Proving Woman (53 page)

Peter d’Ailly’s
On False Prophets
takes a very different direction from the ones pursued by his two predecessors on discernment. Each of the Henrys was primarily
concerned with the way in which various inspirations affect an individual’s spiritual disposition, and how these can be recognized
to ensure the person’s welfare. Doubtless influenced by the external crises of the Hundred Years War and the papal schism,
Peter d’Ailly assumes a more public-minded stance, focusing on Christian society at large and attempting to defend it from
the threat presented by spiritual impostors. Yet despite his profound sensitivity to the dangers of his age, when Antichrist
was nigh and his harbingers arose from multiple sites, the results of Peter’s inquiry were sobering, proffering not even a
modicum of certainty.
¹¹⁵
As such, they can be placed on a continuum with his efforts to exculpate the well-intentioned individual who wins merit through
error. The difficulty of correct discernment resided in the fact that the mere possession of the gift of prophecy in no way
proved that a particular person was sent by God, even if he or she were to prophesy successfully or cast out demons in Christ’s
name.
¹¹⁶
Evil individuals and pseudoprophets could and did work miracles: indeed, during what Peter took to be his own critical age
with the end of the world impending, miracles had gone over to the wrong side and miracle workers were more apt to be evil
than good.
¹¹⁷
The problem was exacerbated by the fact that the threat to the faith issued not from external foes but from indigenous seducers.
¹¹⁸
Furthermore, the members of this prophetic fifth column could even be sincere. For the individuals in question often did not
know themselves for the seducers and hypocrites that they were, instead regarding themselves as saints who had truly conquered
sin.
¹¹⁹

Peter was attuned to Satan’s preeminent role in the creation of these latter-day Simon Maguses. He warned that the power to
work miracles did not require purity of life, since miracles were often performed by demons. Evil spirits could also correctly
predict the future and provide other compelling truths, using demoniacs or false prophets as nuncios.
¹²⁰
Of course it was folly for anyone to rely on such assistance. Demons, ever working to effect humanity’s perdition, often mixed
the truth with falsehood. They also penetrated seemingly prophetic dreams, frequently leading the dreamer to despair and even
suicide in some instances. Indeed, since all predictions of the future were either actually or potentially predicated on demonic
assistance, Peter necessarily censured them all.
¹²¹

Not surprisingly, Peter regarded the chances for an accurate exercise of spiritual discernment as extremely slender. He was
nevertheless prepared to grant that certain telltale signs might assist in the process. For instance, the simulation of sanctity
practiced by pseudoprophets frequently disappeared when they ceased to be praised or if they achieved limited worldly objectives.
They tended to display impatience in adversity; lacked compassion for sinners; became irate over temporal reversals; and introduced
singularities and novelties out of vainglory.
¹²²
Finally, a true prophecy constituted an immobile truth and must therefore be fulfilled. If a prophecy proved false or failed
to materialize, the prophet and prophecy alike were false.
¹²³
Physiological evidence garnered from William of Auvergne was further adduced to provide a distinct profile for the prophetic
disposition. Certain complexions were understood to be especially receptive to prophecy, as, for example, the melancholic
complexion. Moreover, even though the gift of prophecy was not antithetical to vice in the same way that the perfection of
grace was, the passions of the soul could still suspend prophetic gifts. But ultimately, Peter tends to rank the importance
of the individual’s moral disposition over his natural disposition.
¹²⁴

First and last, Peter is compelled to admit that there is no sufficient art of discernment handed down by Scripture for the
purposes of distinguishing false prophets. The very existence of such an art would mean that the Christian faith or the law
of Christ was susceptible to proof, which it clearly was not. At best, one could distinguish the difference between true and
false prophecies only on the basis of probabilities, a practice that must always remain conjectural.
¹²⁵
In short, acknowledging the impossibility of seeing the inner man, Peter determines that the most secure way of identifying
false prophets is in accordance with Christ’s admonition from the Sermon on the Mount: “By their fruits you shall know them
(Matt. 7.16).”
¹²⁶
By falling back upon such a rudimentary standard, Peter does little more than advocate a kind of grassroots, commonsense approach.

