Abbreviatio in I Sententiarum Aegidii Romani

The Abbreviatio in I Sententiarum Aegidii Romani of James of Viterbo has long been regarded as a shortened form of the ordinatio of Giles of Rome’s Commentary on the first book of the Sententiae of Peter Lombard.

The Augustinian master could have written this work in Viterbo, where he was lector (1283-1285), or perhaps in Naples, when he was lector principalis of the Studium generale (1300-1302).

In the last century, Gutiérrez has supposed that the Abbreviatio is a summary of the first 43 questions of the pars prima of Aquinas' Summa Theologiae.

Despite the title - affixed to the manuscript by a later hand, probably in the fifteenth century - the author not only offers a simple abbreviation of the thesis of the Roman, but he composes together longer or shorter excerpts from the Commentary of Giles and from the works of Thomas Aquinas (from Super I Sententiarum, as well as from the Summa theologiae, the De veritate and the Compendium theologiae).

Aquinas is even more quoted than Giles and he can be considered as the main source of the Augustinian.

The attention to the texts and the positions of Thomas might suggest that the Abbreviatio is not an early work; it also shows that the title is not appropriate to the content of the work.

This brief commentary was probably used for personal study or, more likely, to teaching, as attested by its schematic nature and by its contents' brevity.

The work is transmitted in an only code: it is unedited, with the exception of the introductory questions on the scientia theologica and the distinction XXXVI.

 James of Viterbo

Augustinian master, successor of Giles of Rome in the regency of the hermit studium in Paris (1293-1297) and lector principalis of the studium in Naples (1300-1302), James is considered one of the most lucid witnesses of the philosophical-theological debate at the end of the thirteenth century.

For this reason he was known to his contemporaries as Doctor speculativus, gratiosus, inventivus.

He is usually considered one of the most important representatives of the so-called "egidian school". His work appears to be characterized by great freedom of judgment against Giles. To Giles' positions James sometimes prefers those of Thomas Aquinas or Henry of Ghent.