JOHN
477
JOHN
which they made with Pope Eugenius IV was broken
by the Greelis. John afterwards sojourned at Con-
stantinople to study the Greeli language and to be-
come better acquainted with the situation of ecclesias-
tical affairs. Here he completed an etymological
work bearing upon the Greek text of Scripture and
destined to be of service to Catholic controversialists
in treating of the doctrine of the Procession of the
Holy Ghost against the Greek schismatics. He re-
turned to Bologna as a member of a deputation, to
obtain from Eugenius IV an assurance that the pope
would be present at the council. Having acceded to
this request, Eugenius employed John once more to
be the bearer of a document (dated 15 July, 1437) to
the Greek emperor in which the emperor's assistance
was invited at a meeting of the council to be held in
some Italian city. John's subsequent course has been
a subject of dispute: some authors assert that he re-
mained in sympathy with the council, while others
insist that he allied himself with Eugenius IV, who
made him Bishop of Argos. It is proljable that he
took the side of Eugenius. His extant writings are: (1)
Discourse against the Hussites delivered at the Council
of Basle; (2) the Acts, or Reports, of his embassies to
Constantinople, to be found among the Acts of the
Council of Basle; (.3) an account of his travels in the
East, preserved by Leo Allatius. His work on Greek
indeclinable nouns and Scriptural Greek etymology
seems to have been lost.
ToUROM. Histoire des Jiommes illiistres de VOrdre de Saint Dominique (Paris, 1746); Quetif and Echakd, Script. Ord. Pmdicatorum (Paris, 1719).
Albert Reinhart.
John of Roquetaillade (de Rupescissa), Francis- can alchemist, date of liirth unknown; d. probably at Avignon, 136-. After pursuing the study of pMlos- ophy for five years at Toulouse, he entered the Fran- ciscan monastery at Orleans, where he continued his studies for five years longer. His experiments in dis- tillation led to the discovery of what he termed aqua villi:, or usually quinla essentia, and commended as a panacea for aU disease. His work as an alchemist forms the subject-matter of " De consideratione quintae essentife" (Basle, 1561) and "De extractione quintte essentiae "; likewise " Libellus de conficiendo vero lapide philosophico ad sublevandam inopiam paps et cleri in tempore tribulationis " (Strasburg, 1659). His false prophecies and violent denunciation of eccle- siastical abuses brought him into disfavour with his superiors, resulting in his imprisonment by Clement VI (1345) and Innocent VI (1356). While there he wrote in 1349 his " Visiones seu revelationes", and in 1356 " Vade Mecum in tribulatione" and "Ostensor" (in Brown, "Fascicula rerum expetendarum et fugien- darum", III, London, 1640). His other works include commentaries on the Sentences and on the " Oraculum Cyrilli", "Fragmenta revelationum", " Apologus pro- pheticus ", De famulatu pliilosophis ad theologiam ".
Sbaralea. Suppl. ad script. Ord. Min. (Rome, 1806); Jeiler in Kirchenlex., s. v. Johannes von Roquetaillade; Schnurer in Kirchliches Handlex.
F. M. Rudge.
John of Rupella, Franciscan theologian, b. at La Rochelle (Rupella), towards the end of the twelfth century; d. 1245 (al., 1271). He seems to have entered the Franciscan Order at an early age, and was sent to the house of studies at Paris. There he was a disciple of Alexander of Hales, by whom he was presented for the bachelorship of theology. He was the first Franciscan to receive that degree at the University of Paris. In 123S he was already a master of theology, with his own pupils, for his name is to be found in the list of masters convoked in that year by William, Bishop of Paris, to discuss the vexed question of ecclesiastical benefices. John was of the number of those who declared against the general
lawfulness of plurahty, and who afterwards taught
the same doctrine in their schools. He appears
henceforward to have enjoyed a very considerable
reputation, and is described by Bernard of Besse as a
professor of great fame for holiness and learning,
whose writings were both solid and extremely use-
ful. The same writer also declares him to be the best
preacher of his day. This judgment should per-
haps be tempered by the consideration of Bernard's
anxiety to prove that the greatest theologian (Alex-
ander of Hales), the greatest warrior (John of
Brienne), and the greatest preacher, all three be-
longed to his ovnx Franciscan Order.
In the dissensions which already rent the order, John was one of the most determined opponents of Brother Ehas, and with Alexander of Hales placed himself at the head of the movement which brought about Elias's downfall in 1239. At the command of Haymo of Faversham, who succeedetl Elias as general, he collaborated with Alexander of Hales, Robert of Bastia, Richard of Cornwall, and several others less important, on an explanation of the Rule of St. Francis. The work received the approbation of the chapter (probably definitorial) of the order held at Bologna in 1242, and subsequently Ijecame known as the Exposition of the Four Masters". Wadding and the majority of succeeding writers place John of Rupella's death in 1271, but a letter of Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, written in Sept. or Oct., 1245, speaks of him as being then already dead: " mortuis fratribus Alexandro de Hales, et Joanne de Rupcllis ". The date according to Denifle was 3 Feb., but according to du Boulay 27 Oct. The first date would preclude all possibility of attendance at the Council of Lyons; and Luguet's assertion is probably thus without foundation. It is interesting, however, to note in this connexion that a manuscript published in resume by Father Fidelis a Fanna (" Ratio Novae collectionis omnium operum S. Bonaventura; ", Turin, 1874, 98) contains a sermon preached by Master John de Rupella in the Dominican Monastery of Lyons, before the Roman Court.
No complete edition of the works of John of Ru- pella has ever been pubhshed. The "Exposition of the Four Masters" was printed at Venice in 1513, in the "Firmamentum Trium Ordinum", pars 3a, p. 15b-19a. Two priests of the Diocese of La Rochelle, Canon Cholet and Fr. Grasilier, had already in 1875 prepared for the press the following: "Tractatus de anima"; "De Articulis fidei", or "Summa Theolo- gica"; " De decem praeceptis "; "CommentariainMat- thaeum"; "Postillae in Epistolas Pauli"; "De vitiis"; "Sermones". Nothing has yet resulted from their enterprise. They had also catalogued as belonging to the same author: " Postillae super Danielem "; " in Marcum"; "in Lucam"; "in Apocalypsim". Du Boulay attributed to him a "Commentaria in qua- tuor Libros Sententiarum ", and says he was the first to write such a commentary. His best known work is the "Summa de Anima". Father Fidelis a Fanna (op. cit., 82) says that no work on the same subject is to be found so freciuently in MSS. of the thirteenth and fourteenth century in the many European libraries he searched. The author avails himself fully of the teaching of Aristotle and Avi- cenna, and touches upon all the important questions of psychology afterwards to be treated by the great Scholastics. The work was edited with an intro- duction and studies, in 1882, by Father Theophilus Domenichelli, O.F.M., from a MS. of the Biblioteca Nazionale at Florence, collated principally with two others (A, IV, 25, now no. 1288, and B, IV, 4, now no. 581) of the Casanatense, Rome.
Bartholomew of Pisa, De Con/ormitaie vitee B. Francisci in Analccta Franciscana, IV (Quaracchi, 1906). 337.379. 544; Ber- nard OF Besse. Liber de Laudibus in Anal. Fran. (Quaracchi, 1807), III. 6S6; Cantimpratanus. Bonum universale de Apibus, 1 (Douai, 1627), xx, 70; Chronica XXIV Generalium in Aiw.1.
