The Condemnation of 1277
The Contradictory Nature of Bishop Tempier's 219 Condemnations
An overview of Bishop Tempier's Condemnation of 1277 with an emphasis on the contradictory nature of his purpose.
Bishop Tempier’s March 7, 1277 “Condemnation of 219 Propositions” is, if nothing else, an intriguing read. While the introductory passage to this selection (which concerns itself solely with condemning various statements made about religion, philosophy and science) in Hyman and Walsh’s Philosophy in the Middle Ages speaks at length as to the “little doubt of the immediate impact” of the piece, questions are left to the reader on more practical issues, such as: How was this document distributed among the people? Was it distributed? If so, how widely? What was the reaction of the “common” person? The main reason for asking these questions (besides the simple fact that they have gone largely unanswered in the text) is that the first thing that comes to one’s mind when perusing this selection is the question: How would one react to a similar list of condemnations today?
An Aura of Superiority
Whether or not Bishop Tempier saw himself as explicitly superior to the common man, he certainly comes across as strikingly highbrow in his writing. Indeed, he addresses the purpose of his writing to the cause of “some students of the arts in Paris [who] are exceeding the boundaries of their own faculty and are presuming to treat and discuss, as if they were debatable in the schools, certain obvious and loathsome errors.” Tempier, his feathers sufficiently ruffled enough for him to take up his pen, has decided to condemn these “erroneous” statements one by one, hence the piece of writing in question.
To claim a person is “exceeding the boundaries of their own faculty” is outright offensive, quite apart from whether or not it is true. Yet to make this claim about a person, one is not only condemning their faculties, but is elevating their own to a level appropriately authoritative of faculty to judge, and it’s hard when reading this initially to empathize with Tempier’s views when we haven’t even gotten to the meat of his argument and he’s already drawn such vaguely biased lines in his favor.
Tempier’s claim that the students’ treatments and discussions are of “obvious and loathsome errors” presents the modern reader with a similar feeling of contradiction. Who, for instance, is to say the treatments and discussions are erroneous? And if they are indeed erroneous, how are they so obviously and loathsomely so?
Tempier's Catholicism as Predjudice
It should be noted that Tempier, as an apparently unswerving Catholic, measures all things against the Catholic faith. As such, an acceptance of this faith is necessary for an individual to buy into anything he has to say regarding the condemnation of anything else. For instance, condemned proposition 174 states, “After death man loses every good.” This is a statement that in his introduction Tempier states he “strictly forbids.” But here is the problem: How could he possibly know whether or not a man loses every good after death? The answer is he can’t. It’s his opinion, based on his own personal faith, and he has not a small amount of gall to condemn the statement so confidently outright.
Tempier goes on to condemn proposition 180, “That the Christian law impedes learning.” Yet in the introduction he explicitly states, in regards to the propositions he is condemning, “We excommunicate all those who shall have taught the said errors or any one of them, or shall have dared in any way to defend or uphold them, or even listen to them.” Despite Tempier’s objection in his condemnation of the statement, it sure would seem that the Christian law inspiring him to condemn all these statements is impeding the learning of those who would want to study them, unless of course the threat of excommunication for simply listening to them is not a deterrent.
What it all comes down to is Tempier’s attitude toward those who would forward alternative teachings, “as if they were debatable.” The problem is that everything is debatable, even the veracity of Tempier’s Catholicism. Unless the audience were ultimately sympathetic to the religious convictions of the author, as was possibly the case in Tempier’s time, a list similar to this would have little real impact in the United States, if only because of the high value placed on the individuality of thought and open-mindedness in our modern Western society.
