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FRANCISCANS OF THE IMMACULATE, IN ASSOCIATION WITH A DAY WITH MARY

From an article by Charles Balic, OFM, written in 1966 to commemorate the seventh centenary of the birth of blessed John Duns Scotus

A disputed question…

Under the above heading, The Berwickshire News of Tuesday 12 April, 1966, printed a letter to the editor in which it was stated that we are still uncertain about the exact birthplace of the great British philosopher and theologian, John Duns Scotus…

It is not necessary to point out that in the field of history one cannot always expect to have obvious evidence leading to a kind of mathematical certainty. Often we must be content with arguments which afford moral certitude or give such a degree of probability as to exclude any other hypothesis. Now it seems to me quite certain that the documents and the historical arguments which we possess lead us with certainty to the conclusion that the town of Duns in Scotland was the birthplace of the Subtle Doctor, John Duns Scotus.

An Irishman, or an Englishman perhaps?

Two monographs on Duns Scotus appeared at the end of the second decade of this century, one by P?re Alexandre Bertoni, O.F.M., and the other by Padre Egidio Maria Giusto, O.F.M., and both mentioned the attempts to make our Doctor either an Irishman or an Englishman. The former wrote: ?Ceux qui veulent faire du Subtil Docteur un anglais, ont contre eux le terrible argument du nom Scotus, qui les repousse et les met hors de combat?; and the other writer supports him: ?Giacch? risulta da un lato che i coevi fanno del nostro Giovanni Duns Scoto uno Scozzese, e che dall’altro lato il suo nome Scotus significa per i contemporanei come per noi Scozzese, ogni critico imparziale dovr? perentoriamente risolvere la controversia in favore della Scozia.?

John, son of Scotland!

Ever since the fourteenth century the voice of the manuscripts says clearly that Duns Scotus belongs to Scotland. It suffices to glance at the description of the codices in the first volume of the Vatican edition of the works of Scotus. Thus, for example, in the Padua codex we read at the beginning: ?Summa about the first book of the Sentences, by Master John Dinus (!) of Scotland,? and afterwards: ?Summa of questions on the second book .of the Sentences, edited by the Reverend Master John of Scoland.? In the Cesena codex, in the lament for the death of Scotus, we read: ?Mourn, 0 Scotland, for thy uncommon glory has perished,? and the same poem is found in a more extensive form in the very ancient codex B.I. of Canterbury Cathedral Library, where Scotus is called plainly ?John, son of Scotland.? The immediate followers of Scotus also affirm in their writings that the Subtle Doctor is ?a Scot by nationality.?

An objection answered…

Whatever the names may have meant in earlier centuries, we find that at the time of our Doctor the names Scotland and Ireland were quite distinct in meaning. This appears from various documents, among which is the famous scroll of the year 1303 in which we read the names of the Franciscans who refused to sign the petition of King Philip the Fair against Pope Boniface VIII.

In this document, side by side with our Doctor, who is named ?Friar John, Scot,? we find ?Friar Richard, Irish,? ?Friar Odo, Irish,? and ?Friar Thomas, English.?

Duns Scotus himself clearly distinguishes Scotland from Ireland when he writes: ?The seas flow more rapidly the nearer they are to the ocean, like the northern seas, especially the sea between Norway and Scotland, and between Ireland and Spain.? Since the term Scotia minor, at the time of Duns Scotus, no longer distinguished Scotland from Ireland (Scotia maior), but Scotia simply meant what we call Scotland today, and since the earliest documents agree that John was born ?in Scotia,? it follows that we must seek his birthplace in that country, and not elsewhere.

If Scottish, where in Scotland?

