Roscellinus, also called
Roscelin of Compiègne or in Latin
Roscellinus Compendiensis and
Rucelinus (c. 1050–c. 1125), was a
FrenchFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
philosopher and theologian, often regarded as the founder of
nominalismNominalism is a metaphysical view in philosophy according to which general or abstract terms and predicates exist, while universals or abstract objects, which are sometimes thought to correspond to these terms, do not exist. Thus, there are at least two main versions of nominalism...
(cfr.
ScholasticismScholasticism is derived from the Latin word scholasticus , which means "that [which] belongs to the school," and was a method of learning taught by the academics of medieval universities circa 1100–1500...
).
Biography
He was born in
CompiègneCompiègne is a commune in the Oise department in northern France.The city is located along the Oise River. Its inhabitants are called Compiégnois.-Administration:Compiègne is the seat of three cantons*Compiègne-Nord...
,
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
. Little is known of his life, and knowledge of his doctrines is mainly derived from
AnselmAnselm of Canterbury was a Benedictine monk, an Italian medieval philosopher, theologian, and church official who held the office of Archbishop of Canterbury from 1093 to 1109. Called the founder of scholasticism, he is famous in the West as the originator of the ontological argument for the...
and Abelard.
He studied at
SoissonsSoissons is a commune in the Aisne department in Picardie in northern France, located on the Aisne River, about 100 kilometres northeast of Paris...
and
ReimsThe city of Rheims , in English and in French, lies in the Champagne-Ardenne region in north-eastern France 129 km east-northeast of Paris....
, was afterwards attached to the
cathedral of ChartresThe Cathedral of Our Lady of Chartres, , a Roman Catholic cathedral located in Chartres, about southwest of Paris, is considered one of the finest examples in all France of the Gothic style of architecture....
and became canon of
CompiègneCompiègne is a commune in the Oise department in northern France.The city is located along the Oise River. Its inhabitants are called Compiégnois.-Administration:Compiègne is the seat of three cantons*Compiègne-Nord...
. As a monk of Compiègne, he was teaching as early as 1087. He had contact with
LanfrancLanfranc was Archbishop of Canterbury, and a Lombard by extraction.-Early life:He was born in the early years of the eleventh century at Pavia, where later tradition held that his father, Hanbald, held a rank broadly equivalent to magistrate...
,
AnselmAnselm of Canterbury was a Benedictine monk, an Italian medieval philosopher, theologian, and church official who held the office of Archbishop of Canterbury from 1093 to 1109. Called the founder of scholasticism, he is famous in the West as the originator of the ontological argument for the...
and St. Ivo of Chartres.
It seems most probable that Roscellinus was not strictly the first to promulgate nominalistic doctrines; but in his exposition they received more definite expression, and being applied to the
dogmaDogma is the established belief or doctrine held by a religion, ideology or any kind of organization: it is authoritative and not to be disputed, doubted or diverged from. The term derives from Greek "that which seems to one, opinion or belief" and that from , "to think, to suppose, to imagine"...
of the
TrinityThe Christian doctrine of the Trinity teaches the unity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as three persons in one Godhead. The doctrine states that God is the Triune God, existing as three persons, or in the Greek hypostases, but one being. Each of the persons is understood as having the one...
, attracted universal attention.
Roscellinus maintained that it is merely a habit of speech which prevents our speaking of the three persons as three substances or three Gods. If it were otherwise, and the three persons were really one substance or thing (
una res), we should be forced to admit that the Father and the
Holy SpiritIn Christianity, the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God. In mainstream Christian beliefs he is the third person of the Trinity. As part of the Godhead, the Holy Spirit is equal with God the Father and with God the Son....
became incarnate along with the Son. Roscellinus seems to have put forward this doctrine in perfect good faith, and to have claimed for it at first the authority of Lanfranc and Anselm.
