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Thomas was a Franciscan, Duns Scotus, the "Subtle Doctor," who taught at Oxford and Paris and died in 1308. His teaching differed in two ways from that of his Dominican predecessor. In the first place he excepted a larger number of theological doctrines as not being capable of philosophic proof, so that his teaching tended to bring back and to emphasise the dualism between faith and reason.
Thomas, "is not of the essence of the soul; but the soul, by the nature of its essence, can be united to the body, so that, properly speaking, the soul alone is not the species, but the composite", and Duns Scotus makes clear the nature and origin of this common "essence" when he says there is "on the one hand God as Infinite Actuality, on the other spiritual and corporeal substances possessing an homogeneous common element."
The Councils saw themselves obliged to follow the men of learning, and the burgomaster concluded the act with the words: "Yes, Masters of the Orders, this is also the opinion of my colleagues, that henceforth vi u must preach the Gospel, Paul and the Prophets, and let Scotus, Thomas and such stuff lie."
The origin of this point of view may be studied in the theology of John Scotus Erigena, who lived in the ninth century at the court of Charles the Bald, and who represents a natural transition from the earliest ideas of Christianity to the ideas of Thomas Aquinas. His conception of the universe is couched in the spirit of Neo-Platonism.
And in the next, forasmuch as we attempt a matter of some difficulty and it may be perhaps a little too saucy to call back again the Muses from Helicon to so great a journey, especially in a matter they are wholly strangers to, it will be more suitable, perhaps, while I play the divine and make my way through such prickly quiddities, that I entreat the soul of Scotus, a thing more bristly than either porcupine or hedgehog, to leave his scorebone awhile and come into my breast, and then let him go whither he pleases, or to the dogs, I could wish also that I might change my countenance, or that I had on the square cap and the cassock, for fear some or other should impeach me of theft as if I had privily rifled our masters' desks in that I have got so much divinity.
There was a serious dispute about the actual wording of the decree, and even those who agreed as to its wording differed as to its interpretation. The justice of the title was, however, admitted by Scotus, who said that it was lawful to stipulate for recompense when both the principal and surplus were in danger of being lost ; by Carletus; and by Nider.
The fame of Duns Scotus was European, and the Subtle Doctor, as he was called, became the great glory of the Franciscan, as his rival St. Thomas was the great glory of the Dominican, order. But he left no successor, and from his death, at the opening of the fourteenth century, till the seventeenth century the number of Irish scholars or recognized Irish saints was small.
The discipline was not neglected: "we have enjoined the religious students," Leyton wrote to Cromwell, "that none of them, for no manner of cause, shall come within any tavern, inn, or alehouse, or any other house, whatsoever it be, within the town and suburbs. [Each offender] once so taken, to be sent home to his cloyster. Without doubt, this act is greatly lamented of all honest women of the town; and especially of their laundresses, that may not now once enter within the gates, much less within the chambers, whereunto they were right well accustomed. I doubt not, but for this thing, only the honest matrons will sue to you for redress." These were sharp measures; we lose our breath at their rapidity and violence. The saddest vicissitude was that which befell the famous Duns Duns Scotus, the greatest of the Schoolmen, the constructor of the memoria technica of ignorance, the ancient text-book of
'Common' means public. 'Not doing nor dying in a private capacity, but in the room and stead of sinners. Ed. It was common with the Reformers and Puritans, when condemning the absurdities of Aquinas and the schoolmen, to call it 'Dunsish sophistry, from one of the chief of these writers named Duns, usually called, from the place of his birth, Duns Scotus. Ed.
Nor need we reject as anything incredible the high renown for scholarship and ability obtained in those times by such men as Thomas Palmeran of Naas, in the University of Paris; by Peter and Thomas Hibernicus in the University of Naples, in the age of Aquinas; by Malachy of Ireland, a Franciscan, Chaplain to King Edward II. of England, and Professor at Oxford; by the Danish Dominican, Gotofrid of Waterford; and above all, by John Scotus of Down, the subtle doctor, the luminary of the Franciscan schools, of Paris and Cologne.
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