Amalric of Bena (french: Amaury de Bène, Amaury de Chartres; la, Almaricus, Amalricus, Amauricus; died ) was a French

theologian Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...

, philosopher and

sect A sect is a subgroup of a religious, political, or philosophical belief system, usually an offshoot of a larger group. Although the term was originally a classification for religious separated groups, it can now refer to any organization that ...

leader, after whom the Amalricians are named. Reformers such as Martin Luther considered him to be a

proto-Protestant Proto-Protestantism, also called pre-Protestantism, refers to individuals and movements that propagated ideas similar to Protestantism before 1517, which historians usually regard as the starting year for the Reformation era. The relationship be ...

Biography

Amalric was born in the latter part of the 12th century at Bennes, a village between Ollé and

Chauffours Chauffours () is a commune in the Eure-et-Loir department in northern France. Population See also *Communes of the Eure-et-Loir department The following is a list of the 365 communes of the Eure-et-Loir department of France. The commune ...

in the

diocese of Chartres The Diocese of Chartres (Latin: ''Dioecesis Carnutensis''; French: ''Diocèse de Chartres'') is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Catholic Church in France. The diocese is a suffragan in the ecclesiastical province of th ...

. Amalric taught philosophy and theology at the

University of Paris , image_name = Coat of arms of the University of Paris.svg , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of Arms , latin_name = Universitas magistrorum et scholarium Parisiensis , motto = ''Hic et ubique terrarum'' (Latin) , mottoeng = Here and a ...

and enjoyed a great reputation as a subtle dialectician, his lectures developing the

philosophy of Aristotle Aristotelianism ( ) is a philosophical tradition inspired by the work of Aristotle, usually characterized by deductive logic and an analytic inductive method in the study of natural philosophy and metaphysics. It covers the treatment of the socia ...

attracted a large audience. In 1204 his doctrines were condemned by the university and, on a personal appeal to

Pope Innocent III Pope Innocent III ( la, Innocentius III; 1160 or 1161 – 16 July 1216), born Lotario dei Conti di Segni (anglicized as Lothar of Segni), was the head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 8 January 1198 to his death in 16 ...

, 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 The Fourth Council of the Lateran or Lateran IV was convoked by Pope Innocent III in April 1213 and opened at the Lateran Palace in Rome on 11 November 1215. Due to the great length of time between the Council's convocation and meeting, many bi ...

in 1215.

Propositions

Amalric appears to have derived his philosophical system from a selective reading Eriugena, whose expressions he developed in a one-sided and strongly

pantheist Pantheism is the belief that reality, the universe and the cosmos are identical with divinity and a supreme supernatural being or entity, pointing to the universe as being an immanent creator deity still expanding and creating, which has e ...

ic form. Only three propositions can be attributed to him with certainty: #that God is all (''omnia sunt deus'') and thus all things are one because whatever is, is God (''omnia unum, quia quidquid est, est Deus''); #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; #that he who remains in love of God can commit no sin. Because of the first proposition, God himself is thought to be invisible and only recognizable in his creation. These three propositions were further developed by his followers, who maintained that God revealed Himself in a threefold revelation, the first in the Biblical patriarch

Abraham Abraham, ; ar, , , name=, group= (originally Abram) is the common Hebrew patriarch of the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In Judaism, he is the founding father of the special relationship between the Je ...

, marking the ''epoch of the Father''; the second in

Jesus Christ Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...

, who began the ''epoch of the Son''; and the third in Amalric and his disciples, who inaugurated the ''era of the

Holy Ghost For the majority of Christian denominations, the Holy Spirit, or Holy Ghost, is believed to be the third person of the Trinity, a Triune God manifested as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, each entity itself being God.Gru ...

.'' Amalricians taught: *Hell is ignorance, therefore Hell is within all men, "like a bad tooth in a mouth"; *God is identical with all that is, even evil belongs to God and proves God's omnipotence; *A man who knows that God works through everything cannot sin, because every human act is then the act of God; *A man who recognizes the truth that God works through everything is already in Heaven and this is the only resurrection. There is no other life; man's fulfillment is in this life alone. Due to persecutions, this sect does not appear to have long survived the death of its founder. Not long after the burning of ten of their members (1210), the sect itself lost its importance, while some of the surviving Amalricians became Brethren of the Free Spirit. According to

Hosea Ballou Hosea Ballou D.D. (April 30, 1771 – June 7, 1852) was an American Universalist clergyman and theological writer. Originally a Baptist, he converted to Universalism in 1789. He preached in a number of towns in Vermont, New Hampshire, and ...

, then

Pierre Batiffol Pierre Batiffol (27 January 1861, Toulouse, France – 13 January 1929, Paris, France) – was a French Catholic priest and prominent theologian, specialising in Church history. He had also a particular interest in the history of dogma. Batiffol ...

and George T. KnightApocatastasis
. ''New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, Vol. I''. (1914) Amalric believed that all people would eventually be saved and this was one of the counts upon which he was declared a heretic by

References

Attribution: * This cites: ** W. Preger, ''Geschichte der deutschen Mystik im Mittelalter'' (Leipzig, 1874, i. 167–173) ** Hauréau, ''Histoire de la phil. scol.'' (Paris, 1872) ** C. Schmidt, ''Histoire de l'Église d'Occident pendant le moyen âge'' (Paris, 1885) ** Hefele, ''Conciliengeschichte'' (2nd ed., Freiburg, 1886) **

Sources

* Christoph Ulrich Hahn: ''Geschichte der Ketzer im Mittelalter'', Vol. 3 (Stuttgart, 1850) * Arno Borst: ''Religiöse und geistige Bewegungen im Hochmittelalter'', Propyläen Weltgeschichte, Ullstein 1963, Vol. 5, p. 537 * Friedrich Heer ''Medieval World Europe 1100-1350'' * Capelle, G. C., ''Amaury de Bène, étude sur son panthéisme formel'' (Paris, 1932). * Russell, J. B., ''The Influence of Amalric of Bene in Thirteenth Century Pantheism'' (Berkeley, 1957). {{Authority control 1200s deaths 12th-century births 12th-century Christian universalists 12th-century Christian mystics Christian universalist theologians Roman Catholic mystics Pantheists Scholastic philosophers