Guillaume d'Auvergne

William of Auvergne (1180/90-1249) was a French priest who served as Bishop of Paris from 1228 until his death in 1249. He is also known as Guillaume d'Auvergne, Guilielmus Alvernus, or William of Paris.

Very little is known of William's early life. He was born in Aurillac and the likely date range for his birth is reckoned from the fact that a professor of Theology normally needed to be at least 35 years old. If that holds good, then William could have been born as early as 1180 or as late as 1190.

He went to Paris to study and earned a master's degree in Theology at the University of Paris. A Scholastic philosopher, he was made a professor first in the faculty of arts and then in 1220 in that of theology. His theology was systematically Aristotelian, although not uncritically so, and he was the first theologian to attempt to reconcile Aristotle with Christian doctrine, and especially with the teachings of Augustine of Hippo. The Aristotelian texts which were then available in Western Europe were few in number and mostly Arab translations. William sought to rescue Aristotle from the Arabians and worked to refute certain doctrines, such as the eternality of the world and the heresy of Catharism. His major work is the Magisterium Divinale, which has been translated as "Teaching on God in the Mode of Wisdom"

By 1223, William was a canon at the Notre Dame cathedral. Upon the death of the bishop of Paris, Bartholomaeus (20 Oct 1227), the canons elected Nicolas as the next bishop. William was dissatisfied with this outcome and went to Rome to ask the Pope to intervene. Whilst in Rome he made such a strong impression on Pope Gregory IX that the pope chose William in 1228 to be the next bishop of Paris.

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