Writing in 1921, and arguing from the fact that ?if the Subtle Doctor had been born in Ireland and not in Scotland, he could in no wise have been called Scotus,? Father Giusto suggested that the birthplace was ?the little town of Duns, not far from Berwick?, which had been destroyed in 1545. This opinion prevailed until, in 1929 and 1931, the Franciscan Fathers Longpr? and Callebaut drew attention to the writings of Marianus Brockie preserved at St. Mary’s College, Blairs, and thus orientated opinion in favour of the birth of Scotus in the estate of Littledean, at Maxton, in the county of Roxburghshire. But even before Reverend Henry Docherty
published his study entitled The Brockie Forgeries, Brockie’s evidence was not altogether convincing. Only once before his time had it been asserted that John was ?from Littledean,? whereas it was stated constantly from the first half of the fourteenth century that he was a native of Duns. Among the more important sources the first place belongs to codex 137 of the Municipal Library of Assisi, a manuscript which preserves the mediaeval critical edition of the Ordinatio of Duns Scotus, compiled about 1325 and based on the text corrected by Scotus in his own hand. Here we find the first book on the Sentences ?of Friar John of Duns, a Scot, of the Order of Friars Minor.?

In the Vatican manuscript (cod. lat. 876) of the fourteenth century, after the significant lines: ?Ioannes hic Scotorum, in scholis profecit Anglorum, in Ordine Minorum, fuit doctor Parisiorum,? we meet a valuable witness in the person of John’s own companion or secretary, who writes: ?Additions to the second book of Master John of Duns, the Subtle Doctor, extracted by Master William of Alnwick….? Numerous other codices of the fourteenth century make our Doctor a native of Duns?, to say nothing of the many codices of the fifteenth century which not only assert plainly that our Doctor was ?Scottish by nationality,? but also that he is called John Scotus, ?also known as John of Duns.? ?

John Dunensis? Perhaps not…

In the face of these early and unequivocal testimonies there seems no reason to engage in speculation and to propose hypotheses about other possible places where Duns Scotus might have been born, whether in Ireland or in England, on the plea that the Celtic particle dun appears in their place names. Thus Luke Wadding asserts that Scotus was born in Dun, an ancient city in the north of Ireland, and that Duns is only a contracted form of the adjective Dunensis or Dunius. Similarly Father Bertoni affirms that John was born at ?Downs, in the province of Ulster?.? Thomas Dempster is very annoyed with the Irish who assert that ?Duns is a contracted form of Dunensis, but do not produce any codex where that contraction can be found.?

John of Dunstan, a fellow of Merton College, Oxford?

There is no confirmation of the late evidence offered by the codices of the Bodleian and of Balliol College, written by Reynbold of Zierenberg in 1451 and 1460, namely that John Duns was born ?in a little village called Dunstan, in the parish of Emyldon, in the county of Northumberland, (a parish) belonging to Merton College in Oxford, and he was formerly a fellow of the same College.? Furthermore, there is no evidence whatever that Scotus was ever a fellow of Merton.

The 59 varieties of ?Duns?!

The fact remains that in all the earlier documents the Subtle Doctor is said to be ?of Duns,? of ?Dinis,? ?Dons,? ?Dunz,? or ?Duncz.? In one fourteenth century manuscript preserved at Oxford we find the two names ?Dons? and ?Douns? used in the same manuscript; and in the fifteenth century codex 525 of the Biblioth?que de l?Arsenal of Paris we read: ?John of Downs, Scottish by nationality.?

These variations, however, are not contractions of Dunstan or Dun, but simply different ways of writing the same word, Duns, as always happened with the names of persons or places.

Thomas Dempster proved himself a stout defender of the Scottish origin of Duns Scotus: ?There is as much discussion about his birthplace,? he said, ?as about Homer’s?. Wadding enlarged on this: ?The Irish, the English, and the Scots dispute about his fatherland; for the glory of so great a man makes each of these provinces eager to claim him as their own, just as the Greek cities of old fought bitterly about the birthplace of Homer.? After all his efforts to prove Duns Scotus to be an Irishman, the celebrated historian concluded that the matter was far from certain, and he ends with the na?ve plea that Scotus belongs to Ireland because neither the English nor the Scots have exerted themselves or made such sacrifices for his glory: ?If reward is due to merit, and recompense to labour, then Scotus can be awarded to nobody but to the Irish.? …

United in honouring a great saint…

I cherish the hope that the three countries which for centuries contested the claim to be Scotus’ native land will come together on the seventeenth of September [1966] in Duns, around the monument to be erected in his honour, with the inscription:

?Scotia habet cunas, famam Orbis,
funera Rhenus,
Caelum animam,
hic magni spirat
imago viri.?

