Antonio Andreas

died 1320

Data published by John Hilary Martin, O.P.,‘The Ordination of Women and the Theologians in the Middle Ages’, published in Escritos del Vedat 16 (1986) 87-143, here pp. 100-101; also in , A History of Women and Ordination, Volume 1, The Ordination of Women in Medieval Context, ed. by Bernard Cooke and Gary Macy, the Scarecrow Press, London 2002, pp. 31-160, here pp. 83-84, 137, 161.

Information on the author

Antonio Andreas (1280-1320), so-called "Doctor Dulcifluus" taught at the newly founded University of Lerida in Sapin about 1315. He later became Franciscan Minister for the Province of Aragon, but beyond that little is known of him. Besides editions of his Sentences, which were frequently reprinted in the 15th and 16th centuries, he has left manuscripts for commentaries on the Metaphysics, a work on the three principles of nature and quaestiones over Gilbert de la Porrée, suggesting an interest in arts and philosophy more than theology. NCE 1: 647-648. In his arguments against the ordination of women he was influenced by Duns Scotus.

Latin Text

Dico ergo, quod non mulier nec de facto nec de congruo, nec aliquomodo est capax susceptionis alicuius ordinis sacri ecclesiastici de dictis, nec creditur hoc esse ex prohibitione ecclesiae, quia ecclesia de se non exceptuasset totum sexum muliebrem ad dignitatum sine culpa, et maxime, quia tales gradus ecclesiae maxime possunt esse, et quantum est de se sunt ad profectum animarum non solum aliorum hominum sed etiam ipsorum habentium tales gradus, et ita credo ita institutum fuisse a Christo, ut dicit Apostolus ad Thimotheum, 'docere mulierem in ecclesia non permitto'; quia scilicet Christus non permittit, et signum expressum est, quia nec suam matrem excedentem in sanctitate omnem puram creaturam instituit in aliquo gradu tali. Ratio huius est forte, quam innuit Apostolus primo ad Cor. [14: 34], quia post lapsum noluit Deus ascendere mulierern ad talem gradum dignitatis; quia sibi in poenam dictum est Gen. [3: 16] 'sub viri potestate eris'. ,
Ant. Andreae Conventualis Franciscani ex Aragoniae Provinciae ac Joannis Scoti Doctoris Subtilis Discipuli Celeberrimi (Venetiis, 1578), IV Sent., dist 25, q. 1, a. 3, 11 fol. 156 rb.

Translation

"I say, therefore, that no woman either de facto or by appropriateness or in any other way is able to receive any of the aforementioned sacred ecclesiastical orders. Nor is this believed to be from a prohibition of the church because the church by itself would hot have excluded the whole female sex from the dignity without sin, and especially since these grades of the church are able to be of such a kind that in so far as in themselves they are for the perfection of the souls not only of other persons but even of the those having these grades. And for this reason I believe it was so instituted by Christ, as the apostle says to Timothy, "I do not permit a woman to teach in church." Since clearly Christ did not permit it, and a sign [of this] was expressed since he did not institute his own mother in any such grade who exceeded in sanctity all pure creatures. The reason for this is strongly given when the apostle intimated in the First Letter to the Corinthians .[14:34] that after the Fall God did not allow women to ascend to such grades of dignity because it was said to them in punishment in Genesis [3:16] 'you will be under the power of men'.''

Commentary on the Fourth Book of Sentences, dist. 25, q. 1, a. 3, Ant. Andreae Conventualis Franciscani ex Aragoniae Provinciae ac Joannis Scoti Doctoris Subtitis Discipuli Celeberrimi (Venice, 1578), vol. 2, fol. 156 rb.

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