ROSCELLINUS (RUCELINrus, or ROUSSELIN) (c. 1050c. 1122)

This article appears in Volume V23, Page 725 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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ROSCELLINUS (RUCELINrus, or ROUSSELIN) (c. 1050c. 1122) , often called the founder of Nominalism (see

SCHOLASTICISM

SCHOLASTICISM

), was born at Compiegne (Compendium). Little is known of his life, and our knowledge of his doctrines is mainly derived from Anselm, Abelard and John of

Salisbury

. He studied at Soissons and Reims, was afterwards attached to the

cathedral

CATHEDRAL

of Chartres, and became canon of Compiegne. It seems most probable that

Roscellinus

ROSCELLINUS (RUCELINrus, or ROUSSELIN) (c. 1050–c. 1122)

was not strictly the first to promulgate nominalistic doctrines; but in his exposition they received more definite expression, and, being applied to the dogma of the Trinity, attracted universal attention.

Roscellinus

ROSCELLINUS (RUCELINrus, or ROUSSELIN) (c. 1050–c. 1122)

maintained that itis merely a habit of speech which prevents our speaking of the three persons as three substances or three Gods. If it were otherwise, and the three persons were really one substance or thing (una res), we should be forced to admit that the Father and the Holy Spirit became incarnate along with the Son. Roscellinus seems to have put forward this

doctrine

DOCTRINE

in perfect good faith, and to have claimed for it at first the authority of

Lanfranc

LANFRANC (d. 1089)

and Anselm. In 1092, however, a council convoked by the archbishop of Reims condemned his interpretation, and Roscellinus, who was in danger of being stoned to death by the orthodox populace, recanted his error. He fled to England, but having made himself unpopular by an attack on the doctrines of Anselm, he left the country and repaired to Rome, where he was well received and became reconciled to the Church. He then returned to France, taught at Tours and Loc-menach (Loches) in Brittany (where he had Abelard as a pupil), and finally became canon of Besancon. He is heard of as

late

LATE

as 1121, when he came forward to oppose Abelard's views on the Trinity.
Of the writings of Roscellinus, nothing is preserved except a

letter

LETTER (through Fr. lettre from Lat. littera or litera, letter of the
alphabet
- ALPHABET (see also WRITING)
; the origin of the Latin word is obscure; it has probably no connexion with the root of linere, to smear, i.e. with wax, for an inscription with a stilus)

to Abelard, mainly concerned with the

doctrine

DOCTRINE

of the Trinity (ed. J. A. Schmeller,

Munich

MUNICH (Ger. Munchen)

, 185o). See F. Picaret, Rosselin, philosophe et theologien (1896), and authorities quoted under

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