Ailly, Pierre D
Ailly, Pierre d’
(PETRUS DE ALLACO).
French theologian and philosopher, bishop and cardinal, born 1350 at Compiègne; died probably 1420 at Avignon. He studied at the College of Navarre, University of Paris. In 1375, by his commentaries on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, he furthered the cause of Nominalism in the University of Paris. He received the degree of Doctor of Theology in 1380. At that time he wrote several treatises, in which he maintained, among other doctrines, that bishops and priests hold their jurisdiction from Christ, not from the Pope, that the Pope is inferior to a general council, that neither the Pope nor the council is strictly infallible, but only the universal Church. In 1384 he became director of the College of Navarre; Gerson and Nicholas of Clemanges were among his pupils. He acquired great fame by his sermons, writings, and discussions. The University having censured several propositions of the Dominican John of Monzon, who denied the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin, the latter appealed to Clement VII. In behalf of the University, d’Ailly was sent to Avignon as the head of a delegation, and finally (1389) persuaded Clement to maintain the condemnation. The same year d’Ailly was made Chancellor of the University, Confessor of the King, and Treasurer of the Sainte Chapelle. When Benedict XIII succeeded Clement VII at Avignon, d’Ailly’s influence caused him to be recognized at the French court. He was appointed Bishop of Le Puy in 1395, and in 1397 Bishop of Cambrai. He was very active in trying to solve the principal question of the day, the ending of the great schism. He proposed the assembling of a general council — an idea which he had suggested in a sermon as early as 1381 — and endeavored to bring the two Popes to resign. On account of Benedict’s hesitations and false promises, d’Ailly withdrew more and more from the Avignon Pope, and when, in 1398, the French King recalled his submission, d’Ailly approved this action. Later, however, he counseled obedience, though only in essential matters, and this course having been accepted by the Council of Paris, he announced it in a sermon in the Church of Notre Dame (1403). At the Council of Aix (Jan., 1409) d’Ailly again advocated the necessity of a general council. The unity of the Church, he claimed, does not depend on the unity of the Pope, but on that of Christ. The Church has a natural and divine right to its unity and self-preservation; hence it can, even without the Pope’s sanction, assemble in a general council. A few months later, in fact, the Council of Pisa was convoked, in which both Popes were deposed, and a third, Alexander V, was elected, thus complicating the difficulty. In 1411 d’Ailly was made cardinal by Alexander’s successor, John XXIII, and assisted at the Council of Rome (1412). In 1414 the Council of Constance was convoked, and was successful in ending the schism by the election of Martin V (1418). D’Ailly took a leading part in the council and presided at its third session (March 26, 1415). He insisted on several principles, some of which had been developed already in his earlier writings. The council, he said, having been duly convoked, could not now be dissolved by any action of the Pope; as its power came from Christ immediately, all the faithful, and the Pope himself, were obliged to submit to its decisions. He favored the method of voting by nations and the extension of the power of voting to the doctors of theology and of canon law, and to the princes and their legates. These were complete departures from the practice of the Church. After the Council of Constance, d’Ailly was appointed by Martin V’s legate at Avignon, where he died.
D’Ailly enjoyed considerable celebrity among his contemporaries, who gave him the titles of Aquila Franciae, et aberrantium a veritate malleus indefessus (The eagle of France and the indefatigable hammer of heretics). If his principles concerning the power in the Church are exaggerated and, in fact, they have been condemned since — they should be considered with reference to the condition of those times when the Church was divided under two heads. In many respects d’Ailly reproduces the theses of Occam and the Nominalists, that the existence of God cannot be strictly demonstrated, that the doctrine of the Trinity cannot be established from the Scriptures, that positive law is the only basis of morality, etc. In many instances he shows a tendency to mysticism. His works are numerous (154); some of them have not yet been published. Besides those that have reference to the schism and the reformation of the Church, others treat of Holy Scripture, apologetics, asceticism, theology, philosophy and the sciences. He was a believer in astrology, and in his “Concordance of Astronomy with History” he attempts to show that the dates of the main events of history can be determined by astronomical calculations. In his “Imago mundi” he taught the possibility of reaching the Indies by the West, and in confirmation of his own reasoning he alleged the authority of Aristotle, Pliny, and Seneca. D’Ailly’s views were useful to Columbus and encouraged him in his undertaking. [Cf. La d couverte de l Am rique et Pierre d’Ailly, by Salembier, in “Revue de Lille”, 1892, V, 622-641.] Columbus had a copy of the “Imago mundi”, on the margin of which he had written many notes with his own hand, and which is still to be seen in the Columbine Library at Seville. In another of Columbus’s books, the “Libro de las profecias”, are to be found many notes taken from d’Ailly’s works on cosmography. Hence Las Casas (Historia de las Indias, vol. I, xi, 89) says that of all “modern” writers d’Ailly exercised the greatest influence on the realization of Columbus’s plans. His dissertation on the reformation of the calendar, composed in 1411, and read at the Council of Constance in March, 1417, was later accepted and completed by Gregory XIII.
