DURANDUS OF AURILLAC

French Dominican theologian; fl. 1330 to 1334. Born in the Diocese of Saint-Flour in the province of Auvergne, he joined the order at Clermont. The general chapter of the order held at Utrecht in 1330 assigned him on May 27 to lecture on the Sentences that very year at the University of Paris. He attended the meeting of masters in theology, held in the presence of Philip VI on Dec. 20, 1332, to discuss the heatedly debated question "whether the souls of the blessed possess the beatific vision before the day of the last judgment." This was occasioned by the personal opinion of john xxii that they did not. Durandus signed a joint statement of the theologians opposing the pope's view on Jan. 2, 1333. He is credited with having written Scripta in 4 libros sententiarum and two quodlibets, but these have not yet been discovered. Therefore his significance as a theologian and Thomist cannot be determined. The dates commonly given for his death, 1380 and 1382, are not impossible but rather improbable. Quétif-Échard (1:587–588) and many others have identified this Durandus with a certain Durandellus, author of Evidentiae contra Durandum, a defense of Thomistic teaching against the views of durandus of saint-pourÇain. Since this work was composed c. 1330, Durandellus could conceivably be identified with the young Durandus of Aurillac. However, J. Koch has presented a strong case against this identification in favor of Nicholas of Saint-Victor, a disciple of john of naples.

Bibliography: j. koch, "Durandus de S. Porciano, OP," Beiträge zur Geschichte des Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters 26 (1927) 240–369. a. bacci, Ex primordiis scholae thomisticae (Rome 1928) 51–72. b. decker, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner (2d, new ed. Freiburg 1957–65) 3:610. j. quÉtif and j. Échard, Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum, 5 v. (Paris 1719–23) 2:819–820. g. mollat, Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques, ed. a. baudrillart et al. (Paris 1912–) 14:1156. Histoire littéraire de la France, ed. Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (1814–1941) 36 (1938) 515–517.

[j. j. przezdziecki]