§ 110. DUNS SCOTUS. 683
who is inflamed by the baptizing fire of the Holy Spirit. It is a grace not a doctrine, a desire not a concept, a habit of prayer not a studious task, a bride not a teacher. It is of God not of man, a flame of ardent love, transferring us into the presence and being of God.1 As in the case of Bernard, so also in the case of Bonaventura, this mystical tendency found expression in devout hymns.
§ 110. Duns Scotus.
LITERATURE : WORKS. — Complete ed. by LUKE WADDING, 12 vols. ,Lyons,1639, with a Life by WADDING, and the glosses of HUGH MACCAGHWELL (Hugo Cavellus, d. 1626), abp. of Armagh, MAURICE O'FIHELY, abp. of Tuam, etc. *New ed., 26 vols., Paris, 1891-1895, with some changes.— The Opus Oxoniense, Vienna, 1481, ed. by MACCAGHWELL together with the Reportata Parisiensia and Qucestiones Quodlibetales and a Life, Ant werp, 1620. — The Quxstiones Quodlibet., Venice, 1474, 1505, Paris, 1513. — The Logical Treatises were publ. at Barcelona, 1475, Venice, 1491-1493, and ed. by O'FIHELY, 1504. — Duns' system was expounded by ANGELO VULPI in Sacr. theol. Summa Joan. Scoti, 12 vols., Naples, 1622-1640. For biogr. and analytic works publ. before 1800, see RIGG in Diet, of Natl. Biog. XVI. 216 sqq. — BAUMGARTEN-CRUSIUS: De theol. Scoti, Jena, 1826. — SCHNEID: D. Korperlehre des J. Duns Sc. und ihr Verhaltniss zum Thomismus und Atomismus, Mainz, 1879. — *C. WERNER: J. Duns Sc., Vienna, 1881, also 8. Thomas von Aquino, III, 3-101.— KAHL : D. Primat des Willens bei Augustinus, Duns Sc. und Des Cartes, Strassb., 1886. — *R. SEEBERG : D. Theologie des J. Duns Sc., Leip., 1900; also his art. in Herzog, 3d ed. and his Dogmengesch., II. 129 sqq. — RENAN : art. Scotus, in Hist. Lit. de France, vol. XXV. — *DOLLINGER : art. in Wetzer-Welte, X. 2123-2133. —J. M. RIGG: in Diet. Natl. Biog., XVI. 216-220.— *SCH\VANE: Dogmengesch., pp. 74-76, etc. — HARNACK: Dogmengesch., III. 459 sqq. — *A. RITSCIIL: Eechtfertigung und Versohnung, I. 58-86; Gesch. des Pietismus, I. 470. — P. MINGES : 1st Duns Scotus Indeterministf Minister, 1905, p. 139. —The Histt. of Philos.
The last of the scholastic thinkers of the first rank and the most daring of mediseval logicians is John Duns Scotus. With his death the disintegration of scholastic theology begins. This remarkable man, one of the intellectual prod igies of the race, may have been under forty years of age when death overtook him. His dialectic genius and inge nuity won for him the title of the Subtle doctor, doctor subtilis. His intellectual independence is shown in the freedom with
i Mn.t 7.
684 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
which he subjected his predecessors to his searching and often sophistical criticisms. Anselm, the St. Victors, Albert the Great, Bonaventura, Thomas Aquinas, Henry of Ghent, and other Schoolmen he does not hesitate to mention by name and to assail their views. The discussions of Thomas Aquinas are frequently made the subject of his attack. Duns became the chief theological ornament of the Franciscan order and his theology was defended by a distinct school, which took his name, the Scotists. This school and the Thomists, who followed the teachings of Thomas Aquinas, are the lead ing schools of theology produced in the Middle Ages and came into violent controversy.
Duns' mind was critical rather than constructive. The abstruseness of his style offers difficulties almost insuperable to the comprehension of the modern student.1 He developed no complete system.2 It was his characteristic to disturb faith and to open again questions to which Thomas Aquinas and other Schoolmen were supposed to have given final state ments. The sharp distinction he made between faith and knowledge, dogma and reason, and his use of the arguments from silence and probability, undermined confidence in the infallibility of the Church and opened the way for the disre pute into which scholasticism fell. Duns denied that the being of God and other dogmas can be proved by the reason, and he based their acceptance solely upon the authority of the Church. The analytic precision, as well as lucid state ment of Thomas and Peter the Lombard, are wanting in the
1 Dollinger, p. 2127, and Harnack, III. 429, agree in pronouncing Duns the "most acute thinker among the Schoolmen," der scharfsinnigste scholastishe Denker. Seeberg, TheoL d. J. D. Scotus, p. 2, speaks of "the enor mous difficulty" — ungeheure Schwierigke.it — which the reading of Duns offers to one who is not thoroughly familiar with his mode of thinking and expression. Again, p. 6, he speaks of Duns' " sentences and arguments " as being "endlessly complicated." Schwane, p. 78, says that Duns' abstruseness of thought, lack of system in presenting his materials, and the thorny paths of his critical method have imparted to theology little glory. See also pp. 288, 292.
2 Die Hoffnung aus seinen Schriftcn eln System herzustellen ist vergeblich, Seeberg, p. 644.