Paul had described spiritual discernment as a gift of the spirit (1 Cor. 12.10)—a gift that female mystics seem to have possessed
in abundance. And yet the development of an academic theory of discernment (even one characterized by Peter d’Ailly’s brand
of defeatism) necessarily sidelined the apostolic emphasis on practice, deflecting attention away from its female practitioners.
This tendency was further compounded by the hierarchy of credibility for visionaries posited by Henry of Langenstein, which
potentially discounted women altogether. What is additionally striking about this cadre of writers is the cavalier dismissal
of the evidentiary standards that had been carefully developed over time in the persona of the living saint. Apart from the
apprehensive, even disparaging, remarks about the dangers of spiritual consolations, there is no mention of raptures, stigmata,
illness, or any of the many familiar indicators of medieval somatism so peculiarly characteristic of female saints.
¹²⁷
The fact that such evidence would still play so crucial a role in Ercole d’Este’s future defense of Lucia of Narni indicates
that these dramatic proofs were not forgotten, nor had they ceased to impress. But they were sadly insufficient, except to
the most naive of advocates. Science slowly, but relentlessly, began to triumph over miracle, just as theory trumped practice.
The female mystic’s gift of discernment was disregarded, while her newly pathologized body was rendered increasingly a target
of mistrust as opposed to a receptacle of grace.

¹
Centilogium de impulsibus
17.61–62, in
Oeuvres
, 8:142.

²
For an introduction to the disputation, see Palémon Glorieux, “L’enseignement au Moyen Age,”
Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Age
43 (1968): 123–35. On its early days at the University of Paris, see John Baldwin,
Masters, Princes, and Merchants: The Social
Views of Peter the Chanter and His Circle
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1970), 1:96–107. On university training, see Ruth Karras,
From Boys to Men: Formations of Masculinity
in Late Medieval Europe
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003), pp. 67–108; M. Miche`le Mulchahey,
“First the Bow Is Bent in Study . . .”: Dominican Education before 1350
(Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1998).

³
See chap. 4, p. 134, above.

⁴
Baldwin,
Masters
, 1:97.

⁵
Cf. Jody Enders’s discussion of the contrast between the oral and the written quodlibet, in “The Theater of Scholastic Erudition,”
Comparative Drama
27 (1993): 341–63, esp. 345–46.

⁶
Baldwin,
Masters
, 1:98.

⁷
William Courtenay, “The Reception of Ockham’s Thought at the University of Paris,” in
Preuve et raisons a` l
’
Universite
é
de Paris: Logique, ontologie, et th
è
ologie au XIVe sie`cle
, ed. è non Kaluza and Paul Vignaux (Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1984), pp. 48–50. Regarding John of Mirecourt’s
condemnation, see n. 46, below. Ze

⁸
Nicolas Eymeric,
Directorium inquisitorium . . . denuo ex collatione plurium exemplorum
emendatum, et accessione multarum literarum Apostolicarum
pt. 3 (Rome: In aedibus Pop. Rom., 1578), col. 314; Isabella of Bourges, Doat, vol. 28, fol. 116v.

⁹
See chap. 4, p. 174, above.

¹⁰
See Stephen of Bourbon,
Anecdotes historiques, l
è
gendes et apologues tir
è
s du recueil in
è
dit
d
’
Etienne de Bourbon
, ed. A. Lecoy de la Marche (Paris: Librairie Renouard, 1877), no. 352, pp. 311 ff. Bernard Gui,
Practica inquisitionis hereticae
bk. 5, prologue, ed. Célestin Douais (Paris: Alphonse Picard, 1886), p. 236; trans.
WE
, p. 377. See Gui’s chapters “Concerning the Artifices and Deceptions in Which They Take Refuge When Examined,” which simulates
the interrogation of a wily Waldensian, and “Concerning the Sophistries and Ambiguities of Their Statements” (5.2.7–8, p.
253; trans.
WE
, pp. 397–402). Cf. David of Augsburg, who uses Gui almost verbatim,
Tractatus de haeresi pauperum de Lugduno
, in
Thesaurus novus anecdotorum
, ed. E. Marte`ne and U. Durand (Paris: Lutetia, 1717; reprint, New York: Burt Franklin, 1968), vol. 5, cols. 1789–91.

¹¹
Gui,
Practica
4.3.2, p. 218; Eymeric,
Directorium
pt. 3, p. 313. See Du Cange,
Glossarium
mediae et infimae latinitatis
(Paris: L. Favre, 1886), ad
quaestio
, 6:590; ad
probare
, 6:513.

