AMALRIC (Fr. AMAURY) OF BENA (d.c. 1204-1207), French
theologian, was born in the latter part of the 12th century
at Bena, a village in the diocese of Chartres. He taught
philosophy and theology at the university of Paris and enjoyed
a great reputation as a subtle dialectician; his lectures
developing the philosophy of Aristotle attracted a large
circle of hearers. In 1204 his doctrines were condemned by
the university, and, on a personal appeal to
Pope Innocent
III., the sentence was ratified, Amalric being ordered to
return to Paris and recant his errors. His death was caused,
it is said, by grief at the humiliation to which he had been
subjected. In 1209 ten of his followers were burnt before
the gates of Paris, and Amalric's own body was exhumed
and burnt and the ashes given to the winds. The doctrines
of his followers, known as the Amalricians, were formally
condemned by the fourth Lateran Council in 1215. Amalric
appears to have derived his philosophical system from Erigena
(q.v.), whose principles he developed in a one-sided and
strongly pantheistic form. Three propositions only can with
certainty be attributed to him: (1) that God is all; (2) that
every Christian is bound to believe that he is a member of
the body of Christ, and that this belief is necessary for
salvation: (3) that he who remains in love of God can commit no
sin. These three propositions were further developed by
his followers, who maintained that God revealed Himself
in a threefold revelation, the first in Abraham, marking
the epoch of the Father; the second in Christ, who began
the epoch of the Son; and the third in Amalric and his
disciples, who inaugurated the era of the Holy Ghost. Under
the pretext that a true believer could commit no sin, the
Amalricians indulged in every excess, and the sect does
not appear to have long survived the death of its founder.
See W. Preger, Gleschichte der deutschen Mystik im
Mittelalter (Leipzig, 1874, i. 167-173); Haureau, Hist.
de la phil. scol. (Paris, 1872); C. Schmidt, Hist. de
l'Eglise d'Occident itendant le moyen age (Paris, 1885);
Hefele, Conciliengesch. (2nd ed., Ereiburg, 1886).
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