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SALEMBIER, Petrus de Alliaco (Lille, 1886); ID. in Dict. de th ol. cath. (Paris, 1900); HURTER, Nomenclator, IV, 601 sqq. (Innsbruck, 1899); TSCHACKERT, Peter von Ailli (Gotha, 1877).
C.A. DUBRAY
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume ICopyright © 1907 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, March 1, 1907. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Ailly, Pierre D
(Petrus de Alliaco), a noted cardinal and learned theologian of the fourteenth century, surnamed the “Hammer of Heretics.” He was born at Compiegne in 1350, of humble parentage, and completed his studies at the college of Navarre in Paris. The dispute between Nominalism and Realism had not yet died out, and D’Ailly threw himself with ardor into philosophical study. He soon became noted among the students for the skill and subtlety with which he advocated the nominalist theory, and for the wide extent of his general knowledge. At twenty-five he lectured in the university of Paris on Peter Lombard’s Sententioe, and soon obtained a brilliant reputation. In 1377, while yet a subdeacon, he was sent as delegate to the Provincial Council of Amboise, a rare distinction for one so young. In 1380 he was made doctor of the Sorbonne. In his inaugural address he extolled the study of Holy Writ, and afterward held lectures upon the New Testament and the nature of the Church. D’Ailly declared that the passage, Upon this rock,” etc., Mat 16:18, was to be taken in a spiritual sense, asserting that the Bible alone is the everlasting rock upon which the Church is built, as Peter and his successors could not be such, on account of their human frailty. He also distinguished between the universal Church of Christ and the Church of Rome as a particular Church, and maintained that the latter had no precedence before the universal Church, and that another bishop than that of Rome might be the head of the Church. In 1384 D’Ailly was made the head of the College of Navarre, where, Gerson (q.v.) and Nicholas de Clemange (q.v.) were among his pupils. When in the university of Paris, he defended the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception against the Dominicans, and especially against John de Montion; and when the latter appealed from an ecclesiastical censure to Pope Clement VII, the university sent D’Ailly to the pope to defend before him the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, as also the opinion that the right to decide in such questions (“circa ea quoe sunt fidei doctrinaliter definire”) does not belong to the pope alone, but also to the doctores ecclesieoe. , The pope approved both opinions; and the university of Paris elected D’Ailly, in reward for his victory, chancellor. Soon afterward he was made confessor and almoner of Charles VI, archdeacon at Cambray, and treasurer of the Holy Chapel at Paris. In 1394 he was sent by Charles VI to Peter de Luna (Benedict XIII), to prevail upon this anti-pope to resign, but Benedict succeeded in bringing D’Ailly over to his side, and, through him, was recognised by France as the legitimate pope. He appointed D’Ailly, in 1398, bishop of Cambray. D’Ailly continued to take an active and prominent part in the endeavors made for a restoration of the ecclesiastical unity. In 1409 he was a leading member of the Council of Pisa, and prevailed upon the council to depose all the popes who at that time claimed the Papal See. Alexander V was nominated in their place, but died soon after.