¹²
See J.M.M.H. Thijssen,
Censure and Heresy at the University of Paris
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998); William Courtenay, “Inquiry and Inquisition: Academic Freedom in Medieval
Universities,”
Church History
58 (1989): 168–81.

¹³
As cited by Palémon Glorieux,
La Litt
è
rature quodlib
è
tique de 1260 a` 1320
(Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1935), 2:49. For the structure of these public debates, see 1:11–51. For the redaction
and development of these questions as a literary genre, see 1:51–58; 2:9–49. Also see J. F. Wippel, “Quodlibetal Questions,
Chiefly in Theological Faculties,” in
Les Questions dispute
è
es et les questions quodlib
è
tiques dans les facult
è
s de th
è
ologie, de droit et de m
è
dicine
, ed. B. C. Bazan et al., Typologie des sources du Moyen Age Occidental, 44–45 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1985), pp. 153–222. Also
see Leonard Boyle, “The Quodlibets of St. Thomas and Pastoral Care,” in
Pastoral Care, Clerical Education and Canon Law, 1200
–
1400
(London: Variorum, 1981), II, pp. 233–34. Albert also allegedly told Thomas of Cantimpréthat once the devil appeared in the
shape of another brother to interrupt his studies, disappearing when the sign of the cross was made (
De apibus
2.57.34, p. 563).

¹⁴
Aquinas,
ST
1a, q. 114, art. 2, 15:74–79.

¹⁵
Ibid.

¹⁶
Glorieux,
Litt
è
rature quodlib
è
tique
, 1:39–40.

¹⁷
Peter the Chanter was especially concerned. See Baldwin,
Masters
, 1:99, 101.

¹⁸
William of Ockham, quodlib. 5, q. 5, resp. ad obj. 1, in
Quodlibeta septem
, ed. Joseph Wey, in
Guillelmi de Ockham: Opera philosophica et theologica
(Saint Bonaventure, N.Y.: Saint Bona-venture University, 1980), 9:496; trans. Alfred Freddoso and Francis Kelley,
Quodlibetal Questions
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), 1:416.

¹⁹
Joseph Owens, “Faith, Ideas, Illumination, and Experience,” in
Cambridge History of Late
Medieval Philosophy
, ed. Norman Kretzmann et. al (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), p. 457; John Boler, “Intuitive and Abstractive
Cognition,” in ibid., pp. 469–70.

²⁰
Tullio Gregory, “La tromperie divine,” in Kaluza and Vignaux,
Preuve et raisons
, p. 190; Jean-Fran ç ois Genest, “Pierre de Ceffons et l’hypothe`se du Dieu Trompeur,” in Kaluza and Vignaux,
Preuve et raisons
, pp. 200–203. In the early modern period, see Gregory, “Dio ingannatore e genio maligno: nota in margine alle
Meditationes
di Descartes,”
Giornale critico della
fi
loso
fi
a
italiana
53 (1974): 477–516.

²¹
Gregory, “La tromperie,” pp. 191–92.

²²
Robert Holkot,
In quatuor libros sententiarum quaestiones
bk. 3, q. 1, art. 8 (London, 1518; reprint, Frankfurt: Minerva, 1967), ZZZ. Similarly in his discussion of contingency, Robert
will deny that God can lie or present improper contentions (see Calvin Normore, “Future Contingents,” in Kretzmann,
Cambridge History
, p. 374). Holkot has traditionally been described as a follower of Ockham, a view that William Courtenay challenges in “Was
There an Ockhamist School?” in
Philosophies and Learning: Universities in the Middle Ages
, ed. Maarten Hoenen et al. (Leiden: Brill, 1995), p. 270.

²³
Holkot,
In quatuor libros
bk. 3, q. 1, art. 8, ad 2,2, BBB.

²⁴
Ibid. art. 8, ad 2, 3, BBB.

²⁵
Ibid. art. 6, ad 2, 3–4, BBB. Note that it was generally held that the devil could penetrate the senses and the imagination,
but not the mind.

²⁶
Ibid. art. 8, 3, 1, BBB.

²⁷
Ibid. art. 8, ad 3, 2–3, BBB.

²⁸
See Dyan Elliott,
Fallen Bodies: Pollution, Sexuality, and Demonology in the Middle Ages
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), pp. 128–35.