Geoffrey of Poitiers

Geoffrey of Poitiers

Gaufridus Pictaviensis

Geoffrey of Poitiers (Gaufridus Pictaviensis, fl. early 13th century) was a master of theology at the University of Paris, active in the circle of Peter the Chanter and a student of Stephen Langton. His Summa (composed ca. 1213–1215) is one of the earliest systematic Parisian summas to draw extensively on Langton's lectures, treating God, creation, the fall, the incarnation, the sacraments, and Christian ethics in the order of Peter Lombard's Sentences. Though widely cited by later scholastics and surviving in several manuscripts, the Summa was never printed and remains largely unedited; only excerpts have appeared in modern scholarship.

Summa

Summa

Summa

1215·239 pages

On the Work of God

De opere dei

A three-column chain of quaestiones from Geoffrey of Poitiers' Summa working out, under the umbrella of Jeremiah 48:10 (maledictus qui facit opus dei negligenter), what it means to do God's work the wrong way. Geoffrey moves through three species — opus dei done negligently (folio 39ra), done fraudulently (39rb), and done for money (39va) — culminating in the celebrated quaestio on whether the master who teaches theology for fees falls under the curse of Micah 3:11, sacerdotes eorum in mercede docebant. There he draws the classic Parisian distinction that publicly licensed teachers (publice persone) are bound to teach freely as doctores verbi dei, lest they become venditores verbi dei.

De opere dei·fol. 39ra–39va