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Doctor Subtilis

—Blessed John Duns Scotus (1265–1308)

A proud and canny Scot from Duns am I,
an infant when Franciscans reached our coast.
These friars gave me tools to weigh the why
of doctrines puzzling theologians most.

Northhampton brothers shaped my childish mind.
My tutors sent me then to Oxford’s halls
where I embraced the academic grind,
mastered the skill of philosophic brawls.

At Paris—nonpareil prestige—I taught.
Adept in Lombard’s Sentences, my role,
aiding each lad to learn attested thought,
espouse our one true faith to save his soul.

French Philip sought to tax the papal land.
My loyalty stayed ever with the Church.
Against his royal law I took a stand:
I was soon severed from my lofty perch.

The King restored my rank within a year,
a brisk reversal of his regal stance.
I flourished in that intellectual sphere,
performed an erudite Scholastic dance.

Thereafter, my superiors humbled me.
consigned me to Cologne, a modest berth,
a post to chasten my celebrity,
a ploy to hurl my hubris down to earth.

At forty-one, Death claimed me for his own.
A Latin verse adorns my German tomb.
It tells of Scotland, England, France, Cologne—
priories where my priest’s vocation bloomed.

Always, I wrote: profound, the feel of quill
in hand, of fluid iron-gall ink, the play
of logic’s labyrinth, a thinker’s thrill
at bringing covert knotty points to bay.

I advocate the “this-ness” of each thing
(Aquinas contra, on this point we’re split).
God’s Being is the same as our own being
but we are finite, He is infinite.

By atheist pedants, I am misconstrued:
they think I ushered in modernity.
Not so! Re-read me! When correctly viewed,
my work fits us for blest eternity.

.

.

Mary Jane Myers resides in Springfield, Illinois. She is a retired JD/CPA tax specialist. Her debut short story collection Curious Affairs was published by Paul Dry Books in 2018.

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2 Responses

  1. Roy Eugene Peterson

    This is an erudite etude on an eminence echoing down through the years who wrote essays on the ephemeral and eternal that continue to elicit praise as you have done in your excellent poem.

    Reply
  2. Joseph S. Salemi

    This is an interesting combination of a dramatic monologue, narrative, and a philosophic exposition. And for something of this nature, the choice of ABAB quatrains was wise. It separated the various pieces of information, whether personal history or philosophic comment, into manageable segments for the reader.

    Scotus didn’t differ from Aquinas solely on the issue of haeccitas. There were other things like Divine will and the Immaculate Conception (the Church eventually went with Scotus on this point rather that with Aquinas). It’s also well to note that rivalry between the two orders of friars (Dominican and Franciscan) frequently played a role in the theological debates of that time, and even later on.

    As for a medieval Catholic theologian who may have helped usher in modernism, that award should probably go to William of Occam. Read the book “Ideas Have Consequences” (1948) by a American southern scholar whose name I believe was Richard Weaver.

    Reply

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