Abstract
One of the most prominent figures at the Faculty of Theology in Paris during the last quarter of the thirteenth century, Henry of Ghent has been traditionally considered a conservative, “Neo-Augustinian” theologian, fighting against the spread of Aristotelianism and Arabic philosophy – an impression that seemed to be confirmed by Henry’s participation in the commission set up by Bishop Tempier in view of the famous condemnation of March 1277, and by his heated controversies with those theologians closer to the doctrinal legacy of Thomas Aquinas, such as Giles of Rome and Godfrey of Fontaines. However, the progress of the new critical edition of Opera Omnia Henry's – begun in Leuven by Raymond Macken in 1979 and now continued by an international team – has already demonstrated that this image needs to be substantially revised. Indeed, Henry sought to reconcile traditional Augustinian theories with some of the basic principles of Aristotelian epistemology and Avicennian ontology, thereby giving rise to a complex and original synthesis, certainly different from that of Thomas Aquinas, but also from that of the Franciscan masters of his day.
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Bibliography
Primary Sources
Ancient Editions
(1518) Quodlibeta. Parisiis: Vaenundantur ab Iodoco Badio Ascensio (repr. 1961). Bibliothèque S. J., Louvain
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Macken Raymond (1979) Bibliotheca manuscripta Henrici de Gandavo. I. Catalogue A–P; II. Catalogue Q–Z. Répertoire
Henry of Ghent:
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Literature Prior to 1995
Porro P (1996) Bibliography. In: Vanhamel W (ed) Henry of Ghent. Proceedings of the international colloquium on the occasion of the 700th anniversary of his death. Leuven University Press, Leuven, pp 405–434
Porro P (2003) Bibliography on Henry of Ghent, 1994–2002. In: Guldentops G, Steel C (eds) Henry of Ghent and the transformation of scholastic thought. Studies in memory of Jos Decorte. Leuven University Press, Leuven, pp 409–426
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Leone M (2005) Metaphysics, theology and the natural desire to know separate substances in Henry of Ghent. Quaestio 5:513–526
Macken R (1972) La théorie de l’illumination divine dans la philosophie d’Henri de Gand. Recherches de Théologie ancienne et médiévale 39:82–112
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Porro P (1996) Possibilità ed esse essentiae in Enrico di Gand. In: Vanhamel W (ed) Henry of Ghent. Proceedings of the international colloquium on the occasion of the 700th anniversary of his death. Leuven University Press, Leuven, pp 211–253
Porro P (2003) Henry of Ghent on ordained and absolute power. In: Guldentops G, Steel C (eds) Henry of Ghent and the transformation of scholastic thought. Studies in memory of Jos Decorte. Leuven University Press, Leuven, pp 387–408
Porro P (2006) Doing theology (and philosophy) in the first person: Henry of Ghent’s Quodlibeta. In: Schabel C (ed) Theological Quodlibeta in the Middle Ages. The thirteenth century. Brill, Leiden, pp 171–231
Porro P (2009) La teologia a Parigi dopo Tommaso. Enrico di Gand, Egidio Romano, Goffredo di Fontaines. In: Biffi I, Boulnois O, Estelrich JG, Imbach R, Laras G, de Libera A, Porro P, Putallaz FX (eds) Rinnovamento della ‘via antique.’ La creatività tra il XIII e il XIV secolo. Jaca Book-Città Nuova, Milano/Roma, pp 165–262
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Porro, P. (2011). Henry of Ghent. In: Lagerlund, H. (eds) Encyclopedia of Medieval Philosophy. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9729-4_207
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