Monday, December 1, 2014

"I can be in error, but I cannot be a heretic, because the first belongs to the intellect, the second to the will."

"Errare enim possum, haereticus esse non possum."

     Meister Eckhart, Response to the list of forty-nine articles, Introduction, trans. Bernard McGinn (Meister Eckhart:  the essential sermons, commentaries, treatises, and defense, trans. Edmund Colledge, O.S.A., and Bernard McGinn, Classics of Western spirituality (New York:  Paulist Press, 1981), 72); [Magistri Echardi reponsio ad articulos sibi impositos de scriptis et dictis suis I.1, Responsio ad articulos primi rotuli], abbrev. as Responsio I, n. 80 (Meister Eckhart: Die deutschen und lateinischen Werke: Die lateinischen Werke, ed. Josef Koch et al., 5 vols. (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1936-), vol. 5, ed. Loris Sturlese, p. 277, ll. 4-5).  Surlese cites also "Bonaventura Sent. IV d. 13 dub. 4, Opera omnia IV, 313b: . . . contra Augustinum, qui dicit primo De Trinitate [I c.3 n. 5]:  Errare potero, sed haereticus esse non potero", I shall be able to err, but a heretic will not be able to err.  I do not see this exactly at De Trinitate I.3.5 in the translations, so maybe Bonaventure was paraphrasing?  The edition of Bonaventure at the link above goes on to say, in a footnote, "Colligi potest ex c. 1-4, praesertim ex c. 3, n. 5.  Cfr. praefatio in libr. de Haeres. [7], ubi dicit, quod non omnis error haeresis est, quamvis omnis haeresis, quae in vitio ponitur, nisi errore aliquo haeresis esse non possit", "not every error is a heresy; yet, since every heresy involves a defect, a heresy could only be a heresy by reason of some error" (trans. Teske, Works of Saint Augustine:  a translation for the 21st Century I/18, p. 33).
     I was put onto this by Lee Staman.

No comments: