Francis of Meyronnes, O. F.M. (c. 1288-c. 1328), was a Provencal Franciscan theologian and sermonist. Francis studied with John Duns Scotus at the University of Paris and came to prominence in the early 1320s as a bachelor and then master of theology at Paris. His works were extremely influential from the years immediately following his teaching into the modern era, but only a small fraction is edited. Heavily influenced by John Duns Scotus, he does not hesitate to modify or abandon Scotus’ thought. His metaphysics is heavily realist: he explicitly declares his allegiance to Platonic ideas, which he understands as identical with quiddities and beings of essence, and he holds that propositions have real existence. Francis’ doctrine of divine knowledge largely derives from Scotus; his notion of intuitive and abstractive cognition, on the other hand, differs by positing that intuitive cognition is the mental seizing of an object with all its merely formally distinct modes, and can occur through species. Francis defines place as the located object’s presentiality as related to God, and time as the flux of place to God. His sermons have been praised for their mystical and ascetic quality, but his treatises on the mystical and ascetic topics have been characterized as impersonal. in his political writings, Francis favored the subjection of secular authority to the pope.
Born in the village of Meyronnes in Provence, Francis of Meyronnes joined the Franciscan convent of Digne and entered the Franciscan educational system. Between 1304 and 1307, he was sent to the University of Paris, where he attended the lectures of his confrere John Duns Scotus. After teaching in the provincial studia of the Franciscan Order, Francis returned to Paris as a Bachelor of Theology and lectured on the Sentences of Peter Lombard in 1320-1321, notably engaging in debate with the Benedictine Pierre Roger (later Pope Clement VI) and the Dominican John of Prato. In 1323, Francis was promoted to master of theology, and elected provincial minister of Aquitaine. In 1324, he appears at the Papal Curia in Avignon, giving sermons and holding theological debates, and served on a diplomatic mission to Gascony. He died in Piacenza.
Francis of Meyronnes benefited from the patronage of the Angevin dynasty, to which his family was related. On May 24, 1323, in a letter instructing the chancellor of the University of Paris to award Francis the title Master of Theology, Pope John XXII notes that Robert of Anjou, King of Naples, requested this promotion. In autumn of the same year, Francis was present at the death of St. Elzear de Sabran, who had come to Paris to negotiate Charles of Anjou’s marriage. Francis also pronounced Elzear’s funeral oration. Francis dedicated to Robert of Anjou his commentary on the works of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite.
Referred to by later generations as the doctor illuminatus or acutus, the magister abstractionum and even the princeps scotistarum, Francis of Meyronnes had immediate and lasting impact through his writings, above all his commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, which exists in over 100 medieval manuscripts. Subsequent Franciscan theologians, such as Himbert of Garda (1320s), Aufredo Gonteri Brito (1325), and Pastor of Serrescudio (1332-1333), summarized or copied Meyronnes’ works in their own commentaries on the Sentences. Fifteenth-century thinkers cite not only Francis’ thought, but also refer to mayronistae and via mayronis. Many of Meyronnes’ works exist in numerous early modern printings. Yet this very breadth and diversity in Meyronnes’ writings has proved a hindrance to modern scholarship. A handful of select passages and minor treatises are available in modern critical edition, and nearly half of Meyronnes’ writings are accessible only in manuscript. Contemporary studies on particular subjects reveal Meyronnes’ originality and philosophical interest, but not even the fundamental study of Roth (1936) achieves a comprehensive overview of his thought.
Francis of Meyronnes is a reputed Scotist, referring frequently to John Duns Scotus as doctor noster, and is perhaps the earliest author to speak ofopposing schools of thought at Paris, which some scholars interpret as indicating the existence of a Scotist and a Thomist school. He defends many doctrines characteristic of Scotus, such as the Immaculate Conception and the univocity of being, and he uses Scotistic notions, such as the formal distinction, haeccitas as principle of individuation, and the division of being into being-in-actuality and being-inobjective-potency. In outlining his specific opinions, however, Francis does not hesitate to oppose the mature position of Scotus. Meyronnes criticizes Scotus’ doctrine of formal nonidentity ex natura rei, and instead defines the formal distinction as founded on really different intrinsic modes inhering in the same thing.
Among ancient authorities, Francis of Meyronnes favors Augustine and the Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopa-gite, and even compiled selected texts with commentary for each of these authors. His use of the Pseudo-Dionysius is idiosyncratic, perhaps deriving from his stated belief that Dionysius received from Paul formal instruction in the content of the Beatific Vision. Meyronnes treats the Pseudo-Dionysius’ works as a guide to positive knowledge about God in this life, interpreting these treatises of Greek negative theology in terms of fourteenth-century western scholasticism.
