Chapter 14. Gregory of Rimini and the Augustinian Theory of the Will: Examples of a Mediaeval Reading of Augustine’s De libero arbitrio
Résumé
The present contribution examines some features of the theory of the will in Augustine’s De libero arbitrio through Gregory of Rimini’s reading of this work in his recently discovered Tabula beati Augustini super libris de libero arbitrio, the edition of which is forthcoming. Gregory of Rimini, a fourteenth-century philosopher and theologian, contemporary of Bartholomew of Urbino and of Petrarca, was one of the most learned thinkers of his times and an ardent promoter of the thought and texts of saint Augustine. His Tabula beati Augustini super libris de libero arbitrio shows how he selects and reformulates Augustine’s theses on the will, how he takes them up again in his commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, and what doctrinal stakes are perceptible behind his reading of Augustine’s work. Three points are successively examined, namely that “nothing is so fully in our power as the will itself,” the notion of auxilium quo, and the relation between seeing (or impression) and willing.