Duns Scotus in Paris,
in Latin and English
Fr. Allan Wolter, O.F.M., and Dr. Oleg Bychkov published a volume that ranks among the finest contributions of the Franciscan Institute to medieval studies to date. They edited and translated a listener's report on Duns Scotus's Paris lectures on Peter Lombard's Sentences. The title is as weighty as the 1288-page volume: John Duns Scotus. The Examined Report of the Paris Lecture. Reportatio I-A. The book itself is the first of a two-volume work to be completed in 2006.
Fr. Allan Wolter first taught in the Franciscan Institute in the 1940s. He returned to The Institute, one last time, to take the Josepah A.Doino Visiting Professorship of Franciscan Studies in 1997. In 2002, in his eighty-ninth year, he retired to St. Louis. Dr. Oleg Bychkov, Associate Professor in the theology department of St. Bonaventure University, worked with Wolter on the edition, reviewing the Latin text as well as Wolter's English translation, espcially after Fr. Allan's retirement.
Scotus (1265-1308) is known as the inventive thinker who continued the Franciscan tradition that began in Paris in the late 1230s with Alexander of Hales and built upon the thought of Bonaventure. His influence has continued into modern times. After an eclipse of sorts as a consequence of the prominence of Neothomism in the Church, Scotus has slowly won again the great respect of thinkers, philosophical and theological, that he enjoyed in previous centuries. The present publication both justifies that respect and will certainly stimulate its development.
In such a way, the Franciscan Institute helps give past Franciscans a voice today. Wolter and Bychkov have not only enabled Scotus to speak again; they have given him an English tongue as well.
Ongoing Projects by Franciscan Institute Researchers
Robert J. Karris, O.F.M.
Robert J. Karris, OFM, ThD, is a Franciscan priest of the Sacred Heart Province whose headquarters are in St. Louis. He earned an STL from Catholic University of America and a Th.D. from Harvard University in New Testament and Early Church History.
Fr. Karris is a former professor of New Testament at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago and a former Provincial Minister of Sacred Heart Province and General Councilor of the Order of Friars Minor. Currently, he is research professor at The Franciscan Institute of St. Bonaventure University.
He has been widely published and his most recent New Testament books are "John: Stories of the Word" and "Faith and Eating Your Way through Luke’s Gospel."
He is a past president of the Catholic Biblical Association of America and for the last four years he has preached in more than 120 churches in the United States on behalf of the poor served by Food for the Poor. He is general editor of the 15-volume Works of St. Bonaventure series published by Franciscan Institute Publications.
Among other books with Franciscan Institute Publications, Fr. Karris has written "The Admonitions of St. Francis: Sources and Meanings" and has translated and edited several including, "Defense of the Mendicants" (translated by Karris and Jose de Vinck), "Disputed Questions on Evangelical Perfection" (translated by Karris and Thomas Reist, OFM), "Bonaventure’s Commentary on the Gospel of John" (edited by Karris), "Bonaventure’s Commentary on the Gospel of Luke" (edited by Karris), "Bonaventure’s Commentary on Ecclesiastes" (edited by Karris and Campion Murray, OFM), "In the Name of St. Francis: A History of the Friars Minor and Franciscanism Until the Early Sixteenth Century" (by Gordo Giovanni Merlo, translated by Karris and Raphael Bonnano, OFM).