In 1092/1093, however, a council convoked at
SoissonsSoissons is a commune in the Aisne department in Picardie in northern France, located on the Aisne River, about 100 kilometres northeast of Paris...
by the
archbishop of ReimsThe Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Reims is an archdiocese of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church in France. Erected as a diocese around 250 by St. Sixtus, the diocese was elevated to an archdiocese around 750...
condemned his interpretation, and Roscellinus, who was accused of tritheism, recanted the doctrines attributed to him, but only out of fear of
excommunicationExcommunication is a religious censure used to deprive or suspend membership in a religious community. The word literally means putting [someone] out of communion. In some religions, excommunication includes spiritual condemnation of the member or group...
and even
stoningStoning, or lapidation, refers to a form of capital punishment. For the method of metalworking using sharpening stones see stoning ....
to death by the orthodox populace, for later he returned to his early theories. He fled to England, but having made himself unpopular by an attack on the doctrines of Anselm, he left the country and repaired to Rome, where he was well received and became reconciled to the Catholic Church. He then returned to France, taught at
ToursTours is a city in central France, the capital of the Indre-et-Loire department.It is located on the lower reaches of the river Loire, between Orléans and the Atlantic coast. Touraine, the region around Tours, is known for its wines, the alleged perfection of its local spoken French, and for the...
and Loc-menach (
LochesLoches is a commune in the Indre-et-Loire department in central France.It is situated southeast of Tours by railway, on the left bank of the Indre River.-History:...
) in
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
(where he had Abelard as a pupil), and finally became canon of
BesançonBesançon , is the capital and principal city of the region of Franche-Comté in eastern France. It had a population of about 220,000 inhabitants in the metropolitan area in 1999...
. He is heard of as late as 1121, when he came forward to oppose Abelard's views on the Trinity.
Of his writings there exists only a letter addressed to Abelard. Hauréau brings forward his name in connection with a text: "Sententia de universalibus secundum magistrum R." ("Notices et extr. de quelques manuscr. lat.", V, Paris, 1892, 224), but this is a conjecture. We have as evidences of his doctrine texts of Anselm, Abelard, John of Salisbury, and an anonymous epigram. His share in the history of ideas and especially his nominalism have been exaggerated, his celebrity being far more due to his theological tritheism.
Roscelin's nominalism, or "Sententia Vocum"
According to Otto of Freisingen Roscelin "primus nostris temporibus sententiam vocum instituit" ("Gesta Frederici imp". in "Monum. German. Histor.: Script., XX, 376), but the chronicler of the "Historia Francia" (cf. Bouquet, "Recueil des hist. des Gaules et de la France", XII, Paris, 1781, 3, b, c) mentions before him a "magister Johannes", whose personality is much discussed and who has not yet been definitively identified. What constitutes the sententia vocum"? To judge of it we have besides the texts mentioned above which bear directly on Roscelin an exposition of the treatise "De generibus et speciebus" (thirteenth century), wrongly attributed to Abelard by Victor Cousin. The "sententia vocum" was one of the anti-Realist solutions of the
problem of universalsThe problem of universals is an ancient problem in metaphysics about whether universals exist. Universals are general or abstract qualities, characteristics, properties, kinds or relations, such as being male/female, solid/liquid/gas or a certain colour, that can be predicated of individuals or...
accepted by the early Middle Ages. Resuming Porphyry's alternative (mox de generibus et speciebus illud quidem sive subsistent sive in nudis intellectibus posita sint) the first medieval philosophers regarded genera and species (substance, corporetiy, animality, humanity) either as things or as having no existence, and applying to this alternative a terminology of Boethius, they derived thence either res (things) or voces (words). To the nominalists universals were
voces 'voices', which means: (1) above all that universals are not "res", that is that only the individual exists: nam cum habeat eorum sententia nihil esse praeter individuum ..." (De gener. et spec., 524). Nominalism was essentially anti-Realist. (2) that universals are merely words, "flatus vocis", e.g., the word "homo", divisible into syllables, consonants and vowels. "Fuit autem, nemini magistri nostri Roscellini tam insana sententia ut nullam rem partibus constare vellet, sed sicut solis vocibus species, ita et partes ascridebat (Abelard, "Liber divisionum , ed. Cousin, 471); "[...] Illi utique dialectici, qui non nisi flatum vocis putant universalis esse substantias, et qui colorem non aliud queunt intellegere quam corpus, nec sapientiam hominis aliud quam animam, prorsus a spiritualium quaestionum disputatione sunt exsufflandi." (Anselm,
De Incarnatione Verbi, p. 285. Opera Omnia, vol. 1. Ed. F.S. Schmitt, 1938); "Alius ergo consistit in vocibus, licet haec opinio cum Roscelino suo fere omnino evanuerit (John of Salisbury, Metalog. , II, 17). The universal is reduced to an emission of sound (
flatus vocis), in conformity with Boethius' definition:
Nihil enim aliud est prolatio (vocis) quam aeris plectro linguae percussio. Roscelin's universal corresponds to what is now called the "universale in voce" in opposition to "universale in re" and "universale in intellectu".
