Heinrich of Ghent

Heinrich von Gent (Latin Henricus a Gandavo or de Gandavo , Gandavensis , Gandensis , since 1613 also incorrectly called: Henricus Goethals , Henricus Bonicollus ; honorary title: Doctor solemnis ; * before 1240 probably in Gent ; † June 29, 1293 in Tournai ) a theologian and philosopher of high scholasticism .

biography

Heinrich became canon in Tournai in 1267 , archdeacon in Bruges in 1277 and archdeacon in Tournai in 1278. From 1276 to 1292 he worked as an influential master of theology in Paris. In 1277 he was a member of the commission of the Parisian bishop Étienne Tempier , which led to the condemnation of 219 doctrines of the " Averroists " at the Paris artist faculty on March 7th . In the period between the death of Thomas Aquinas (1274) and the appearance of John Duns Scotus in Paris (1302/03) he is one of the most respected and most discussed thinkers at the University of Paris. All his thinking sees itself as a receptive and innovative neo-Augustinian reaction to the multiform reception of Aristotle in the 13th century. There are many relationships with Franciscan thinkers ( Alexander von Hales , Bonaventure von Bagnoregio , Guibert von Tournai ). As a secular clergyman, he has represented the position of their critics in the dispute over the confession and preaching privileges of the mendicant orders since 1282. He wrote the most extensive Quodlibetalienwerk of university scholasticism, in which he was the first scholastic, for example, to deal with current problems such as the question of the beginning of human life or the ethical conditions of Sunday work, pension contracts, the right to self-defense and physical integrity, etc. Treated. His Summa ( Quaestiones ordinariae) represents the largest closed treatise of the university scholasticism on theological knowledge doctrine and doctrine of God (its provability, its properties, doctrine of the Trinity). He discusses in detail the question of whether women are allowed to study and teach theology.

Heinrich was a good connoisseur of Aristotle , but rather continued the traditional direction of Augustinism , which he wanted to modernize above all with the views of the Arab philosopher Avicenna in order to create an adequate, tradition-oriented counterpart for the Aristotelian-Thomistic reorientation of the philosophy and theology of the time. Epistemologically, he advocated a differentiated theory of illumination which, for theologians, even knows a special 'theological light' (lumen theologicum). His teachings were for the later scholastics, especially Johannes Duns Scotus , both content and methodological standard as well as multiple reasons for detailed criticism. This particularly included his doctrine of God as the first to be known (primum cognitum) of the human intellect, in which he developed and developed the traditional doctrine of a natural, indirect, pre-reflective knowledge of God, which was already advocated by early Christian theologians, before the methodological level of argumentation reached in the 13th century thereby drafted a parallel theory to Thomas Aquinas, who asserted a constant implicit knowledge of God (cognitio Dei implicita).

Since he himself did not belong to an order that accepted his views as an order tradition, his rich history of influence was very irregular and was often limited to partial aspects of his thinking.

Work overview

• Detailed information on dates, editions, translations can be found among others. a. in Laarmann 1990, pp. 33-52.470-472.

Authentic works

• Quodlibeta
• Summa (Quaestiones ordinariae)
• Lectura ordinaria super sacram scripturam
• Tractatus super facto praelatorum et fratrum
• Sermo in VIIIa dominica post trinitatem 'Attendite a falsis prophetis'
• Sermo in the festo Sancta Catharinae, 1282 'Confessio et pulchritudo'
• Sermo in synodo, feria IIa post Miserciordiam Domini, 1287 'Congregate illi'
• Sermo de purificatione Virginis Deiparae 'Suscepimus, Deus, Misericordiam'
• Epistulae VI

Works of probable authenticity

• Expositio super prima capitula Genesis
• Sync category schemes
• Quaestiones in Physicam Aristotelis

Works of controversial authenticity

• Quaestiones in Metaphysicam Aristotle
• Quaestiones in Librum de Causis
• Quaestio, utrum in Deo sit compositio ex actu et potentia

Works mistakenly attributed in the Middle Ages or Modern Times

• De viris illustribus seu De scriptoribus ecclesiasticis liber
• Quodlibetum de mercimoniis et negotiationibus
• Liber de virginitate (De castitate virginum et viduarum)
• De paenitentia

Work edition

• Summa quaestionum ordinariarum, ed. J. Badius. Paris 1520, repr. St. Bonaventure NY 1953 (2 vol.)
• Quodlibeta, ed. J. Badius. Paris 1518, repr. Leuven 1961 (2 vol.)
• Opera omnia ; ed. by Raymond Macken / Gordon A. Wilson, Leiden 1979ff

literature

• Roland J. Teske SJ: Essays on the Philosophy of Henry of Ghent. Marquette University Press, Milwaukee 2013, ISBN 978-0-87462-813-5 .
• Matthias Laarmann : Deus, primum cognitum . The doctrine of God as the first to be recognized by the human intellect in Heinrich von Gent († 1293), contributions to the history of philosophy and theology of the Middle Ages, New Series, Vol. 52, Aschendorff, Münster iW 1999.
• Friedrich Wilhelm Bautz :  Heinrich von Gent. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 2, Bautz, Hamm 1990, ISBN 3-88309-032-8 , Sp. 675-676.

Web links

Works by Heinrich von Ghent

• Magistri Henrici Gandavini Quaestiones Quodlibetales, VII-VIII
• Henry of Ghent , website at the University of North Carolina with information, selected bibliography, edition plan of the work edition under the direction of GA Wilson and several individual volumes for download as PDF .
• Manuscripts with works by Heinrich von Gent in the Bibliothèque Municipale Troyes

Secondary literature

• Pasquale Porro:  Henry of Ghent. In: Edward N. Zalta (Ed.): Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy .
• Rolf Schönberger (ed.): Entry in Alkuin , the Regensburg Infothek der Scholastik with a tabular curriculum vitae, selected bibliography and list of works with brief information, etc. a. on dating and edition status.
• Eckhart Triebel: Brief information on Heinrich von Gent , in: Ders. (Ed.): Meister Eckhart and his time.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ On this in detail Laarmann 1999, pp. 337–457.