Durandus of Saint-Pourçain

Drawn from the authors' own words; every quotation links to its place.

Dominican · ?–1334

In Prümmer's Catalogue and Haringer's Index

“Durandus de S. Porciano, O.P., French, Master of the Sacred Palace, bishop of Meaux (d. 1334), called the "Most Resolute Doctor," wrote, besides other things, Commentaries on the books of the Sentences. He is indeed of acute intellect, but also a supporter of singular and more or less false opinions.” — Prümmer, Catalogue of authors
“Durandus de S. Portiano, Dominican, Master of the Sacred Palace, and Bishop, 1320.” — Haringer's index of writers (Gury-Ballerini) (p. XVII, sign read on the page)

His Moral System, as Our Authors Report It

Every report quoted in the author's own words and linked to its place; point at a name to see his words. Haringer's signs give St. Alphonsus's judgment as Haringer found it in St. Alphonsus's works (his notice, Gury-Ballerini, 1884, p. XI); a sign on a writer the 1884 editor added to the list is the editor's own, and is said to be his.

He wrote before the moral systems were formed (Medina first set out probabilism in 1577), so what is reported here is how each author reads the principles he followed, not a system he held.

Before the systems: cited for the more probable opinion
Counted among them by one of our authors	Prümmer, Manuale I, n. 345

Where Our Authors Discuss Him

Each read in its full passage; the words quoted are the author's own. Where several authors say the same thing, one is quoted and the others follow “in nearly the same words”; point at a name to see his words.

“and Durandus, not a Thomist, the Most Resolute Doctor”Vermeersch names him among the Friars Preachers of the fourteenth century

Vermeersch, Theologia moralis I, n. 18

In the Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)

“Durandus of Saint-Pourçain”, vol. 5, by Thomas Schwertner. Public domain; transcription from Wikisource.

Philosopher and theologian, b. at Saint-Pourçain, Auvergne France; d. 13 September, 1332, at Meaux. He entered the Dominican Order at Clermont and obtained the doctor's degree at Paris in 1313. John XXII called him to Avignon as Master of the Sacred Palace, where he expounded the Scriptures. In 1318 he was consecrated Bishop of Le Puy-en-Velay and was transferred to Meaux in 1326. He is known as Doctor Resolutissimus owing to his strenuous advocacy of certain opinions novel to the Schoolmen of his day. His writings include commentaries on the "Sentences" (Paris, 1508); "De origine jurisdictionum" (Paris, 1506); and a treatise on the condition of holy souls after their separation from the body. His nominalism was so much opposed to the contemporary philosophic realism that the third period of Scholasticism is made to begin with him. He rejects both the sensible and the intelligible species, introduced, he says, to explain sense-perception, as also the active intellect. He denies the principle of individuation as distinct from the specific nature of the individual. In theology he argues for a separation of natural knowledge from that obtained through faith and revelation. Certain dogmas, as that of the Trinity, cannot be shown not to contain impossibilities, but to believe them, withal increases the merit of faith. Because the miracles of Christ do not prove His Divinity, His acceptance by the faithful enhances the merit of believing. After all, he says, theology is not strictly a science, since it rests on faith, not on the first principles of knowledge. In theology it is sufficient to know the idea of him who, being inspired, cannot err. He teaches, besides, that all actions proceed from God Who gives the power to act, but this is no immediate influx of the Creator upon the actions of the creature. The sacraments are only causes without which grace is not conferred. Marriage is not strictly a sacrament. He also insinuates that Christ could be present in the Eucharist with the substances of bread and wine remaining. Throughout, Durandus shows admirable submission to the corrective prerogative of the Church, the exercise of which was not unnecessary. By order of John XXII the treatise "De statu animarum" was examined and was found to contain eleven errors.

QUÉTIF-ECHARD, Scriptores O. P., I, 586; STÖCKL, Geschichte der Philosophie im M. A., II, 976; HAURÉAU, De la philosophie scolastique, Pt. II (Paris, 1880), II 3446; MORTIER, Histoire de mâitres géneraux de l'Ordre da Frères Prêcheurs (Paris, 1907) III, 69-86; La faculté de théologie de Paris et ses docteurs la plus célèbres, III, 401-408.

THOS. M. SCHWERTNER