His successor, John XXIII, made D’Ailly a cardinal, and papal legate in Germany. As such, he took part in the Council of Constance, where he was again very conspicuous. SEE CONSTANCE, COUNCIL OF. Soon after his arrival, and through his influence, the Council adopted a resolution that the vote on the reformation of the Church should be taken, not according to heads, but according to nations a decision which at once fixed the fate of John XXIII. He again urged the resignation or deposition of all the popes, and the election by the Council of a new pope, who should pledge himself to carry out the reformatory decrees of the Council. He strongly maintained the superiority of a general council over the pope, and under the influence of his views Benedict XIII was deposed. He was one of the Committee to investigate the case of John Huss, and it is a stain upon his great name that he voted for the condemnation of the reformer. In the question whether the election of a new pope was to take place before or after the completion of the reformatory decrees of the Council, D’Ailly separated from the reformatory party (the Germans, Gerson, etc.), carried the priority of the papal election, and thereby neutralized to a large extent the beneficial effects which otherwise the Council might have produced. Martin V appointed him legate at Avignon; he died there in 1425; or, according to another account, on a legative mission in the Netherlands, 1420. D’Ailly is one of the most remarkable dignitaries of the Church of the Middle Ages, and greatly distinguished both as a theologian and orator. He was, however, addicted to a belief in astrology, maintaining that important events might be predicted from the conjunctions of the planets. A very remarkable coincidence appears in the case of one of his predictions, viz., that in the year 1789, “si mundus usque ad illa tempora duraverit, quod solus Deus novit, multze tune et magnae et mirabiles alterationes mundi et mutationes faturae sunt, et maxime circa leges et sectas.” This prediction was written in 1414, in his Concord. astronomic cum historica narratione (published in Augsburg, 1490, 4to). D’Ailly may be considered as a predecessor of that liberal party in the Roman Catholic Church afterward represented by Bossuet and Fenelon. His principal writings were published at Douay, 1634, 8vo; but there is no full collection of his works. Among them are:
1. Commentarii Breves in libros 4 Sentent. (1500,’ 4to):
2. Quatuor Principia in 4 libros Sentent.:
3. Recommendatio S. Scripturab:
4. Principium in cursum Bibliorum:
5. Quaestio Vesperiarum, utrum Petri Eccl. lege reguletur:
6. Quoestio resumpta, utrum P. E. Rege gubernetur, lege reguletur, fide confirmetur, et jure dominetur:
7. Speculum Considerationis:
8. Compendium Contemplationis, in 3 tractatus:
9. Deuteronomy 4 Gradibus Scale Spiritualis:
10. Epitome Quadruplicis Exercitii Spiritualis:
11. De Oratione Dominica Tractatus 2.
12. Salutationis Angelicoe Expositio devota:
13. Verbum abbreviatum super libros Psalmorum:
14. Meditationes 2 in Psalms 30 :
15. Meditat. in Psalm “Judica me, Deus:”
16. Meditat. in 7 Psalm Penitentiales:
17. Meditat. in Cantica, Magnificat, Benedictus, et Nunc Dimit.:
18. Expositio in Cantica Canticorum Solomonis:
19. 12 Honores S. Josephi Sponsi Virganis. All the above, from the Speculum Considerationis to the last, inclusive, were published at Douay in 1634 (8vo):
20. Tractatus de A nima (Paris, 1494, 8vo; 1505):
21. Sermones, varii Argumenti. 20:
22. Modus seu Forma eligendi Summ. Pontif.
23. Libellus de Emendatione Eccl., in the “Fasciculus rerum expetendarum” (Cologne, 1535):
24. De Ecclesioe et Cardinalium auctoritate libellus (in Gerson’s works, Paris, 1606, tom. 1, p. 895).
25. Sacramentale (Louvain, 1487):
26. Vita S. Petri de Morono, afterward Celestine V (Paris, 1539). Dupin, Eccl. Writers, cent. 15, ch. 4; Mosheim, Ch. Hist. cent. 14, pt. 2, ch. 2, 38; Cave, Hist. Lit. ann. 1396; Dinaud, Notice historique et literaire, sur P. D’Ailly (Cambray, 1824, 8vo); Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Generale, 1, 125; Landon, Eccl. Dictionary, 1, 169.