Tempier, Étienne

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TEMPIER, ÉTIENNE

Tempier was born in Orléans, date unknown; and died Sept. 3, 1279. As chancellor of the University of Paris in 1263 and bishop of Paris in 1268, he influenced and checked the course of radical aristotelianism and Latin averroism at Paris. On Dec. 10, 1270, he condemned 13 philosophical errors associated with Averroism, and on March 7, 1277, following a request (Jan. 18, 1277) by Pope John XXI (Petrus Hispanus) to inquire into growing charges of heterodoxy, condemned 219 propositions taken from the writings of masters of the faculty of arts, among them siger of brabant, and thomas aquinas (the statements from St. Thomas were removed from the list after his canonization in 1323). The condemnation was directed particularly against the reliance upon the pagan philosophers and the steady encroachment of philosophy upon theology.

Bibliography: l. thorndike, University Records and Life in the Middle Ages (New York 1944). m. grabmann, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. m. buchberger, 10 v. (Freiburg 193038) 9:1044. h. rashdall, Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, ed. f. m. powicke and a. b. emden, 3 v. (Oxford 1936). p. glorieux, Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, ed. a. vacant et al., 15 v. (Paris 190350; Tables Générales 1951) 15.1:99107. f. van steenberghen, Aristotle in the West: The Origins of Latin Aristotelianism, tr. l. johnston (Louvain 1955).

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