?Scotland has his cradle,
the World his fame,
the Rhine his burial,
Heaven has his soul,
the figure of this great man
breathes here.?

For Information on The Symposium on the Mariology Duns Scotus in honor of the 700th Centenary of Scotus’ Death.

In England:
Symposium Secretariat
15 Carlton Crescent
Surrey SM3 9TS
England UK
Phone: 020 8641 6418
E-mail: trevor.symposium@talktalk.net

Ave Maria!

Funny how the secularists can create the most intolerant of religions:

Environmentalists are Gaia?s priests, instructing us in her proper service and casting out those who refuse to genuflect. . . And having proclaimed the ultimate commandment ? carbon chastity ? they are preparing the supporting canonical legislation that will tell you how much you can travel, what kind of light you will read by, and at what temperature you may set your bedroom thermostat.

Just Monday, a British parliamentary committee proposed that every citizen be required to carry a carbon card that must be presented, under penalty of law, when buying gasoline, taking an airplane, or using electricity. The card contains your yearly carbon ration to be drawn down with every purchase, every trip, every swipe.

“Absolutely not, no, no. I am not interested in being offensive. I am interested in having a discussion and asking questions about how we think about our world and what we accept and what we don’t accept,”

Of course, she is competing with the likes of another daring “artist” who has a statue of Our Lady wearing a burqa. They both vie for the illustrious Blake Prize in religious art. Oh gee..well that’s different.

I wonder if any of these folks care to test the theory that Islam is the religion of peace by morphing Muhammad?

Canberra, Aug. 23, 2007 (CWNews.com) – Bishop Pat Power, an auxiliary of the Canberra, Australia diocese, has indicated his support for an end to mandatory clerical celibacy, and suggested a new discussion of the possibility of ordaining women.

In a public response to a campaign by Australian Catholic activists to end the celibacy discipline, Bishop Power said that while Vatican leaders are unwilling to reconsider the issue, among “ordinary Catholics” he has found both support and “a sense of urgency” about the need for change.

Get the whole story.

The practice of spouses jointly celebrating the sacrament of confession recently garnered support from Catholic News Service veteran columnist Fr. John Deitzen. Provided that couples “approve and consider it helpful for their marriage”, Deitzen holds that spouses may confess their sins in each other’s presence and receive absolution. He notes only that each spouse would be bound by the seal of confession in regard to what he or she learned about the other.

Dr. Peters is a canon lawyer and is always great reading. It also helps to have a canon lawyer around as a resource His books on Annulments and Excommunication are spectacular!

London, Aug 23, 2007 / 10:49 am (CNA).- The openly homosexual Episcopal bishop, Bishop V. Gene Robinson, has planned to enter into a civil partnership with his long-term partner just weeks before next year’s Lambeth Conference, reports the Church of England Newspaper.

Seems they all have a “call from God” they’re following.

He told the interviewer about his love for the Anglican Communion, but said he would never step down, as it would go against God’s call for his life.

He said his election was the result of his community’s vote and that he is not sure that they necessarily did the right thing. “That community tried its very best to discern the will of God, and we may be wrong, I am ready to admit to you that I cannot be sure that this is the right thing or the right time or the right way.??

He also said he believes Episcopal Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria “is following his call from God as best as he can?? in leading the campaign against gay bishops.

??I just wish he could believe I am following my call from God as best I can,” Robinson reportedly said.

I wonder which one’s right, or maybe they’re both right? God doth have a sense of humor?

Ave Maria!

On this Feast of Our Lady and after being operational for four months or so, Fr. Angelo Geiger gives the surprise announcement of our grand opening! That’s right, up to now we have not been offically open. It has all been for practice. He mentions the many new shows, our new three column web format that includes a new menu system in the left column. The dedication of the site to St. Clare, Patroness of TV and in honor of Patrick Wroe, son of David Wroe who’s help has been indispensable for Air Maria. He thanks all the many people who have supported Air Maria in so many ways.

Have a blessed Feast of the Annunciation! Ave Maria!