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Thierry of Chartres
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Thierry of Chartres (Theodoricus Chartrensis) was a twelfth-century philosopher, working at Chartres and Paris. The cathedral school at Chartres promoted scholarship before the first university was founded in France. Thierry is believed to have been the brother of Bernard of Chartres. Herman of Carinthia was one of his students.
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He wrote the Heptateucon (a treaty on liberal arts), some commentaries of Boethius' De Trinitate and a Tractatus de sex dierum operibus or In Hexaemeron (treaty on the six days of creation), in which he interprets the Genesis narration in a scientific way ("secundum physicam") with reference to Plato's Timaeus.
Thierry's explanation of the creation of the world is based on a theological interpretation of Aristotle's four causes, which he identifies with the three persons of the Trinity plus the matter (made by the four elements): the Father is the efficient cause, the Son is the formal cause, the Holy Spirit is the final cause and the four elements are the material cause.
According to Thierry, the very act of divine creation is limited to the creation of the four elements, which then evolve by themselves, mix according to mathematic proportions and make up the physical world.
- Commentaries on Boethius by Thierry of Chartres and His School, ed. N. M. Häring, Toronto 1971.
- The Latin Rethorical Commentaries by Thierry of Chartres, ed. K. M. Fredborg, Toronto 1988.
- Peter Dronke, "Thierry of Chartres", in P. Dronke, A History of Twelfth Century Western Philosophy, Cambridge 1988.