1. Roscelin as a Tritheist. — His opinions grew ont of an emphasizing of the idea of personality in connection with the divine nature, and, as they appear in the writ- ings of his opponents, may be comprehended in the statement that the three Divine Persons cannot be con- ceived as ^ina res (ovaia), imless the necessary conse- quence that the Father and the Spirit became incarnate with the Son be also accepted. To escape this conse- quence, he holds that the distinction between the Per- sons is one of substance ; but he strives to preserve the divine unity by postulating a unity of will and power. It seems evident that he believed this provision suffi- cient to preserve his doctrine from being charged with polytheism and atheism, and that he was therefore not guilty of intentional heresy; but it was not difficult for the keen dialectics of Anselm to demonstrate his error. Roscelin cannot be justly charged with tritheism ; and, if his argumentation was at fault, he certainly earned for himself the credit of scholarly penetration in having recognised the full greatness of the difficulty to be over- come in reconciling the doctrine of the Trinity with that of the Incarnation.
2. Roscelin as a Nominalist. — We are wholly depend- ent for a knowledge of his position in this respect upon the statements of his enemies, and it appears certain that they caricatured his views; but it is evident that they did not regard him as the originator of nominal-
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ism. He held the extreme of the nominalist position, denominatint; universal conceptions an empty sound (^fiatiim vocis), but apparently only for the purpose of antagonizing the extreme realism of Anselm. His idea doubtless was that universal concepts exist simply in our thought, and do not at the same time postulate a real existence extraneous to the mind. He laid down the axiom that " no thing has parts" — a paradox which can onh' mean that no wliole can really exist and fur- nish its parts from out of itself. The parts really con- stitute the whole, and alone possess a real existence; and the whole, as a unity, cannot be distinguished from them otherwise than in thought. In its application to the doctrine of tlie Trinity, the axiom implied that the real existences in the Deity are in the three Persons, and that the unity of the Godhead exists only in the thought which comprehends them together into one. The only point of interest to him as a philosopher, how- ever, was to discover whether the reaUty lies in the general concept or in the concrete indivichial; and his axiom has, e. g., no relationship with the atomism of Democritus.
3. The Connection between Roscelin's Philosophy and his Theological Vieios. — This is evident from the foregoing statements. He did not, however, publicly connect his theological innovation with his nominalism, but based it on the Christological difficulty already mentioned. According to Auselm i^De Fide Trinit. 3), lioscelin de- dared that " Pagani defendunt legem suam , Judaji defendant tidem suam, ergo et nos Christianam fidem defendere debemus," tlius showing that it was not his purpose to damage the faith ; but the words sound like a plea for scientific discussion of the faith in general, or perhaps for liberty of the thinking mind to apprehend, and consequently to further the development of, tlie doctrines of the Churcli. Nominalism, in general, would seem to have been nearly always connected with a ra- tionalistic tendency.
See Anselm, A)j. ii, 35 and 41, and De Fide Trinitatis et Incarnatione ; a letter to Anselm by John, abbot of Telese. later cardinal-bishop of Tuseoli (in Baluz. Mis- cell, iv, 478); Abelard, Fpist. 21 (0pp. [Paris, 1610] p. 3Si), and JJialecticu (in Cousin, (Eiicres Inedits d\Ahel.)\ Epist. Roscel, ad Ab(Elarditm (ed. Schmeller, Munich, 1851); a letter to Roscelin by Theobald of Estampes (in D'Achery, Spicil. vol. iii), and one by Ivo of Char- tres (Kpisf. 7) ; John of Salisbury, Metalog. ii, 17 ; Otto of Freisingen, De Gest. Frider. vol. i, c. 47, et al. — Her- zog, Real-Encykloj), s. v.; Wetzer u. Welte, Kirchen- Lex, s. V,
Roscholchika, a term signifying " Seditionists," and applied to the Russian sect Isbraniki. or the " Com- pany of the East." This sect was formed in the middle of the 17th century, during the patriarchate of Nicon, A.D. 1()54. The cause of separation was not any differ- ence of doctrine or ritual, but a desire to protest against the laxity and inclinali(jn to change displayed by the clergy, and to adopt a greater piety and purity of life. Pinkerton (Diss, on Russia)i iSecIs) identities them with the Starovertzi, or " Believers of the Old Faith." See Platon, Present State of the Greek Church, Blunt, Diet. of Sects, s. V. See Russian Skcts.
Roscoe, William, a historian and poet, was born near Liverpool, March 8, 1753, and in 1709 was articled to an attorney for six years. During this time he paid great attention to English classics, and subsequcntlj' added an acquaintance with choice writers in the Greek, Latin, Sjianish, Italian, and French languages. He was admitted to the bar in 1774, and retired from practice in 17',)(!. His means, through unfortunate business spec- ulations, became very limited, but he still continued his literary labors for many y<'ars. He was a member of Parliament for Liverpool in 1800, and died June 30, 1831. Among his works are. Scriptural Refutation of a Pamphlet on the Licitness of the Slave-trade (1788, 8vo) : — The Life and Pontifcute of Leo X (Liverpool,