Augustine likewise exerted a powerful influence on Francis’ realism. While rejecting all arguments from reason for the necessary existence of divine ideas, Francis claims on the authority of Augustine that they do exist. He distinguishes these infinite and exemplary “theological ideas’’ from “metaphysical ideas.’’ Ideas in the theological sense are foundational relations, distinct from formal relations in that foundational relations require only the foundation to exist, and not the term, whereas both must exist in the case of a formal relation. Francis identifies ideas in the metaphysical sense as the ideas of Plato, properly understood, and not as Aristotle presents them; indeed, Francis calls Aristotle the ‘‘worst metaphysician” for having misunderstood Platonic ideas. Presumably, Meyronnes interprets Platonic ideas through Augustine, for the only work Meyronnes cites as being written by Plato is Porphyry’s Isagoge to the Categories. For Meyronnes, ‘‘idea’’ in the metaphysical sense, ‘‘quiddity,’’ and the ‘‘being of essence’’ (esse essentiae) all refer to the same thing: the formal nature of a reality, abstracted from all intrinsic modes, including existence, actuality, reality, and contingency. As such, the quiddities are independent of any rational or real relation of production and contemplation. With respect to the being of essence, creatures are said to be in (objective) potency prior to being in actuality and having the mode of existence (esse existentiae).
Francis of Meyronnes argues for the priority of the will over the intellect in the divine determination and knowledge of contingent propositions. Following Scotus, Francis divides God’s determination into four logically ordered instants (instants of nature), corresponding to the divine essence’s presentation of the terms of all possible propositions to the intellect, said intellect’s generation of necessary and contingent propositions, the determination of contingent propositions through the action of the will, and, finally, the knowledge of these propositions by the divine intellect.
Propositions, as complexes of things existing together or divided, have real (subjective) existence, and on them is founded the proposition as it exists objectively in the mind. Francis bases this subjective existence on the real identity and formal distinction of extramental beings, such as ‘‘man’’ and ‘‘white.’’ For as these beings are really the same thing, a formal relation holds between them, and a formal relation requires the existence of both term and foundation. Objective mental existence comes about through intuitive cognition, in this life, based on infallible human sensation; intuitive cognition can occur through species. In intuitive cognition, the mind grasps the entire thing, including all its really identical (and formally distinct) modes, including existence. In contrast, abstractive cognition occurs when the mind considers merely the essence, ‘‘quidditatively in quidditative being,’’ which Francis identifies as a concept of first intention. Francis develops two other types of cognition, namely discursive and inferential (illative) cognition, the latter being the means by which the rational soul is self-aware. Cognition itself is really identical with a relation to the cognized being, and so not even God could cause an intuitive cognition of a nonexistent.
Francis’ doctrine of relations also plays a major role in his natural philosophy. Place is the presentiality (praesentialitas) of the thing to God, that is, the relation of the located thing to the eternal and ubiquitous unmoved mover; motion involves changing presentiality, and hence is a fluxus formae rather than a forma fluens. Time is a foundational relation of the succession of places, and therefore is, in Meyronnes’ words, ‘‘the flux of presentiality to God’’ (In II Sent. 2.14). As a consequence, all created reality is mobile, at least metaphorically: God has the power to make the Earth revolve (but does not).
Francis of Meyronnes was a prolific sermonist; Rofimann praises the ascetic and mystical quality of his sermons and declares them closer to the devotio moderna than those by Meister Eckhart (Rofimann 1972). Yet studies of Meyronnes’ other works touching on ascetic and mystical topics have revealed that he focuses on detached, rational analysis. Speaking of his commentary on the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius, one scholar observed ‘‘Meyronnes seems to hide his own religious experience behind the objectivity of the discussion’’ (Alliney 2002).
Francis authored a treatise on apostolic poverty, arguing for the radical poverty of Christ and the Apostles. In his political writings, Francis was a papal hierocrat, and in a quodlibetal question, he managed to align his political philosophy with his biggest patrons, maintaining that the Kingdom of Naples was all the more noble because it was subordinate to the Church. Francis remained an ally of John XXII and produced pro-Papal consultations on ongoing theological and philosophical controversies, including the 1324 proceedings against William of Ockham and the Lectura in Apocalypsim of Peter John Olivi.
See also: > Augustine > Dante Alighieri > Divine Power
> John Duns Scotus > Meister Eckhart > Peter Lombard
> Peter John Olivi > Platonism > Pseudo-Dionysius, the Areopagite > William of Ockham
World History
