FOUR QUESTIONS ON MARY - Franciscan Institute Publications

John Duns Scotus: Four Questions on Mary
dispute and Scotus was no exception. 43 In his Paris lectures 44
he had to treat Henry’s explanation in some detail, even
though he admitted “If this position posits what it sounds
like verbally, there is no need to argue against it, since it
is opposed to a first principle, by claiming that contradicto-
43 Knowledge of the Parisian dispute spread quickly to Oxford, where
Henry’s theory was presented at length in a disputed question of William
of Ware, one of Scotus’s teachers. See my article, “Doctrine of the Immaculate
Conception in the Early Franciscan School,” Studia Mariana 9 (San
Francisco: Franciscan National Marian Commission, 1954), 59-67. This
same volume of papers given at the Second Franciscan National Congress,
held in California (May 4-9, 1954) to honor the centenary of the definition
of the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception, contains two excellent historical
accounts of the intellectual milieu at the Universities of Oxford and
Paris at the time Scotus presented his defense and of the reactions it provoked.
One is that of Berard Vogt, O.F.M., “Duns Scotus, Defender of the
Immaculate Conception–an Historical-dogmatic Study,” ibid. 161-75, and
the other is the article of Ignatius Brady referred to in note 17. See also
Brady’s other article, “The Developmemt of the Doctrine of the Immaculate
Conception in the Fourteenth Century After Aureoli” in Franciscan
Studies 15 (1955), 175-202.
44 In addition to the Reportatio Parisiensis edited by Wadding and
based on the Worcester and Balliol MSS, Balic edited three additional significantly
different “reports” based on MSS discovered at Troyes, Barcelona
and Valencia. (Cf. C. Balić, Ioannes D. Scotus Doctor Immaculatae Conceptionis,
25-83). The one from Troyes (Reportatio Trecensis, 35-47) may
contain the report most widely circulated in Paris, since John of Pouilly
used it as the basis for his public attack on Scotus’s position in 1309. See
C. Balic, “Ioannes Duns Scotus et historia Immaculatae Conceptionis,” Antonianum
30 (1955), 402-08. In the Barcelona Codex (Reportatio Barcinonensis,
48-65) we find the most detailed treatment of Henry’s view together
with the suggestion that it can be interpreted in a worse or a better way. It
is also the most polished of these reports. The Valencia Codex (Reportatio
Valentinensis 66-83) departs completely from the usual tri-partite format.
It begins immediately with the definitive assertion that an immaculate
conception is both possible and fitting. Only after refuting the argument
from the common opinion against this does it present the second possibility
with a reference to the fact that Henry could be interpreted this way, although
this is not what he actually said. And only then are the twenty five
arguments from authority against the thesis brought up for refutation. XV
century writers refer to a public dispute by Scotus wherein he answered
numerous objections against the Immaculate Conception proposed by his
audience and attribute his title of “Subtle Doctor” to his brilliant defense
of this prerogative. Balic suggested that this MSS as well as that of Barcelona
may contain fragments of that historic dispute though admittedly
the complete text of it has not been found. Cf. Balić, Scoti Doctor Mariani
Theologiae Elementa, cx.
16