But this theory of Roscelin's had no connection with the abstract concept of genus and species. He did not touch on this question. It is certain that he did not deny the existence or possibility of these concepts, and he was therefore not a nominalist in the fashion of Taine or in the sense in which nominalism is now understood. That is why, in reference to the modern sense of the word, some call it a pseudo-nominalism. John of Salisbury, speaking of "nominalis secta" (Metalog., II, 10), gives it quite another meaning. So Roscelin's rudimentary, even childish, solution does not compromise the value of universal concepts and may be called a stage in the development of
moderate realismModerate realism as a position in the debate on the metaphysics of universals holds that there is no realm in which universals exist , nor do they really exist within the individuals as universals, but rather universals really exist within the particulars as individualised, and multiplied...
.
Roscelin was also taken to task by Anselm and Abelard for the less clear idea which he gave of the whole and of composite substance. According to Anselm he maintained that colour does not exist independently of the horse which serves as its support and that the wisdom of the soul is not outside of the soul which is wise (De fide trinit., 2). He denies to the whole, such as house, man, real existence of its parts. The word alone had parts, "ita divinam paginam pervertit, ut eo loco quo Dominus partem piscis assi comedisse partem hujus vocis, quae est piscis assi, non partem rei intelligere cogatur (Cousin, P. Abaelardi opera, II. 151).
Roscelin was not without his supporters; among them was his contemporary Raimbert of Lille, and what the monk Hériman relates of his doctrine agrees with the statements of the master of Compiègne. Universal substances, says Hériman, are but a breath, which means eos de sapientium numero merito esse exsufflandos". He merely comments on the saying of Anselm characterized by the same jesting tone: a spiritualium quaestionum disputatione sunt exsufflandi" (P.L., 256a), and says that to understand the windy loquacity of Raimbert of Lille one has but to breathe into his hand (
manuque ori admota exsufflans "Mon. Germ. Hist.", XIV, 275).
Tritheism of Roscelin
Roscelin considered the three Divine Persons as three independent beings, like three angels; if usage permitted, he added, it might truly be said that there are three Gods. Otherwise, he continued, God the Father and God the Holy Ghost would have become incarnate with God the Son. To retain the appearance of dogma he admitted that the three Divine Persons had but one will and power [
Audio ... quod Roscelinus clericus dicit in tres personas esse tres res ab invicem separatas, sicut sunt tres angeli, ita tamen ut una sit voluntas et potestas aut Patrem et Spiritum sanctum esse incarnatum; et tres deos vere posse dici si usus admitteret (letter of Anselm to Foulques)].
This characteristic
tritheismTritheism is the belief that there are three distinct, powerful gods, who form a triad. Generally three gods are envisaged as having separate powers and separate supreme beings or spheres of influence but working together...
, which Anselm and Abelard agreed in refuting even after its author's conversion, seems an indisputable application of Roscelin's anti-Realism. He even argues that if the three Divine Persons form but one God, all three have become incarnate. There are therefore three Divine substances, three Gods, as there are three angels, because each substance constitutes an individual, which is the fundamental assertion of anti-Realism. The ideas of the theologian are closely linked with those of the philosopher.