in Chapters 2 and 3, and to the objections raised by Kenningharn (introduced in Chapter 4). The concepts of the Stunina de Ente are shown to play a fundamental r6le in Wyclif's conception of textual authority and authorship (which is described in detail in the De Veritate Sacrae Scripturae), as well as in his defence of the basic hermeneutic principles challenged by Kenningham. The strong degree of continuity between the earlier and the later texts, we argue, betrays an acute awarenessof the threats posed by anti-realist interpretative paradigms. vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS BGPM Beiträgezür Geschichteder Philosophiedes Mittelalters. Münster: Aschendorff. CCSL Corpus Christianoritin, Series Latina. DMA Dictionary of the Middle Ages, ed. Joseph M. Strayer. 13 volumes. New York: Scribner, 1982-1989. DTC Dictionnaire de Tlidologie Catholique. Paris: Letouzey et An6,1909. ELL The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, ed. R. E. Asher. 10 volumes. London and New York: Pergamon Press, 1994. FZ Fasciculi Zizanioritin magistri Johannis Wyclif cum tritico, ed. W. W. Shirley. London: Rolls Series, 1858. GL Graminatici Latini, ed. Heinrich Keil. 7 volumes. Leipzig: Teubner, 1855- 1864. MLW Medieval Latin Word List, ed. R. E. Latham. London: Oxford University Press, 1965. NCE The New Catholic Encyclopedia. 18 volumes. Palatine: Jack Heraty and Associates, 1967-1989. PL Patrologia Cursits Coinpletus Series Latina, ed. J. P. Migne. Paris: Gamier, 1844-1864. REP Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, gen. ed. Edward Craig. 10 volumes. London and New York: Routledge, 1998. WS Wyclif Society. London: TrUbner viii NOTE ON TRANSLATIONS Translationsof biblical passages(with a small number of exceptions)are taken from the Douay-Rheimsedition. Wyclif occasionallydeparts from the text of the Latin Vulgate,and I have noted all of those caseswhich have come to my attention. Translationsof the De
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