The Lectura, a course on the Sentences in Oxford

Abstract

Scotus’ early death had serious consequences for the editing and the reception of his work. Some of his books, works like De primo principio and the Quodlibeta, were almost ready for publication but others like the Ordinatio and the commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysica, still needed years of work. How should this body of writings be edited? Scotus’ students soon began on all those books which were ‘in statu nascendi’, especially the Ordinatio, the texts of the Lectura, the Parisian lecture notes and the piles of notes and excursus. Eventually, in about 1315 in the south of England, it became possible to publish a huge commentary on Lombard’s Sentences, called the Opus Oxoniense. This was the name by which it has become known, but it is not written by Scotus himself, nor was it written in Oxford. The genuine ‘Opus Oxoniense’ is the Lectura.