Condemnations (University of Paris)

The Condemnations at the medieval University of Paris were enacted with papal authority to restrict certain teachings as being heretical.

Condemnation of 1270

Enacted by Bishop Stephen Tempier in December 1270. Listed thirteen propositions as heretical and any one who practiced or taught them would be faced with the punishment of the Inquisition. The banned propositions were related to Averroes theory of the soul and the doctrine of monopsychism. Other propositions banned included Aristotles theory of God as a passive Unmoved Mover.

Conservative forces in the Church attempted to use the Condemnation for political purposes to stop, or at least control and contain, supposed threats to questions of theology posed by Aristotelian reason. In particular the Condemnation targeted such radical scholars as Siger of Brabant.

Condemnation of 1277

Also enacted by Bishop Tempier, these Condemnations listed 219 banned propositions. Among propositions banned included statements on Aristotles Physics: that God could not make several worlds or universes; that he could not move a spherical heavens with a rectilinear motion; that he could not make two bodies exist in the same place at once.

These condemnations eventually lead to a direct attack on the works of Thomas Aquinas.

External link

• "Right, for the wrong reason" from the The Economist.